Those of us that have the pleasure of a best friend know that a few encouraging words from someone you trust can make some of life’s worst moments palatable. Good friends can be medicinal. They can be encouraging and sagacious. They can round out our lives and make us feel someone has got our backs.

But not all friendships are healthy. In fact, some relationships, either with your significant other or a close friend, can be truly toxic. This is a problem that seems to, again, affect women more than men. It has been my experience that women take things more to heart than men. Women tend to be more trusting and believing than their male counterparts. Ronald Reagan once said, “Trust but verify.” And, when it comes to taking advice from others – that may well be a solid policy. At times, it is hard to believe that even people we care about don’t always have our best interests at heart. I have witnessed firsthand from the other side of the gender fence the ways in which women can be too duplicitous in their advice. Admittedly, this sometimes happens without intended malice and instead emanates from the advisor’s own lack of self-awareness. I have seen women tell their “friend,” “That guy is no good for you, he’s a jerk,” only to be dating the “jerk” themselves weeks later after the relationship breaks up. Even if women think the advice from their pernicious pal is suspicious, they still seem to dutifully accept it as true. In the arena of fat, this psychodynamic often plays out with adverse effects. One fat girl tells the other fat girl, “You look great.” After all, if her friend doesn’t look “great,” then what must she look like?

These bad-advice Möbius strips, which are often called feedback-loops, simply render two individuals less in total merely by virtue of their friendship.

We were taught how to avoid being lunged at during a rescue as well as defense tactics to escape a death grip when latched onto by a panicked swimmer. The lesson behind these exercises holds meaning well outside the lifesaving vignette. We simply cannot save others if we are drowning too. The best way for us to help our spouses, our children, our employers, or anyone else, is to be strong and take care of ourselves as well-prepared and well-rested warriors and formidable soldiers. We all need to chant the mantra of “when worst comes to worst, the savior comes first.” I know, however, that this is can be a very difficult concept for many women to get their heads around. Again, going back to very early societal modeling, women are taught to be caregivers, to put themselves last. I certainly would not want to scratch that beautiful female attribute. I only wish to suggest you must also be a savior to yourself. Care for yourself so you can better care for others, if caring for others is your goal. Moreover, care for yourself just because you deserve good care.

A study done in part by New York University sociologist, Dalton Conley, found an increase in a woman’s body mass directly correlated to a decrease in her family income and job prestige. Men, however, experienced no similar negative effect. The study, sponsored by the National Bureau on Economic Research, found a one percent increase in body mass as measured by using BMI results in a 0.6 percent decrease in family income. This isn’t right, but it’s reality, and is something that should be taken into consideration for yourself and your children.

I’ve known many mothers who are persistent, committed, self-sacrificing, attentive, driven, methodical, motivated, creative, competent, bright, self-critical and perfectionistic. These adjectives make them wonderful mothers, wives, employees, and so on, but also tend to make them very poor in the self-care department. Too much stress, including the stress of being a day-to-day caretaker, jeopardizes health, happiness, productivity, goals, and relationships. Working with little variation or a high demand for productivity and recurring pressured deadlines over an extended period of time will create a lot of stress. It’s time to start taking care of you regardless of deadlines, soccer games, and everything else you have going on at any given moment. This may sound like blasphemy to the typical mom, but attempting to perform all these daily tasks while feeling overburdened and unwell simply makes you ineffectual. It’s time to start living and enjoying life, cultivating a fulfilling life that involves what you want and caring for your own needs, as well as those of your family. Self-care is a well-understood and universally-affirmed concept, with a history of poor implementation. Like most everything else, life is a game of balance. Finding that balance is key to taking care of yourself while, at the same time, taking care of those who depend on you.

Remember, when you look good, you feel good. I know that sounds incredibly simplistic, but it is so important for you to understand that how you look strongly drives your own self-image and the way that others perceive you.  This fact impacts you, not only as an individual, but also as a parent. I taught my children that life has challenges that must be met and conquered. When I was fat, my children began to gain weight, and I knew it was my responsibility to not only show them new ways to eat and stay active, but also to show them that, despite my weight problem, I would be able to conquer and solve it. I know to this day, my son’s daily runs and his incredible endurance, were borne from my decision to start running. The small changes I made in my own life have endowed him with a life of prudent exercising.

It sounds cliché, but your body really is your temple. You’ve only got one body in this life; you have to live in it, and others will judge you based on how you care for it.

