I leaned quite a few lessons about body acceptance when I was stationed in Berlin in the 1980s. At public parks everywhere, but especially at the Tiergartens and in Kreutzberg (which was not yet hip, just a poor neighborhood), naked grannies and grampas were everywhere.

Nudism thrives in German culture, and people tend to accept it casually even if they don’t participate. I was shocked the first few times I wondered along a path, only to break into a clearing and find a group of naked people.

And the naked people were often granny aged or possessed of ordinary bodies nobody would think to feature in magazines.

What an eye-opener. I wish we were less ashamed of our bodies here on the other side of the Atlantic.