Identity: Body Image

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I. Introduction

Do you know that the average U.S. woman is 5’4” tall and weighs 140 pounds.  And the average U.S. model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds.  The average model is then 7” taller, but 23 pounds lighter than the average woman.  That’s quite a discrepancy.  And to make matters more stark, only 2% of U.S. women are models, but it’s their faces and their bodies that we see all over the place.  It’s their bodies that are lifted up on billboards as the ideal, as what true beauty is.  It’s no wonder that 80% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance.  No one can measure up.

As Christians, we need to know what the Bible says about body image.  We need to look at God’s words in Scripture and figure out what it is that God has to say about our bodies and what we should look like.

In this body image Bible study, we’re going to look at the false standard for what our bodies should look like, the true standard, and what a healthy body image is. We’re going to learn what does the Bible say about body image.

1. The false standard
2. The true standard
3. A healthy view of body image.

II. The False Standard- Fashion and Beauty Industries

A. The Mirror

We’ll start with the false standard or a distorted body image.  Imagine a mirror.  Think about what a mirror’s purpose is…  It reflects.  It reflects back the image of whatever is in front of it.  That’s all it does.  And yet many of us have love/hate relationships with our mirrors. 

Why is this so?  It’s because we use the mirror to evaluate ourselves.  We use it to make value judgments about how well (or not) we measure up to a certain standard, based on an image we have in our minds of what we should look like.  The mirror itself doesn’t make value judgments about the person standing in front of it.  No, the mirror doesn’t say, “Eww, you’re ugly,” or “Look at that body fat.”  No, we do this.  We judge our bodies as we look at them in the mirror by a standard.

B.  The False Standard

QUESTION: What standard does our culture tell us we should look like?  What does it say our body image should be?

• like Runway models, like actresses, like magazine ads, young, thin, tan, fleshy, glossy, smooth-skinned, without any imperfections, wrinkle-free, even enhanced, or needing surgery

Yes, and we see images of people who look like this everywhere.  The standard we’re supposed to measure up to is everywhere.  You see women like these on TV, in movies, on billboards as you drive to work, in magazines, even in the newspaper.  Just yesterday, the Metro section had a weightloss challenge and a healthy diet you could try, so that you can reach that standard.  The reality is that we’re bombarded with these images day in and day out.  They are visual, they are graphic, and they burn an image into our mind of what we should look like.  They tell us that this is the standard we should measure ourselves by. 

C.  Its Distortion

And yet, these images we see, this standard is a distortion.  It’s false.  It’s a distorted body image. Most of the time the pictures we see have been doctored.  Watch this video link by the Dove Evolution project to see a model’s transformation from walking in the studio to her photoshopped and distorted face on a billboard.

(Watch the video by clicking on this link.)

QUESTION: What did you see? What did you think of it?

[Dove launched an ad campaign several years ago to celebrate the natural physical variations among women and to show that beauty is more than just held among 2% of the population, the models.  This Dove body positivity video ad was part of their campaign.  Besides the change that occurs to the woman after hair and makeup, what’s most frightening is the editing that takes place to the woman’s image on the computer.  Her neck is elongated and thinned, her eyes are lifted, her cheekbones are thinned and pronounced, all before the ad is put up on a billboard.  ]

In short, this is what is put before us as the standard for what we should look like.

These Media Images Lie

An editor of GQ magazine said “These days you only get two kinds of pictures of celebrities – paparazzi pictures or pictures like these [referring to print photos] which have been highly styled, buffed, trimmed and altered to make the subject look as good as is humanly possible.”  That’s just it, though, they’re not as good as is humanly possible.  There as good as are digitally possible.  There’s not even real.  Even the model, who only represents 2% of the U.S women, doesn’t look that good.  It’s an unrealistic body image we’re measuring ourselves against. And these are the photos we see day in and day out.

These images are a distortion of what is real.  They don’t even accurately represent the woman who was photographed.  She’s been highly styled, buffed, trimmed, and altered. 

When we see images like these, we think that these are real women, we think they are beautiful and we want to look like them.

But these images tell us to be someone we can’t ever be. 

Most importantly, they tell us to be someone God never intended for us to be.

D. Looking in the Mirror

So when we look in the mirror, who do we see?  I mean, we each see our own reflection, but what judgments do we then make about what we look like?  Do we measure up?  Of course not.  We never can.

