The Healthy Mummy, Australia's largest health and wellness site, exclusively for mums rallied up 2,000 members from its community of mums around Australia to hear about how they see themselves and feel about their bodies.
92 per cent of women say they are dissatisfied with their body with the majority stating that they feel the pressure from the media to lose weight quickly after giving birth.
42% of the mums surveyed said their motivation to lose the weight was to find their confidence and be a good example to their kids. But the task is made just that more difficult with a whopping 97% believing the media makes women feel bad about their bodies by limiting the body types they portray as the 'perfect body'.
Half of the mums (51%) surveyed say they put on between 10-20kgs during pregnancy and39% said that finding the mental willpower to lose weight their biggest hurdle to losing weight.
Founder of The Healthy Mummy, Rhian Allen said: "When most people think of body image, they think about aspects of physical appearance, attractiveness, and beauty. But body image is so much more. I am passionate about doing all I can as a business and community to show real images of real mums to normalise the female form. I’m also dedicated in supporting mums in The Healthy Mummy community to feel body confident and be proud of what their body has achieved over their child rearing years."
When looking at the media only 4% of mums felt there was enough diversity in female body shapes showcased with 84% saying they would like to see more size 12-14 models in fashion advertising.
"The pressures from the media impacts a mums mental and physical health when she feels the need to slim down quickly after the baby is born. There really needs to be more diversity in body shapes and sizes as that is reality and this needs to be showcased in the media more." Added Rhian.
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