The world is much like a job interview. At the office, your child’s school, even the grocery store, the people you interact with see your outside, not your inside. Job interviews give the employer a chance to see firsthand what you are all about and much on this first encounter. So what does your physical resume say about you? In this competitive world, does your physical resume say you lack motivation, you are trapped in the past, suffer from a host of medical conditions and that you don’t care about yourself? Not selflessness — that is something different. A slovenly appearance says you don’t care. To an employer, someone who can’t even take the time to show up clean and well groomed represents someone unorganized, irresponsible and lacking confidence. This scenario also applies to the world at large.  You need to stop thinking, “Well if people love me they will simply love the inside me.” Good luck with that. Your “inside” you is only part of you, but it is the less obvious part. Make the whole package great. Don’t drive around life in a crappy-looking car just because it runs well, have it all.

In the book, The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting by Laurence Steinberg, the author devotes a chapter to how children learn by watching Mom and Dad. Steinberg begins by pointing out how often we look in the mirror and recognize that we frequently have the same facial expressions as our parents. We often mimic attitudes, values, opinions, and habits that our own parents had as we grew up — despite that fact that we swore we’d be different. Then, you grow up and the tables are turned. Your own child acquires your expressions, opinions, and habits. Steinberg says there is nothing we can do to prevent our children from mirroring our own actions, so it becomes a parent’s job to make sure that they model good choices. The tendency for children to imitate parents is so strong that scientists now believe that it is part of our evolution as humans.

Children do more than “monkey see, monkey do.” While watching what goes on around them, they learn about the world and how to interpret it. They look to parents to know what is safe and what is dangerous. They look to you to know how to feel as well as for what to do. So modeling a self-confident, successful, healthy lifestyle for your child can only have a positive influence on your child’s own self-image.

But even forgetting for a moment the value of modeling for your children, let’s get a little egocentric here. You have a right to care for and consider yourself, period. It is not child abuse or neglect for you to take time out of your day for exercise, as well as other self-enriching activities. These pursuits benefit both you and your children.

The Super Moms show up in the morning with their hair and makeup in place. They send their children off with care as they head out for their morning jog, a stint at the gym, or the office. The Mega Moms, however, are so intensively involved in their children’s lives that they often follow them to the their classrooms, getting involved dutifully with all aspects of their child’s education, and when not volunteering in the classroom, they’re back at home on standby, waiting for the next moment to serve like a dutiful, biological robot for their master child.

It’s always easy to spot the Mega Moms in their cluster; they wear the requisite uniform of sweatpants and their husband’s stained t-shirt, hair askew, with no signs of makeup. After all, for a Mega Mom to focus on herself is akin to low-grade child abuse. They peer across the parking lot to the Super Moms muttering in low tones and pointing in their direction. To the Mega Moms, the Super-Moms are nothing more than superficial bitches that care only about themselves.

As an amateur sociologist, I could never resist the opportunity to learn more about these competing cultures. So, I’d make it a point to sneak over and chat up both camps. I found that the super-moms were not bitches at all, but were, in fact, some of the most caring, loving, well-put-together parents I have ever met. At one point, I remember listening to one of the Mega Moms as she went on a long diatribe about how one of the Super Moms wouldn’t allow her child to come to school unless the child’s clothes were perfectly pressed. I found their criticism confusing as people and their children should always try to put their best foot forward. That hardworking mindset hardly made the accused Super Mom a bitch. But the Mega Moms, for a host of reasons, had chosen to focus their energy away from themselves and firmly in the vicarious living of their children.

It’s obvious that strong self-esteem is vital for any individual, but I would argue that it is much more vital for a parent. As a parent, you don’t have the right to let yourself go. Remember, you are more than a teacher — you are a model. If you’re modeling a message that appearance and self care are valueless, then this is what your child will believe. In doing this, you are simply creating a culture where a child will emerge with a distinct disadvantage in a largely competitive world. You can talk all day long with friends about how looks, body shapes, and dress are not important, but they are.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, parents or caregivers make the greatest contribution to an individual’s self-image. But, experiences with others such as teachers, friends, and other family members also add to the image we see in the mirror. These relationships reinforce how we think and feel about ourselves. We are continually taking in information and evaluating ourselves. We have a mental image of our physical appearances, a performance image of our successes and failures, and an inner sense of our adequacy and value. Why would any parent model a less-than-ideal self-image to her child if this very thing can be influenced by so many outside forces? If self-image affects how we respond to life’s challenges, it stands to reason that parents should do everything possible to foster a positive self-image, including teaching their children to care for themselves, both inside and outside. Many parents wish outside appearances didn’t matter, but they do. Now, that’s not to say that all of the other personal attributes are not equally as important, but don’t discount your appearance or the appearance of your child. Just because you may not be a supermodel doesn’t mean you cannot have a balanced form or dress nicely. Just because you can’t be perfect, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be the best you can be. And if you think these issues don’t matter in our culture, consider this, a host of studies show that our appearances have a great deal to do with how often we succeed in life.

