My Body Gallery is a new forum for women to upload photos of themselves in order to get a feeling for what they really look like. The feedback from "pro-body" communities has been positive.
"A recent study found that 95% of non-eating disordered women overestimate the size of their hips by 16% and their waists by 25%, yet the same women were able to correctly estimate the width of a box," the site states. "In a world full of images of how we 'should' look it can get difficult to tell how we DO look."
The site allows you - after classifying your body as banana, apple, pear, or hourglass - to put a black bar across your face and cut out any other part of the image that might give away your identity, but many of the women who have started uploading images don't want to stay anonymous and show their faces.
According to My Body Gallery, the purpose of the site is "to build a site where women can see what real women look like" and to "build a collection of photos that will help more women see themselves more clearly."
My Body Gallery says the eating disorder community has responded positively, calling the said the forum "a powerful healing tool," a notion echoed by its users. One writes: "I feel far more comfortable about myself now that I have taken a look at some women that are near my size on your website. 'Hey, that's not so bad!'. Now I can stop bothering my husband and just learn to appreciate what I have."
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