My Body. My Story. My Strength.
In this blog, lived experience advocate Mel Jean Rodda discusses her experience navigating body image concerns and the power of self-compassion.
I’ve been many things in this life – confident, curious, heartbroken, and hopeful. But for a long time, the one thing I wasn’t … was kind to my body.
Growing up with a hormone deficiency and growth issues, my body never looked or behaved like the ones in magazines, on television, or even like those of my female friends and family members. I was different. Smaller in size but weighed down by comparison, confusion, and that nagging voice that whispered, “you’re not worthy.” I learned to brace myself every time I looked in the mirror. The reflection wasn’t ‘wrong’, but I thought it was. I would cry, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I such a reject?”
I knew with my hormone deficiency and growth issues that I would need a little help getting pregnant, but nothing prepared me for the nightmare I was about to live every day. In my 30s, I met my first husband, (he really turned out to be a winner…not, but I will save that story for another time). Of course, I walked the long and painful road of IVF. Seven rounds. Seven attempts to convince my body to do what every pamphlet said it ‘should’ be able to do. And every time it didn’t, I felt more broken. Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually too.
I began to see myself as a malfunction, like I was less than, a mutant version of femininity. It was during one of those IVF cycles that my marriage unravelled. My body was failing me, and my partner betrayed me. The message was again loud and cruel: “You are not worthy.”
But here’s where the story flips.
Because, from that devastation, I chose me. Not the “me” society demanded. Not the “me” filtered and edited for approval. The real me.
And what I’ve since learned, and what drives everything I do now, is that this journey doesn’t end at puberty. Body image struggles don’t disappear after adolescence. They can deepen, evolve, and get more complex. They show up during fertility treatment, menopause, chronic illness, divorce, and on days when we can’t zip up our jeans. They creep in when we are rejected, or when we start dating again. They whisper to us in changing rooms and waiting rooms and lonely nights at home.
Despite the fact that many Australians still believe eating disorders are a “teenage issue”, studies prove otherwise. Body image dissatisfaction can persist or re-emerge at any life stage, from puberty to menopause and can have a deep impact on identity and mental health (Stapleton et al., 2017). Australian research from Bond University found that self-compassion plays a vital role in this, offering a buffer against body shame and supporting psychological resilience (Stapleton et al., 2017).
And science continues to back what I’ve seen in my lived experience: self-compassion and body kindness are powerful tools for emotional and even physical healing. Trials conducted by de Wet, Lane & Mulgrew (2020) at Australian universities showed that guided self-compassion meditations significantly improved body appreciation and reduced shame amongst women. Meanwhile, exposure to appearance-focused social media content, even just as little as seven minutes, has been found to increase appearance anxiety, particularly among women (Seekis et al., 2022). That is the cultural soup we are swimming in … and boy is it bitter and toxic!
Through my work as a confidence mentor for women and founder of Courageous, Curvy & Confident, I’ve dedicated myself to changing this conversation. I want to help women, many in their 30s to 50s, reclaim their relationship with their bodies after years of shame, silence, and shrinking. These women aren’t lost causes. They are lost to harmful societal messaging. They have never been told they are allowed to take up space, or that they are allowed to have a voice.
I work with women who feel lost in their skin. Women navigating post-baby bodies, health setbacks, ageing, or the wild ride of online dating. Women who were told they were too much, or not enough. Women who just want to feel okay when they look in the mirror.
And this isn’t just personal, it is practical. A recent meta-analysis from the University of South Australia found that self-guided digital interventions focused on body image can produce long lasting positive outcomes, up to four years of improvement in body satisfaction and reduced disordered eating behaviours (Conboy et al., 2024).
It scares me when I hear of the increase in young girls who are using beauty filter apps like TikTok and Instagram’s face altering tools to ‘perfect’ their looks, because these filters don’t just smooth skin or plump lips, they mess with minds. They are fuelling body dysmorphia, crushing confidence, and pushing unrealistic beauty standards on teens (ABC News, 2023).
So, what should the new narrative be? Well, my message is simple: your body isn’t broken. You are not ‘too late’, or too ‘different’ to be loved, not just by others, but by yourself.
This is the conversation we need. Not a campaign that ends when the hashtags stop trending. But a lifetime of unlearning, rebuilding, and radically reimagining what it means to feel good in your skin.
Because when we stop trying to shrink and start choosing to show up, exactly as we are, we don’t just change how we see ourselves.
We change everything.
Written by Mel Jean Rodda. Founder of Courageous, Curvy & Confident – Mentor for Women
References
ABC News. (2023). AI beauty filters on Instagram and TikTok are reinforcing stereotypes and distorting young minds, experts warn. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-19/ai-beauty-filters-on-instagram-tiktok-reinforcing-stereotypes/102986704
Conboy, L. et al. (2024). Self‑guided digital body image interventions: A meta‑analysis. University of South Australia.
de Wet, A.J., Lane, B.R. & Mulgrew, K.E. (2020). A randomised controlled trial examining the effects of self-compassion meditations on women’s body image. Body Image, 35, 22–29.
Seekis, V. et al. (2022). Seven minutes of beauty content in social media boosts appearance anxiety. ABC Gold Coast.
Stapleton, P.B., Crighton, G.J., Carter, B. & Pidgeon, A.M. (2017). Self-esteem and body image in females: The role of self-compassion and cognitive emotion regulation. The Humanistic Psychologist, 45(3), 238–257.
