Believe it or not, many dietitians enter the field because they have body concerns of their own, and I was no different. As a child I encountered food insecurity and tumultuous parental relationships, which led to binge like behaviors and using food as a coping mechanism. In high school, shrinking my body via exercise and restriction became my vice. When it came time to choose my college major, there was one clear option: Dietetics and Nutrition, Fitness, and Health.
Through my education I learned that my behaviors were disordered and not bringing me closer to “health” like I thought they were. The restriction and overexercising slowly faded, but body insecurities persisted for years after. For me, battling diet culture and the thin ideal was the hardest part of healing, so I understand what you’re feeling. I was you. Negative body image impacts self worth, which impacts how we value ourselves in almost every area of our lives from relationships to careers. It’s not a small issue.
It wasn’t until I learned to control influences in my environment, created boundaries with people, and educated myself on weight stigma and fat phobia that I was able to heal. I hope this blog post will be the start of your healing or support you on your journey.
Important Terms To Know
Before we get started, here are some terms you should understand.
Body Dysmorphia
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental health condition where you can’t stop thinking about parts of your appearance that you believe are flawed, even if these flaws are minor or not noticeable to others. This can make you feel embarrassed, ashamed, or anxious, and you might start avoiding social situations.
If you have body dysmorphic disorder, you focus heavily on your looks, often spending hours checking mirrors, grooming, or asking others for reassurance. These habits and worries cause a lot of stress and affect your everyday life and impact relationships.
You may try to fix what you see as a flaw by getting cosmetic procedures, but even after that, the anxiety usually comes back, leading you to look for more ways to “fix” your appearance.
Body Dysphoria
Gender dysphoria is the feeling of distress someone might have when the sex they were assigned at birth doesn’t match how they identify their gender, and it’s oftentimes forgotten in this conversation.
People with gender dysphoria might struggle to see themselves within society’s strict gender rules and ideals. This can lead to low self-esteem, concerns about their body, and sometimes eating disorders.
Eating Disorders
In the most simplified terms for the purposes of this article, eating disorders involve major changes in how people eat and think about food, body weight, and shape. Focusing too much on these things may be a sign of an eating disorder. Common types include anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorder. Eating disorders are serious and can be life-threatening.
What Is Body Image?
Body image refers to how individuals perceive, think, and feel about their own bodies. It encompasses their self-image, including how they see themselves in the mirror, and is influenced by societal constructs shaped by cultural norms. This understanding is largely formed through ideals of body representation conveyed by media, family, and peers.
What Influences Body Image?
Body image influences can vary from culture to culture, and intersect with race, ethnicity, body size, and gender.
The Thin Ideal & Diet Culture
In my reaching and research I’ve come to believe that diet culture was born out of the racist origins of the thin ideal.
Diet culture is the $89.9 billion dollar industry that seeks to profit off of fat phobia and individuals’ feelings of inadequacy.
The thin ideal is perpetuated in many spaces, some that infiltrate our minds from a very young age. The thin ideal has racist roots and continues to idolize whiteness and thinness as the standard of beauty, and even worth. Meeting these body standards is often seen as a sign of self-discipline and success.
Adopting thinness standards can change how we view our bodies, causing us to feel unhappy with our appearance and overly concerned about weight. This dissatisfaction is accompanied by real psychological distress, feelings of inadequacy, and a sense of disconnection from their body.
Body dissatisfaction happens when there’s a gap between how someone looks and how they wish to look.
Because diet culture and the thin ideal are built into our society, it’s influences reaches many other parts of our lives, like social media and our communities.
Media & Social Media
In the last 30 years media has been exposing people to the thin ideal, even starting from a young age. Think about what we learned about how we should feel about our bodies from this ad for Yoplait:
We can also consider the fact that every body on screen was likely to be thin, unless it was the character of the “fat and funny” friend. Even the way the actress choosing the yogurt was congratulated for her weight loss reinforces the idea that weight loss and a thin body will make us successful and desirable.
In the past, ideas about body image mostly came from TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. But in recent years, social media has grown a lot. Social media includes any website or app where people can create and share content.
