Is it Possible to Get Rid of Body Image Issues?
If you are a human with a body, it’s likely that you’ve experienced body image issues. To start off, it’s normal to experience negative body image every once in a while. If you notice yourself hating what you see in the mirror frequently, there are things to do to improve your self-image and decrease negative body image. No, I’m not just going to tell you to “love yourself more,” because that advice is outdated and honestly unhelpful. Sure, loving yourself is a wonderful thing, but healing your relationship with your body is a lot more nuanced than that! I’m hoping you’ll learn some practical ways to reduce body image distress and how to send your body some love.
what is body neutrality?
You might have heard of body love, or body positivity, and felt like it wasn’t accessible to you. I’m here to tell you that it’s ok to feel that way! In fact, most people feel that way. If we aren’t trying to love our bodies more, what are we trying to do? It can be helpful to start by practicing body neutrality. Body neutrality is accepting your body as it is, even if you don’t necessarily like how you look. It’s perfect if you feel so far away from loving your body, that working towards loving how you look feels overwhelming. Like I said above, body neutrality does not require you to like what you see in the mirror. It does not require you to like the number on the scale. Body neutrality requires that you have an open mind, and that’s it.
how to practice body neutrality:
Acknowledge that changing your body by trying to lose weight doesn’t improve your body image long term.
Weight loss will not improve your body image. What’s more likely to happen is your brain will always find something to pick apart, no matter your body size. The sooner you can accept this, the easier practicing body neutrality will be.
Recognize that body neutrality is not a destination.
Body neutrality does not get rid of negative body image. What it does is help you cope with negative body image moments so you can still treat your body with the respect it deserves.
You can’t always control how you feel about your body, but you can control how you treat your body.
Practicing body neutrality and practicing body respect go hand in hand. You don’t have to like your body to care for your body. Respond to negative body image moments by pledging to not take any dramatic actions that will harm your body (restricting food, over-exercising, etc.).
Respond to negative body image moments with self-compassion.
Remind yourself that everyone experiences negative body image. It’s relatively impossible to get rid of body image issues completely.
healing negative body image
Because you can’t necessarily get rid of body image issues altogether, what you can do is learn to cope and heal your relationship with your body. Practicing body neutrality is helpful, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Here are some ways to heal your negative body image, without necessarily getting rid of it (trust me, I wish it were possible):
Fact check yourself.
Our minds love to make up wild stories about how our bodies are perceived and how our life has unfolded or will unfold depending on what our bodies look like. For example, you might think to yourself: “I have no friends because I look like this,” or “no one will want to date me if I look like this.” Fact checking involves proving those thoughts wrong because they are wrong! Really dig into those beliefs because they can quickly become self-fulfilling prophecies if you’re not careful.
Feel your feelings.
Working through negative body image will likely bring up a lot of feels. Your first instinct might be to think to yourself: “what did I do to make myself look like this?” or “what do I need to do to lose weight and change my body?” Both those responses will do nothing to heal your relationship with your body. What those responses will do is provide temporary relief from and avoidance of feeling the icky feelings that are coming to the surface. What to do instead? Feel them. Even if that means lying down on the ground like a starfish or crumpling up in a ball to cry. Feeling those feelings is so necessary to move past them and go back to practicing body neutrality.
Grieve.
Speaking of feeling feelings, grief is an emotion that we don’t often realize is so important in healing body image. Grieving past versions of your body, grieving your “ideal” body, grieving the fact that your body will never look like anyone else’s even if you ate and moved exactly like them, etc. If you don’t grieve, it’s so much harder to move through negative body image moments.
Reduce comparison.
Comparing yourself to others is unproductive. You probably already know that. It’s so easy to look at someone else and assume that they have it all because of the size of their body. While there are systemic advantages to living in a straight-sized (not plus-sized) body and real systemic disadvantages to being in a larger body, assuming someone is happy, has a ton of friends, and has an easy time attracting romantic partners because of their body is a fallacy.
Unlearn anti-fat beliefs.
Fatphobia affects all of us. Recognizing the harm you may be spreading either to others or to yourself because of the anti-fat beliefs you hold is so important. We can’t heal what we don’t know needs to be healed. I highly recommend learning from fat educators who have lived experience and who have been doing this work for a long time. You can be fat and healthy, happy, and worthy.
Get support from a professional.
If negative body image feels like it’s running your life, reach out for support. I offer 1:1 and group intuitive eating coaching to help folks heal their relationship with food and their bodies. It would be such an honor to get to work with you!
Although you can’t get rid of body image issues for good, there are so many ways to prevent negative body image from ruining your life. Practicing body neutrality and developing coping skills to move through negative body image are key ways to improve your relationship with your body!