If you continuously compete with others, you become bitter. But if you continuously compete with yourself you become better.

For women, being exposed to overly perfected images of women, even briefly, can trigger body shame, body dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, and eating disordered attitudes and behaviors.

Stop comparing yourself to others, it is killing you. Comparison kills joy. Comparison kills gratitude. The only person you must compare yourself with is your past Self.

Women seem to have an innate drive to know where they stand in the beauty race, so they often can not help but compare themselves to all the impossibly beautiful media images they see.

This seems counterintuitive. If women know better, why would they compare themselves to the women in these images. If you start comparing, you forget to be grateful for what you already have.

The majority of women know the beauty standards they are seeing in media images are unrealistic.

They are great at fighting back against these media images, but they are often fighting back after they have already lost the battle.

The comparison process happens so quickly and effortlessly that it is difficult to stop. Instead, the best they can do is try to repair the psychological wounds that the process has already created.

Images of ultra thin women shown at a brief period of time have their effect. The women did not even consciously realize they had seen them; in other words the images were presented subliminally.

Even at this low level, women still felt worse about their bodies after being exposed to these images.