Social Experiment: "What's Your Favorite Thing About Your Body?"

I took a sign that says, "What's Your Favorite Thing About Your Body?" and stood on a walking path for four hours. This is what happened.

When I record a conversation for the Continued Conversations series, I always ask my guests:

“What’s Your Favorite Thing About Your Body?”

This came about a year ago - I was a few conversations into the series at this point, and I was brainstorming probing questions to ask my guests to get them thinking differently about their bodies.

This question came to the forefront for me. It felt aligned with my personal self-image journey, and felt like something I needed to start asking other people.

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I’d spent years of my life picking my body apart, beating her up because she wasn’t good enough, and talking shit to her. I spent too much time only seeing what I didn’t like about my body, what I wanted to change about her.

Somewhere along my conscious journey to start being kinder to my body, I got the idea to find one thing I liked about myself when I looked in the mirror. I figured it was worth a shot to start to reframe how I saw myself - and it worked.

Instead of harping on all of the things that were not “right” that day, the things I didn’t like for whatever reason, the things that I’ve, quite frankly, spent years not liking… I had to find one thing that jumped out as my favorite to me that day.

In the beginning, my answers were: my hair, my smile, my laugh.

That slowly merged into showing appreciation for my freckly skin, for my two front teeth (that I knocked out when I was three years old, grew back in third grade, and were quite possibly the reason I never needed braces).

And soon enough, it was my curves, my ability to feel so deeply, and my vulnerability.

The more I did this, the more connected I felt to the things about my body that I spent so many years hating. I started to embrace my soft, curved belly with her oblong belly button. And while I don’t have any traditional education in psychology, I realized I was literally rewiring my brain to see the good instead of the bad. This compassionate self-talk was actively creating new neural pathways that actually supported a healthy relationship to my self-image. It was powerful.

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And if it was powerful for me, it had to be impactful for others too.

So I started asking this question at the end of each conversation I recorded, and the feedback I got was starting to stick with me.

“That’s such a good question because I feel that’s something I should ask myself more often,” Amy Geist told me.

“I love it, and I’m glad that this is how you end your conversations because why aren’t we asking women enough about what they love about themselves rather than what they would want to change?” Jennifer Ledesma mentioned.

“That's such a great question,” Beth Hawkes said.

It kind of rocked me a bit - this question that had become a normal part of my days seemed to be a bit revolutionary to others. I realized there was something in this, something transformational. This simple question had shifted so many things for me… and I was watching it start to shift something in other people right before my eyes, too. I knew I had to bring this idea into more spaces.

I started talking about it more widely.

I started sharing on my social media a bit more about this concept. I made a reel sharing my favorite things about my body, which felt vulnerable and yet exciting and freeing all at the same time.

I started telling my frineds and family about this quesiton I’ve been exploring, wanting to create my own PhD in diving deep into research about it.

Then I got the idea - I need to take this to the streets. I need to make a sign and stand in a crowded area like Nisarah (@dudettewithasign on Instagram) and ask people what their favorite thing about their body is.

This past Saturday, March 7th, 2026, I took my sign, and I stood on the Esplanade in South Redondo near Miramar Park.

Last weekend, I got the supplies for my sign, I made the sign, and I started telling people I was going out next Saturday to try this out. The act of 1) setting a day, putting it in my calendar, and 2) telling people about what I was doing held me accountable.

As the week went on, I started to get more and more excited. I was initially going to start small and stand in my neighborhood. A girlfriend of mine said, “No, you have to go to the strand!” She was right. I knew I wanted to do this in my community, but I should start somewhere with a lot of foot traffic. Slowly, my plan started to invigorate me like nothing else - the excitement outweighed the nerves, which told me I absolutely needed to do it.

Though my intent with this was to get people thinking differently, make connections with new people in real life, and hopefully leave an impact on at least one person, I went into it with a goal to record ten people. I decided I’d bring ten “You Are Beautiful” stickers with me, and all I had to do was ask ten people if they were open to being on camera as documentation for this series - which honestly felt like a lot. And in turn, they’d get a cute little sticker and hopefully leave a little more self-compassion than they met me with.

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Saturday afternoon came around, and the weather was perfect. I parked my car a ways down, so I had to walk a ways to get to my spot. I had my sign with me, but I was kind of hiding the side with the words against myself - that’s when I started to get nervous!!!

When I arrived at the area I wanted to stand in, I stopped, took a breath, gave myself a mini pep talk, turned around, and held my sign up.