So who do you see, when you look in the mirror?  Do you see your struggles?  Do you think you need to start that diet? Or beat yourself up for overeating again?  Do you exercise too much or think what’s the use?  Do you see the cellulite that we all have?  Or do you see your scars or cut marks?  Do you think “if only my nose were a little bit straighter or didn’t have this hump.”  Or “if only my chest were a little bit bigger? or my stomach a little flatter?”

The image you see in the mirror is you, but what we really see is who we want to be.  Someone who we aren’t and we shouldn’t try to be.

Looking in the mirror and judging ourselves by this false standard can lead to two problems.

1. Pride. 

First, we can actually start to think we measure up, that’s we’re really beautiful, and really thin, and then become proud. 

Last summer, my husband David and I started a pretty intense workout regimen. We enlisted Jillian Michaels as our trainer.  If you don’t know who she is, she’s one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser.  Well, last summer she was our trainer.  Man is she tough.  Thankfully, all her workouts are online (for a small fee), so we didn’t have to listen to her yelling at us, but still, the work was tough and hard.  I spent about an hour and a half in the gym four times a week, then did other cardio on the fifth day.  This was a really serious program.

Well, as the weeks went by, my body really started to change.  My sides started to get solid, instead of soft.  I had biceps that you could see, for the first time in my life.  My body looked good and I liked it.  I would constantly go by the mirror, check out my new body, pound on my sides or abs just to see how rock-solid they were.  Friends would even want to feel how solid they were!  Man, was I satisfied.  I really had the body I always wanted.  And boy was I proud of it.

Thankfully and mercifully, God gently let me know through an injury, that the way I was living my life was not pleasing to him.  I had been proud of meeting the world’s standards.  I had been proud of looking so good.  But this wasn’t what God wanted from me.

2.  Defeat

The second problem of looking in the mirror and judging ourselves by this false standard is that we can become defeated. 

We feel guilty or ashamed.  We feel inadequate and like we’ll never measure up.

The flip side for me is that there are now times when I look in the mirror and I see the ever deepening wrinkle between my eyes.  I see the gray hairs that are growing in.  I see the acne scars, the veins on my legs, the cellulite, the now soft sides and abs, my freckles, my pale skin, blond eyelashes, the list can go on and on.  Again though, I’m measuring myself by this false standard.  But this time, instead of thinking I look really good, I’m looking at myself and saying, “No, Keeley, you don’t measure up.”

III. The True Standard of Ideal Body Image

How then are we to really know what standard we should be following?  On the surface, we know it must be God’s standard.  But just what exactly is God’s standard?  What is ideal body image? What does the Bible tell us?

A. Scripture as God’s Standard of Ideal Body Image

What does the Bible say about body image? Let’s start with looking at James 1:22-25.

“ ²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.[We can’t just come to Bible Study, listen, then go home and forget it.  God wants us to intentionally put into practice what we learn.] ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man [or woman] who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But the man who looks intently into the perfect law [by law, he means word, God’s Word, or Scripture.  By looking intently into the mirror and measuring ourselves by God’s Word…] that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”

James tells us that we must gaze into Scripture, as if it’s our mirror.  We are to use the words and spirit of the words of scripture to guide how we live and how we view ourselves.  The true standard is God’s word.  It’s God’s idea of who we are and what we should look like.  God’s true standard shatters the false standard, giving us a right perception of ourselves.  But we must be looking into God’s Word to get this right view of ourselves.

B. God Looks at the Heart

If you were here in the fall, we studied the anointing of King David.  Look at 1 Samuel 16:7.  When the David’s oldest brother was shown to Samuel, Samuel was immediately impressed with his height and looks, but God said to Samuel,

“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

The Lord looks at our hearts, first and foremost.  The text goes on to say that David was a handsome man, so we can’t assume that he was ugly, or that being beautiful is bad, only that God looks at our hearts, before anything else.  It’s by our hearts that God knows who we really are.  We may fool others with our good looks, but we can’t fool God, who knows our hearts.

C. The Transformation of Our Minds

If we look also at Romans 12:2, God wants us to transform our minds, not our bodies into this false standard. Verse 2 says,

“² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

God wants us to transform the way we view other people and ourselves.  Our minds, as they grow in knowing God’s true standard better, will be transformed, and will be better able to rightly test and judge the thoughts and words we hear from others about what beauty is.  We will begin to better know and understand God’s will for our lives, including our bodies.

