Body Image and Eating Disorders 

Who hasn’t experienced body image concerns at some time in their life?

Whether it’s wishing we were:

• Taller,
• Slimmer,
• Had a different shaped nose,
• Llonger legs,
• or some other worry about our shape and appearance?

picture by Pink Sherbet Photography

But for those of us struggling with eating disorders such as Binge Eating or Bulimia, it can be really important to work on improving how we think and feel about our bodies to help us move towards a lasting recovery.

Body image is how we perceive ourselves to look physically. It reflects something about how we feel emotionally about ourselves, and how we believe other people see us and how they might judge us based upon our appearance.

But it is important to realise that our image of ourselves is subjective – that means that other people often see us in a completely different way! How often have you met someone who seems worried or embarrassed about some aspect of their body and appearance, while you think they look absolutely fine!

And our body image is affected by countless other influences that we might not even be aware of. This can include things such as:

• Our upbringing,
• Our personal experiences (for example being teased, or encouraged to lose weight), but also things like the culture and society that we live in, as well as the media.

All it takes is a brief look back through history to see how much pressure people (and here we do mean predominantly women) have been under to conform to an ever-changing ideal of body shape.

But men are not immune from such pressures either, and male body shape and appearance is just as important – it just has traditionally been expressed in different ways and has had different consequences.

In eating disorders, the concept of body image is so important because people’s sense of self worth has often become so closely tied into their weight and shape. A sufferer might have all sorts of problems both past and present, but these can all get swallowed up and buried under thoughts such as:

“if only I was a size….” or “if only I could lose…..” and “ if only I looked like……” “…….then everything would be okay”

And when we don’t meet these impossible-to-achieve ideals of body shape and weight, then we feel that we are failures and not worth anything. And so we turn to binge eating or comfort eating or purging, and end up feeling even worse. We have proved ourselves right yet again! And so the eating disorder continues to keep us in its grip.

A very extreme form of distorted body image is when Body Dismorphic Disorder develops as often occurs in Anorexia Nervosa. This is where, because of actual changes in how the brain interprets visual information, the sufferer quite literally sees them self as fat, when in actual fact they are underweight – even extremely so.

So to combat all this, we need to make peace with our bodies and with ourselves. We need to learn ways to develop a positive body image through self acceptance and compassion. By understanding how outside influences have shaped our thinking and expectations, and through gradually building our self confidence and self esteem, we can start to see our own true worth in who we are rather than what shape we might be.