Mum says she showers in front of her teenage daughter to normalise women's bodies

Angela Karanja says she wants to dispel the images teenagers are subjected to on social media by showing her daughter a real body.

Credit: SWNS

Video transcript

ANGELA KARANJA: My name is Angela Karanja, and I am a psychologist at raising remarkable teenagers. And this is so, so important, what we're talking about, about body image, about feeling comfortable in this home, like in this-- I call it the Temple, the home, the body that you have.

- I'm D, and I'm currently in A levels right now. This is, like, the only body you'll get in your life. Yes, in a sense, you can change it, but you-- it's probably better if you, like, are, like, comfortable in the body that you're in, and you feel good.

ANGELA KARANJA: I mean, there's so much body discomfort, so much body discomfort. And obviously, it causes-- you know, it causes mental problems, really. Yeah, but when you actually feel comfortable, you feel confident.

In that way, when you're feeling confident and comfortable in your body, you get to look after it, not because you're feeling ashamed of it but, because you love yourself so much. You actually want to look after yourself.

- At some point in my life, I wasn't very comfortable in my own body. But I, like, slowly just sort of learnt to love myself. And I was just like-- once you do learn to love yourself, it's-- it's also easier to love everything else around you.

So-- and, obviously, like, in, like, my generation and stuff, there's always like these really, like-- there's the social media, like, standards and the society standards and how, in a sense, you should look.

ANGELA KARANJA: So it's OK to maybe have makeup, have whatever, like, change yourself and everything. But it needs to come from a position of I'm already comfortable. I'm already confident. And then I'm doing these things to accentuate my, you know, like my whatever, my chin or my whatever.

It's not because I feel bad about myself. I'm just thinking, I want to be creative. How can I look with my eyelashes looking like this, you know? It's more about creativity instead of lack of confidence. Is that what you're saying?

- Yeah, like, that's, like-- that's actually what I do. Like, I-- honestly, I, like, never wear makeup unless I feel like, today, you know, I actually might because I feel like, yeah, I want my eyes to like pop out a bit more than they usually do.

ANGELA KARANJA: I made a very intense, personal, and conscious decision that-- because I didn't grow up feeling confident about myself. When I reflected and found the standards to which I was looking up to, I made a very conscious decision that I'm going to start loving myself the way I am.

And this feeling of discomfort and body-- almost body dysmorphia, to be honest, has to stop with me. Because if I don't stop, I pass it on to my daughter, right?

And that's why-- you know, when you were asking me about being comfortable, like, I walk with nothing in this house. We have showers together. We have baths together ever since-- even now, she's-- D is 18. We often have baths when you have time, isn't it?

We have baths. We have showers together. There is-- there is nothing about being a real woman that she doesn't know. So when-- when D grew up she knew what was real and what was not.

That's why I believe you can confidently say, that's Photoshopped. That's Photoshopped. That's the thing with fashion and fad. It just keeps changing.

One day, it's the big hips. The next day, it's the slim ones. The next day, it's the big butt. The next day, it's the small one. You know, we are looking up to things that are not real so much, we're almost fantasizing, romanticizing fakeness, yeah.

And again, like I said, I'm not saying you don't wear makeup. I'm not saying that if I'm having some-- if I want some work done, you know, I'm going to have it done. And by the way, I haven't done any work. [LAUGHS] But I think, love, when you love your body, it also loves you back.