Because summer is often synonymous with aperitifs in Gogo, ice and barbecues – but also fortuitous meetings – it can be difficult to combine everything. How to assume your body and food choices, in a period conducive to seduction? Amélie Boukhobza, clinical psychologist, drives us.
A season under the sign of pleasure … and guilt
With its long sunny days, summer invites letting go: aperitifs on the terrace, ice cream tasted at any time, generous meal and late … But this lightness, as pleasant as it is, can quickly become the theater of interior tightness for those who want to feel desired.
Indeed, even on vacation, the body is observed. It must correspond to certain aesthetic standards which remain – even in 2025 – very standard. Love yourself, or at least tolerate yourself, can, in fact, become difficult. We want to please, be desired, feel good about yourself … while enjoying more spontaneous meals, less framed.
Result ? This ambivalence can quickly be revealed … or be revealed by others: “Are you going back to a part, right? “,” Are you on the diet? “,” Why are you also paying attention to yourself? “, are all questions frequently asked by his relatives.
Whatever our choices, the way of making will be discussed – while the pleasure of eating and the desire to be desired should not oppose. It is better to assume his appetite, his silhouette, his choices without correcting them to learn (finally) to love each other.
In this context, several questions deserve to be asked (“What makes me feel good? Do I eat (or do I deprive myself) for me or for others? Do I try to seduce or be validated? “) Because they allow you to take stock.
Seduce, “it’s not to bend to a fantasized image”
Faced with this thorny subject, Amélie Boukhobza, clinical psychologist, is direct.
“Certainly, the summer, is the season conducive to meetings. Bodies that are revealed, which are stripped. Reviews that come across. Departments of stories or impulses that are reborn. Wishes … And in front of all this, a certain form of pressure is felt: that of being desirable. To make good impression. To please, of course”, of course “, of course. confirms the expert. So we watch. “We restrict ourselves. A little. We feel guilty after an ice cream, a drink, a dish in sauce. We look at each other in the mirror. We say that it would be better with two kilos less. Or a size less”, continues the practitioner.
But seduce does not mean checking boxes or complying with an image, including a fantasized image.
“It is to inhabit your body. The one we have, as it is today. Even if the thighs rub a little more. Even if the belly is less flat than in May. Even if you prefer to avoid profile. Seduction is not just an image: it is an ease. Freedom. Coherence between what you experience, what you think, what you choose”, recalls the psychologist.
In summary therefore, “We must not spend the summer to count the calories instead of living. It is not a perfect body that makes you want to love, but a inhabited body. A sincere look, a laugh that does not hold back, a real presence”, underlines Amélie Boukhobza.
This does not mean doing anything: letting go of everything or acting without thinking. “But the holidays are also that: a part of carelessness. Stay yourself, here is an element that seduces. Otherwise … too bad!”, concludes the specialist.