Physical appearance is a pillar of social media today, from dating apps to tiktok. In fact, one study found that use of platforms like Facebook and Instagram were correlated with a higher body dissatisfaction and eating disorder (ED) symptoms like body dysmorphia. The same study also found that the more selfies you took, the more satisfied with your body you were (Jiotsa et al 2021).
Community
If I had a dollar for every client who told me that they used to go to weight watchers with their moms, I could buy … I don’t know, something that costs about $60. That’s about 20% of the clients I’ve seen, and that’s not excluding the men! This is such a common experience and it passes on body dissatisfaction from generation to generation. This percentage doesn’t include other ways that we may learn to hate our bodies from our parents including, but not limited to:
- their own diet behaviors
- their comments about their own bodies
- their comments about our bodies
- their comments about other peoples’ bodies
Those are just examples of influences inside our homes! Outside there are comments and body discussions amongst our peers at work and school. Not to mention dieting offers a common interest and thus a community in and of itself.
All in all, thinness and the pursuit of thinness offers a path to perceived acceptance and societal success.
Comparison Kills
Comparing ourselves to others and adopting certain beauty standards are big factors in how we see our own bodies. These can lead to feeling unhappy with our appearance. Studies show that people who compare their looks to those they find more attractive, like models or celebrities, are more likely to feel dissatisfied with their bodies and may develop an eating disorder or body dysmorphia.
How to Love Your Body
Your relationship with your body evolves over time, and it’s hard to say exactly what your journey to body love looks like. I can confidently say you cannot go from body hate to body love, first we aim for neutral.
Body Neutrality
Body neutrality involves taking a neutral approach to your body, both emotionally and physically. It means neither hating your body for its perceived flaws nor putting effort into loving it. Instead, you can simply be at peace with it.
Regardless of your shape, size, color, gender, or physical abilities, the goal of body neutrality is to help you view your body as just a part of who you are, rather than focusing on its appearance.
In essence, body neutrality encourages you to appreciate how your body functions and supports your life, while giving less attention to natural changes like aging, pregnancy, or menopause.
6 Tips and Tricks
Educate yourself. Combat the lies you learned from diet culture with context and facts! Here’s a list of my favorite books and their links to buy on Amazon.
Belly Of The Beast by Da’Shaun L. Harrison
Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings
It’s Always Been Ours by Jessica Wilson
The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
Body Neutral by Jessi Kneeland
Affirmations. Affirmations help change your thoughts about your body. They aren’t usually a cure all, but they can support healing.
See a list of 10 affirmations here.
Be gentle with yourself. On bad body image days, use these tips to help treat yourself with kindness.
Create boundaries. No one should be commenting on your body, and you may need to create that boundary with people for the sake of your healing.
Curate a happy social media space. Unfollow or mute anyone who makes you feel less than and actively follow people with diverse body sizes, maybe even finding creators with a body like yours! I promise, they exist. For example, you can google “size 16 influencers” and find many accounts and lists of influencers.
Find support. I don’t recommend finding a friend to support you in this as most people haven’t overcome their diet culture beliefs, and if you do please proceed with caution. You might find support in a therapist or weight inclusive registered dietitian. Many dietitians are accepting insurance these days, including the practice that I am contracted to! You can get your benefits checked here.
References
Body dysmorphia vs body dysphoria: What to know. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/body-dysmorphia-vs-body-dysphoria#symptoms
Jiotsa, B., Naccache, B., Duval, M., Rocher, B., & Grall-Bronnec, M. (2021). Social Media Use and Body Image Disorders: Association between Frequency of Comparing One’s Own Physical Appearance to That of People Being Followed on Social Media and Body Dissatisfaction and Drive for Thinness. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(6), 2880. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18062880
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Eating disorders. National Institute of Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/eating-disorders
WebMD. (n.d.). Body neutrality: What to know. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/beauty/what-is-body-neutrality
About The Author
Chelsea Shafer, RD, LD, RYT graduated from Purdue University in 2020 and completed the Wellness Workdays Dietetic Internship in 2022 where she specialized in sports nutrition and entrepreneurship. Chelsea is a proud Registered Dietitian who has helped over 300 clients live healthier, happier lives and accept their bodies. Currently, Chelsea is pursuing blogging, working as a registered dietitian at Happy Strong Healthy and teaching yoga at a local studio in Atlantic Beach, Florida.
