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Should I stop caring about my appearance altogether?

I see and hear this messaging a lot, even if it's rarely phrased so directly. Instead, it shows up in quieter ways, in questions about whether body positivity means letting go of caring about how we look, or whether focusing on appearance is somehow incompatible with self-acceptance. The implication often seems to be that if you're doing this work "properly", you should no longer care about your body in that way at all. I don't think that's realistic. And I'm not convinced it

Jekaterina Schneider

Jan 14 min read

Would you give up a year of your life to achieve the ideal appearance?

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to give a guest lecture at another university on appearance psychology. The audience included staff members across psychology and a range of other disciplines, so I tried to keep the talk engaging for a broad crowd, rather than diving too deeply into specific body image or weight stigma theories. One of the stats I shared during the talk was this: Around half of people surveyed would give up up to five years of their life to achieve the id

Jekaterina Schneider

Dec 1, 20254 min read

The things we don't say

There are so many things we don't say. And so many things you do. You say all bodies are beautiful, but your worst fear is to have a body like mine. You say people can be healthy at any size, but quickly add, "I just feel best when I'm smaller". You say I walk too slow, but have you tried slowing down? You say it's hard for you to slow your pace, but it's harder for me to speed mine up. Shouldn't we always go as slow as the slowest person in the group? but that only works if

Jekaterina Schneider

Nov 1, 20252 min read