From the Editor

What’s your relationship with your body?

Do you treat it like a lover, with fondness and appreciation and respect, in both good and effed-up times?

Or is it like a toxic marriage, with complaints and anger, where you wish you could change everything, but just feel so ‘stuck’?

What Cosmo found in our first, annual Body Survey is that most of you (a whopping 61 percent, to be exact), aren’t exactly in a fairy tale relationship with your body. You wish you could be fitter, thinner, curvier, taller, smaller, flatter, bustier...and I’m here to intervene and tell you that you must stop right now! Spending your time being unhappy with your body is a bit like dating a wonderful, kind, reliable guy...and focusing solely on how you wish he were funnier, smarter, and better looking. Which isn’t to say that you should just live with your problems (heaven forbid, a Cosmo girl would never say that!). But it is to say that you really need to give your body a break, and realise the difference between things you can—and shouldn’t bother to—change. A little under-arm jingle-jangle or a bunch of unhealthy kilos can be exercised away. And those hips you got from your mama? Instead of worrying about them, or trying to whittle proportions, you should accept, embrace and celebrate those luscious curves! As we’ve tried to say throughout this Body Special issue of Cosmo, your shape is truly wonderful... and truly you! And unless it’s unhealthy and requires a serious makeover, you need to love, cherish, and have regard for how it’s always there for you. Because ultimately, that’s the stuff good relationships are made of.

Have a body-confident month,