BeachLife Festival! What's Your Favorite Thing About Your Body?
BeachLife Festival, Redondo Beach, CA | 2:00-5:00pm | Saturday, May 2nd, 2026
This past Saturday, May 2nd, 2026, I took my sign to BeachLife Festival. I knew it would be busy, I knew people would be out and in good spirits!
I live about a mile away from where BeachLife Festival is hosted, so I grabbed my sign, a canvas bag with my stuff, and I walked down towards the water. When I got down there, I wasn’t sure exactly where I wanted to stand, so I took a stroll and scoped the area out. I decided to stand at the cross streets of Beryl and Harbor to get the people walking towards the entry line.
When I arrived, I held my sign up and patiently waited for my first answer. I was excited to be there. I had fewer nerves than I typically do, which is also interesting.
The first answer I got was from a woman who said, “My freckles!” Shortly after, in passing, a woman said her strong arms, and the man she was with said his hair.
A woman came to stand near me, waiting for friends. She said her favorite thing about her body is her hair, and we spoke for a bit about the project and things we appreciated about ourselves. She mentioned she’s a retired teacher, and there’s a book coupled with an exercise she used to do with her students, where they’d have to answer what their favorite thing about their body is.
This was a day of passerbys, as most people who walked near me were on their way to the festival. It was interesting to experience because most answers were given in passing. There was a group of people walking by, and there had to have been five people who shared answers with me pretty simultaneously. It was overwhelmingly beautiful, and I started tearing up. The day, in whole, was quite powerful.
I took some time after my time on the street to reflect after the experience and wrote down those that I remembered most:
“What’s Your Favorite Thing About Your Body?”
LOCATION: BeachLife Festival, Redondo Beach, CA
DATE: Saturday, May 2nd, 2026
TIME: 2:00-5:00pm
Answers I heard:
That it’s healthy
That I have one
“My big ole booty”
Everything!
My eyes seeing you with that sign
“Guns or buns?”
Toes - they help me stay grounded
“That it still functions”
“My legs because I can walk” - teenager
My personality
That it made all four of my babies
My strong arms
My shoulders
My chest
My tits
My feet
My hair
My boobs - they fed my baby
My eyes
My scars
My smile
My *insert male reproductive body part here*
My lips
My ass
My jawline
That it functions
My hips
My nose
My bellybutton
My fupa
My skin
My eyeballs
My heart
My brain
The theme that stuck out to me the most:
The number of men who said their reproductive organ (to keep it PG-13) - this was the first day a man explicitly said it, and not only one man, but about eight men using different terms.
The number of men who said their chest or their boobies or their nipples was higher than usual.
First-Time Responses:
A man said his glow-in-the-dark nail polish
One woman said her jawline, and a teenage guy said his projected maxilla (and yes, he used that scientific term)
“Dat ass”
“I don’t want to tell you - it’s classified” - a man
The woman who said her titties and flashed me one (thanks, girl!)
Powerful responses that stood out:
“All of it - every single dimple and crevice.”
A woman said her baby fat and grabbed her belly.
My sense of humor and sarcasm.
A woman said her boobs because they fed her babies. She’s a lactation specialist, and she helps women feed their babies. She said, “I’m probably the only woman in Manhattan Beach who doesn’t have a boob job,” and she was proud of it.
Two different men said their scars - one from surfing as a kid, and another from saving two different people’s lives.
Various groups that approached me:
There weren’t too many groups that came to chat
Two women stopped over, and one took a photo with me. She’s the woman who said, “All of it,” and I told her how powerful that was.
Two people filming for a street show stopped over to interview me. I then asked if I could film them, and the woman said her favorite thing was her personality.
Stand out words of encouragement:
“I’m glad you’re out here.”
“You’re so cute!” (smiling works!)
Quite a few people said, “Aww,” or some form of that upon seeing my sign. It’s always so wonderful to see people smile when they read it.
Patterns I noticed:
So many people said “everything.”
More people than not had an answer for me, which was wonderful to witness.
Per usual, thank you to all who shared with me that day. It’s a truly moving experience to stand out there with my sign and get to hear everybody’s answers. I’m honored to be witness to them.
My chosen place to reflect: Slice & Pint, Redondo Beach
My favorite thing about my body that day was… my mobility! How grateful I am to be able to move in the ways that I can. It’s so underrated.
Stay tuned for more of this! I cannot wait to continue this experiment.
I’ll leave you with this: What’s your favorite thing about your body?w
❤️🔥Megan
If you want to be a part of the conversation… either reach out to me via email at themegangill@gmail.com to schedule a conversation or fill out this form to share your body image story anonymously.
Do you have a friend, family member, or peer who might want to be part of the conversation? I’d be honored if you could help me spread the word about Continued Conversations
While I’m not a licensed therapist, registered dietician, or medical health professional and cannot speak to body image topics from a clinical, trauma-informed place, I am an expert of lived experience. I’m an academic of my own body, and I’m passionate about facilitating conversations with other humans about their relationships with their bodies. I believe it’s important to continue conversations about healthy body image in creative spaces as a means to heal individuals as well as the collective whole. But just know the information presented in this medium is not professional mental health advice or medical advice, and any questions or concerns you have should always be directed to your healthcare providers.