Loving your body and staying active

Loving your body and staying active: now that’s a great combining of two important topics. Taking them one at a time, first of all, I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately, about how important it is – and at the same time how challenging it can be – to love your body, at any stage, let alone as we age. And that’s been prompted by two recent articles that I’ve read, one of which caused a massive stir when it was published, recently, in the Sydney Morning Herald.

That one, titled “Bravo Rachel, for refusing to deny the ageing process”, described how Rachel Ward – 68-year-old former actor and current sustainable beef farmer – was regarded as being “brave”, simply because she presented herself looking her unfiltered age on Instagram, in an ageist society in which women over 50 are expected to look “youthful enough to reassure us that time can be beaten, or at least heavily negotiated”. Men, that article went on to say, “are still allowed to age into gravitas” (though even that is gradually being undermined, I believe). But women are expected to age into invisibility or fight it at great expense”. And that is certainly the rub, as Shakespeare would have put it. Because the incredibly profitable anti-ageing cosmetics industry would collapse in a heap if their pressure to look younger – at any age – was disallowed.

And if – instead – we were encouraged to appreciate the remarkable bodies that we have, at every age, with more and more of us doing so well in our superb time machines, as they keep up their amazing work in taking us through our longer and healthier lives, while – for  some –  variously showing signs of the children born, the scars from accidents going all the way back to childhood, and the successful operations performed on it. As I dive into my 84^th year, I marvel at all of that, and wonder how many mechanical machines can just keep on going for so long, and through so many challenges?

And, back to that encouragement, it should start as early as possible, which is where the second article that I read kicks in. This is one about comedian Celia Pacquola, who has surprised herself by scoring a romantic lead in a TV series, at the age of 42. But, as that article then points out, “not that Pacquola is fixated on her age. She’s trying to model positive messages about self-image for Eleanor”, her toddler daughter. And good on her! As she said, “in a dream world everyone loves their own body,…[but] in reality, it’s hard…we all have things that we don’t like about ourselves. But it’s about trying to be grateful”.

And it’s never too soon – or too late – to start on that. When I look back now, on truly attractive photos of myself in my 20s, and remember one or other feature that I was then agonising about, well, I can now see that that was just nuts. And I have genuinely reformed, and am fully into gratitude for how my body is right now. And when I read, for example, that old women (which I now unabashedly am) should always wear sleeves long enough to cover their ageing arms, I’m truly annoyed. It’s hot in the summer, and bare arms make sense, and my excellent arms are continuing to do all the useful things that they ever did. And are certainly not going to be covered up to spare others from seeing what an old woman’s arms look like.

And then, there’s Part 2: staying active. Because it’s not enough to be grateful for our bodies, and appreciating them. There is also looking after them, to continue keeping them in good shape, to keep on working well. And that requires a comprehensive range of exercises, and good nutrition too. And it’s never too early – or too late – to start on that. I, for example, have always done some form of exercise, but now I, and many of my peers, are taking note of the fact that we need to know about the range of exercises that combine to benefit various aspects of our body in order to keep it functioning well as a whole that is even greater than the sum of its parts. According to the Victorian Better Health Channel, for example, people over 65 should work on “a range of activities that incorporate different ways to build your fitness, strength, balance and flexibility”. And I can testify to the benefits of doing all of that, regularly, as a way of showing my love for my body, by continuing to maintain it to the best of my ability.

Anne Ring ©2026