It’s July and, if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to get to a beach, a lake, or at least a pool as the weather heats up. Of course, this means you may also find yourself needing to wear swimwear – basically your underwear – in public.

It’s always amused me that most of us go through life covering up most of our bodies in some sort of clothing only to then bare nearly everything in settings that involve the potential for swimming. We don’t have to even be sure that we’re going swimming and we can find ourselves nearly naked in front of hundreds of strangers.

In my body image research, which often involves interviewing people about their personal experiences of body image and factors that influence their body image, concerns about people’s “beach bodies” often come up.

One 16-year-old boy told me, “I don’t remember in much detail how I used to feel at the pool, but I remember that I would try to get in as soon as possible to avoid my stomach being in sight of others.”1

Another young woman shared, “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to accept my body a bit more, but as the summer approaches here in the UK, I hate to even think about wearing summer clothes.”2

Another 18-year-old boy told me about a humiliated experience at a school swimming event that ended up with everyone........

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