Every year, around May, it starts. The ads. The articles. The before-and-after posts. The quiet panic of realizing you own a swimsuit and have a body that is — by any stretch — not the one the algorithm says you should have. If that hits somewhere tender, you are not alone. And this piece is for you.
Let’s be honest about what the phrase “bikini ready” actually means. It doesn’t mean rested, or nourished, or sun-protected. It means smaller. Smoother. Closer to a very narrow, very filtered, very specific idea of what a woman’s body should look like in two pieces of fabric in public. And for many women, especially those navigating perfectionism, food anxiety, or a history with eating disorders, that message doesn’t just roll off. It lands. It sticks. It costs something.
This summer, as a body image therapist in Salt Lake City, I want to offer you something different. Not another plan. Not a “body-positive” workaround that still secretly wants you to change. I want to talk about befriending your body, today. Not when it’s smaller, not when it’s “better,” but right now, as it actually is. At Inside Wellness, we work with women navigating exactly this.
The Real Cost of “Beach Body” Culture
The pressure isn’t imaginary, and it isn’t shallow. Research consistently links exposure to appearance-based messaging to increased body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, and anxiety. If you’ve ever felt your mood shift after scrolling for twenty minutes, that’s not weakness. That’s your nervous system responding to repeated messages that your body is a problem to be solved.
For women with a history of eating disorders or disordered eating patterns, this season can feel like walking through a minefield. Restriction gets rebranded as “clean eating.” Over-exercise gets rebranded as “summer prep.” The language is cheerful. The harm is real.
The “beach body” narrative also carries a particular kind of cruelty for perfectionists. If you’ve built your life around achievement and control, your body becomes another project. The one your inner mean girl thinks you are perpetually failing. There is always another goal, always a way you fell short. That cycle is exhausting. And it keeps you from actually living in your body, which is the only place you have ever actually lived.
What It Means to Befriend Your Body
Befriending your body is not the same as loving every inch of it all the time. Forced positivity can feel just as hollow as the criticism it’s replacing. Befriending means something closer to working with your body rather than against it. Listening to it. Noticing what it needs. Choosing, even in small moments, to treat it with the same basic care you’d extend to someone you genuinely like.
It means letting your body exist in summer. In water, in warmth, in rest. No requirements, no earning, no looking a certain way. Just being, just living, just you.
Five Ways to Start Befriending Your Body This Summer
Notice the noise and name it
When you feel the familiar internal spin out as scrolling past a before-and-after, dreading a pool party, scrutinizing your reflection, try simply naming what’s happening: “This is the ‘not enough’ story.” You don’t have to believe every thought you think. Creating even a small gap between the trigger and your response is the beginning of freedom. Awareness isn’t a cure, but it is always the first step.
Curate what you let in
Your social media feed is not neutral ground. Unfollow, mute, or archive accounts that consistently make you feel worse about your body. Full stop. Replace them with accounts that show a wider range of bodies doing actual things: swimming, laughing, living. What you see repeatedly shapes what feels normal. You are allowed to protect your own environment.
Ask what your body needs from you as if it felt safe & whole
Shift the question. Instead of “Does my body look okay in this?” try “Will I be comfortable? Can I move freely? Will I feel the sun and the water?” Connecting to function over appearance is a quiet but powerful reframe. Bodies are not decorative objects. They carry us through experiences. This summer, try letting experience be the goal. Feel the cold of the water, the warmth on your shoulders, the sound of people you love and when your brain panics & your thoughts wander, gently bring yourself back into the moment and into the conversation.
Practice neutral body statements
You don’t have to love your body to treat it with respect. If “I love my body” feels dishonest, try something true and neutral: “This is my body today.” or “My body got me here.” Neutrality is not defeat. It’s often a more honest and sustainable place than forced enthusiasm. Over time, neutral statements can create the conditions for something warmer to grow, but they’re also genuinely enough on their own.
Let yourself take up space
Go to the beach. Get in the water. Wear the swimsuit. Not because you’ve “earned” it, not because you feel confident every second, but because you are a person who is alive in summer and you are allowed to be there. Every time you choose participation over avoidance, you are practicing the belief that your body, right now, is enough to show up. That belief grows with evidence. Give yourself some evidence.
A Note on Recovery, Hard Days, and Body Image Counseling in Utah
Some seasons are harder than others — and summer, with all its noise about bodies and beaches, can be one of the hardest. If you're in recovery from an eating disorder, or if the messages of this season are genuinely destabilizing, that's not weakness. It's a very human response to a very relentless culture.
Befriending your body is a practice, not a destination. Some days the friendship holds. Some days it takes everything you have just to be neutral. Both are valid. Both count.
If you're struggling to show up in your body this summer, you deserve more than just getting through it. Body image counseling in Utah can offer real support from people who understand what this actually feels like.
At Inside Wellness, we're here to help you get there.
We are here to help — give us a call 801-699-6161 or visit us at insidewellness.com
Learn more about working with a Body Image Therapist in Salt Lake City, UT
You don't have to navigate this season alone — support is closer than you think.
Other Services Inside Wellness Offers in Provo and Salt Lake City, UT
Struggles with body image rarely exist in isolation — they're often tangled up with anxiety, perfectionism, and the pressure to feel "good enough" in a season that seems designed to make that harder. At Inside Wellness, we offer more than body image counseling in Utah. Alongside working with a body image therapist in Salt Lake City, UT, we provide eating disorder treatment, anxiety therapy, support for perfectionism, online therapy, and therapy for burnout — all designed to address the deeper patterns beneath the noise of beach body culture.
Whether you're navigating disordered eating, working through perfectionism, or simply trying to find a more peaceful relationship with your body this summer, our team is here to help. You don't have to keep pushing through alone. With the right support, something softer is possible — a way of living in your body that doesn't cost you the whole season.
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