But it will take time, as all lasting transformations do.  I still struggle with this.  Even as I was preparing this talk, I caught myself walking past the mirror and lifting up my shirt to check out my stomach and whether it looked flat or flabby.  It’s a lifelong process, but beginning to catch ourselves measuring ourselves by the false standard is the first step, then we must reorient ourselves to God and to his word, and to his true standard.

D. We Reflect God’s Image

We started the series with our identity as the Image of God, because that is our primary identity.  It lays the foundation for all the other talks.  Kari spoke about how the more we press into, or learn from and follow, Christ, the more we will begin to look like him in our life and actions.  Each one of you is created in God’s image.  So when you look in the mirror, remember that you are seeing a reflection of God’s image.  God gave you the body and the face and the looks that you have, and they reflect God’s image.

E. Christ Shows Us True Beauty

In the OT, when Isaiah predicted what the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, would look like in Isa 53:2-3, he said,

 “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

Christ did not have any beauty to attract us to him.  And yet each of us who follow Christ, have been drawn to him.  His followers were attracted to him because of who he was, not because of what he looked like.  They saw the beauty of God within him.  As Christians, we now have this same beauty within us…

F. Christ’s Wounds Heal and Bring Wholeness to Us, Not Perfection

A few verses later, Isaiah goes on to say,

“But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa 53:5).

Christ’s death, his taking on our sins, was the punishment meant for us, but instead we got peace.  Peace with God.  Christ was scarred.  He was punctured in the side and had nails driven into his hands and feet.  His wounds are what bring us healing.  Christ’s death and resurrection offers us wholeness and healing.  He doesn’t offer us physical perfection, but wholeness.  We are new creations when we believe in him. We are whole.  And this journey towards final wholeness continues throughout our lifetimes. Our minds are transformed and as we realize that he heals us, even from going astray and measuring our bodies by a false standard.  He came and died to show us the true standard, which is his life, his wounds for our healing.

IV. Application- What is a Healthy and Biblical View of Ideal Body Image?

So the last thing I want us to think about is: what is a healthy view of body image?  What is ideal body image? What is a healthy and biblical view of our bodies?  How do we get a healthy body image? What does the Bible say about body image?

In this body image Bible study, we’ve learned: 

1. Filter Your Image Through Scripture

You need to filter through Scripture the words you hear from others—whether it’s the media, the fashion or beauty industry, or just one of your friends, you need to be aware of the false standard, and filter it through Scripture.

Are your friends or the magazines you read really helping you grow in love your body?

2. Listen to What God Says

You need to Hear What God Has to Say.  Read his word, study it, go to Bible Study, but don’t just hear and leave like the man in the mirror in James’ passage, but think about it as you go home and then begin to practice it, begin the process of change and transformation.

Know that ideas and themes of who we are in Christ and how we should view ourselves are all over scripture.  In the last year, we’ve had 3 different lessons that have included verses on body image. This is why it’s important to reread the passage we’ve studied when you get home.  Make sure you stop and read it for yourself, it will help you learn.

3. Put Biblical Body Image into Practice

Then Put it into practice.  Catch yourself in the mirror critiquing yourself or noticing how good you look.  Stop, repent, and receive God’s forgiveness (he gives it freely).  But then ask God to help you have a right view of yourself.  Ask God to show you what is true.  Ask him to help you believe it about yourself.  Most importantly, ask him to help you change and to see yourself by his true standard.  This will begin the process of transformation of your mind with respect to body image.

So what is a healthy view of body image?

What does the Bible say about body image? To have a healthy view, to be living by God’s true standard of beauty means that you can look in the mirror without negative thoughts or without pride and you can see the beautiful woman who God created.  You can look and know that God loves you, uniquely designed you, and wants your heart to grow to love the things he loves.  Know that it is freeing to live this way, just like the James’ passage said.

A final thought: remember that this is a lifelong process and journey.  Christ has already bought you and made you a beautiful creature.  He changed your heart the day you believed, so that you can grow and be transformed.  We already see the healing and wholeness in our lives, but it isn’t yet complete.  Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not there, just continue praying for God to show you his love and his forgiveness and how to see yourself as beautiful because you reflect his image.

V. Conclusion

In conclusion, as Christians, we need to learn a proper perspective on true beauty.  We are bombarded each day with images from the world telling us what we should look like.  We need to be in God’s word daily so that we have true images of beauty put in our minds.

Questions for Discussion and Application

1. What do you see when you look in the mirror?  Discuss how you struggle to have a healthy body image.
2. How should the knowledge that your identity comes from Christ impact your perspective of your own beauty?  Give examples.