As we taxied down the tarmac, I sat in Row 12, Seat B and listened to the flight attendant explain the various safety rules. After many years of business travel, I knew the spiel well.  Inside my head, I quoted it verbatim along with the flight attendant. I don’t know why but I’ve always found one part of this safety dialog particularly interesting. Attendants always warn passengers, “In the event of loss of cabin pressure, as well as oxygen, you should place the mask over your face and pull on the strings tightly.” The attendant then goes on to say, “If you are traveling with a small child, be certain to first secure your air mask before attending to your child.”

As a parent, it is perfectly clear why they have to include that bit of dialogue within the safety speech.  It is, many times, completely foreign for a parent — particularly a mother — to tend to herself before her child. But, obviously, if a caregiver becomes unconscious, he or she would be unable to help any young child, or children, he or she was traveling with. I believe this caregiver mentality is one of the most difficult challenges facing women. Not just in dieting, but in their relationships — personal and professional — and in every other micro corner of their lives. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a woman take the last piece of pizza, the last cookie on the plate, or the last bowl’s worth of cereal in the box. Women seem biologically programmed to sacrifice for others, putting their own happiness, and even, occasionally, their health, at dire risk.

But even forgetting for a moment the value of modeling for your children, let’s get a little egocentric here. You have a right to care for and consider yourself, period. It is not child abuse or neglect for you to take time out of your day for exercise, as well as other self-enriching activities. These pursuits benefit both you and your children.

Author Desmond Morris is best known for his book, The Naked Ape. It focuses on humanity’s animal-like qualities, most especially apes, and explains how much of human behavior can be explained by historic challenges to prehistoric life as a hunter-gatherer.

“We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.”
“This is not a concrete jungle. It is a human zoo.”
“We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species.” ~ -Desmond Morris

Our outside appearance, our gestures, expression, virtually every movement communicates what we believe, feel, and want. In Morris’, Manwatching Field Guide to Human Behavior, the author talks about how people signal wants, attitudes and feelings through unconscious bodily movements — much more so than by word of mouth. Using a collection of drawings, photographs, and historical prints, Morris guides the reader through a series of hunting, mating, territorial, leadership, ritual and taboo gestures and postures that we, as humans, utilize.

In The Naked Ape, Morris postulates that if man would acknowledge his evolutionary inheritance, he would be happier and more confident. Behavioral patterns, such as environmental exploration, fighting, and grooming are studied for their evolutionary ramifications — proving these practices aren’t outgrowths of a decadent civilization, but essential evolutionary human practices.

According to Morris, the human female is the most remarkable organism on the planet. In The Naked Woman he doesn’t stereotype women’s ideology, but instead gives a natural and animalistic approach to describing the female body, its biological processes, and influence on both other females and her male counterpart. A common point in all of Morris’ books is that many of the practices and characteristics we employ daily, without even thinking about them, including attraction and sex, are driven by animalistic evolution. These tendencies aren’t inherently evil, nor are they going to change anytime soon. People that clearly care for themselves and their offspring have an advantage over their careless counterparts and society will take notice. Morris’ work highlights the fact that, like it or not, we’re all driven by biology.  Embracing this fact, rather than denying it, can make or break not only our dieting goals, but many of the other goals we strive for as well.

In the book, The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting by Laurence Steinberg, the author devotes a chapter to how children learn by watching Mom and Dad. Steinberg begins by pointing out how often we look in the mirror and recognize that we frequently have the same facial expressions as our parents. We often mimic attitudes, values, opinions, and habits that our own parents had as we grew up — despite that fact that we swore we’d be different. Then, you grow up and the tables are turned. Your own child acquires your expressions, opinions, and habits. Steinberg says there is nothing we can do to prevent our children from mirroring our own actions, so it becomes a parent’s job to make sure that they model good choices. The tendency for children to imitate parents is so strong that scientists now believe that it is part of our evolution as humans.

If self-image affects how we respond to life’s challenges, it stands to reason that parents should do everything possible to foster a positive self-image, including teaching their children to care for themselves, both inside and outside. Many parents wish outside appearances didn’t matter, but they do. Now, that’s not to say that all of the other personal attributes are not equally as important, but don’t discount your appearance or the appearance of your child. Just because you may not be a supermodel doesn’t mean you cannot have a balanced form or dress nicely. Just because you can’t be perfect, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be the best you can be. And if you think these issues don’t matter in our culture, consider this, a host of studies show that our appearances have a great deal to do with how often we succeed in life.