I didn’t know what was going to happen. Would I be shunned? Would I be told to buzz off? Would people give me dirty looks or the silent treatment? Would people even respond??? Would they think it’s silly? Would they think I was dumb? Would the cops tell me it’s illegal to stand on the strand with a sign?

Within 30 seconds, a man shouted out: “My hair!”

A minute later, a woman passing by said, “My eyes!”

My shoulders immediately started to relax. People were sharing.

The first gentleman to actually approach me to chat was Jayden, who said, “My heart,” and proceeded to ask what my favorite thing about my body was.

The first woman to stop and come over to me was Terry. Her gut-reaction answer was, “I’m fabulous!” Terry hung around with me for a good while, listening to and chatting with the others who stopped to share their favorite thing about their own bodies.

What ended up transpiring from this day was something magical. I handed out all 10 stickers. I recorded 12 people in total. I probably interacted with over 100. I made new friends. I had incredibly inspiring conversations. People came over to share with me. People on their runs/walks shouted out as they passed by. I almost cried multiple times. And a beautiful ladybug landed on me towards the end of the day - it a sign this project is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing in the world, and I need to keep doing it.

L: Jayden and I; R: Terry and I

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While I didn’t collect exact data from this day (something I’d like to do moving forward), I took a few hours to reflect after the experience and wrote down those that I remembered most:

“What’s Your Favorite Thing About Your Body?”

LOCATION: South Redondo Beach - Esplanade near Miramar Park

DATE: Saturday, March 7th, 2026

TIME: 2:30-7:30pm

Answers I heard:

• My brain

• My heart

• My eyes

• My feet

• My hands

• My resilience

• My height

• My smile

• My neck

• My fingers

• My teeth

• My hair

• My mind

• My skin

• My biceps

• My ability to heal

• My spirit and my soul

• My dimples

• My energy

• My muscles

• My little toe

The theme that stuck out to me the most:

• How many people said their heart or their brain/mind

Special responses that stood out:

• Man: “That it’s alive.”

• Woman: “My booty.” Man with her: “Mine too!”

• Woman: “My boobs - they feed my baby.”

• Woman running the LA marathon the next day: “Can still do a backflip at 44 years old. It doesn’t matter how skinny we are, how big we are. It just matters if we’re strong.”

• One friend: “It’s the only one I have.” Second friend: “It's doing its best.”

• Mom to three-year-old son: “What’s your favorite thing about your body?” Son: *points to his brain*

• Woman: “Its ability to bounce back after giving birth.”

• Woman in car on the phone with her sister: “My boobs! Sis, what’s yours?” Her sister: “My eyes.”

• Woman: “Its ability to heal. We put our body through a lot. I’ve been in car accidents, foot surgeries, and it just blows my mind that our bodies can heal and carry us through.”

Stand out words of encouragement:

• “The world needs more of this.”

• “No one’s ever asked me this question. It’s a great question, I just never had to think about it.”

• “I hope our future leaders model their brain and personality after you.”

• “After I walked away from you, I wondered why I said something physical and not something deeper.”

Patterns I noticed:

• If a male and female were walking together, the male was more likely to answer first (or even at all)

• Many women said they didn’t know what their favorite thing was. I told them it could be anything and encouraged them to sit with it and see what comes up. There will always be something there if you listen deeply enough. And some still didn’t have an answer to share.

• At first glance, people seemed skeptical. Once they read the sign, I could see their energy shift. I was surprised by how many people ended up sharing their answer.

I have extreme gratitude for those who were generous enough to share their favorite thing with me that day, and I’m so thankful to the 12 brave humans who agreed to be recorded for this series (coming to social media soon!!!). It is not beside me how powerful an act it is to agree to be on camera for a series about body image. So thank you all for sharing, from the bottom of my heart.

On my walk back to my car, I held my sign the whole way. I stopped by multiple people in cars with the sign, asking if they had an answer. I was met with multiple people who were willing to share theirs from their car, and it was something so moving that I was bursting with hope and joy and so many emotions. And I was also so f*ckin proud of myself for doing the scary thing.

My favorite thing about my body that day was my brain, because it didn’t get in my way of going out there and being vulnerable.

This series is the start of something - I can feel it. And I’m so excited to continue to do this work in my community (and hopefully one day beyond). I’ve never been so lit up about something in my life, and that feeling needs to be followed.

Stay tuned for more of this! I’m inspired by what I experienced this past Saturday, and I cannot wait to continue this experiment.

I’ll leave you with this: What’s your favorite thing about your body?

❤️‍🔥Megan

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Do you have a friend, family member or peer who might love this too? I’d be honored if you could help me spread the word about my writing and body image conversations!

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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.