Embracing Your Body's Wisdom

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Recent news articles have highlighted the effects of social media sites like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube on body image, including revelations from a former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower that esearch by Facebook itself showed that Instagram, which it owns, can make some young people's body image issues worse. There has been no consensus reached on dealing with the influence of social media, in particular on body image issues for young people.

Body image issues are common in individuals with food obsessions, binge eating, and emotional eating. When you experience negative feelings about your body, it may be the result of past hurtful experiences from childhood, which can lead to a disconnect between you and your body. This can lead to your self-evaluation being tied to your body size or shape and a desire to whip your body into shape. Here is the story of a patient with body image issues:

Marla had difficulty expressing anger or fear and often completely disconnected from any sensations in her body associated with her emotions. Her dissatisfaction with her body started when she was very young, somewhere around age eight when her mother got sick and was in bed a lot of the time. Marla began to have to take care of her mother and her younger sister. She had to leave her childhood behind and put her own needs aside. During this time, food became a comfort and an escape for her. She felt unhappy and betrayed by her body for being bigger than she wants it to be.

What is body image?

Body image is the picture you hold in your mind of your body. When you hold a negative picture or are dissatisfied with your body, it can be a significant predictor of compulsive overeating, binge eating, emotional distress, depression, problems in your relationships, or the use of steroids in men.

Causes of body image issues

1. Social media. Exposure to social media images of thinness has been associated with an increase in body dissatisfaction and negative mood. Newer trends in body positivity and body image advocacy, however, have contributed to improved body image and mood. So, choosing which social media "influencers" you follow can make a huge difference in your body dissatisfaction.
2. Attachment styles. A parent or caregiver’s relationship with his or her child has a direct effect on the child’s later social development, individual perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and expectations in future relationships. As it turns out, this pivotal early relationship also has an effect on a child’s body image. If you have an insecure attachment style, it can predispose you to destructive coping mechanisms, such as bingeing or compulsive overeating, and also to negative self-esteem and body image dissatisfaction
3. Past history of trauma. Trauma has a direct effect on the body, causing it to be frozen in a state of fear or on red alert (hypervigilance). Traumatic experiences are stored in what is called “body memory” as opposed to conscious memory.

Social media and your body image

Having positive feelings about your body if you are in a bigger body may be difficult in a culture filled with images of the thin “ideal,” but it’s not impossible. Despite the overload of media images promoting thinness, a surprising number of media images are coming to the forefront of women and men in larger bodies who are refreshingly and courageously themselves. The grassroots movement Health at Every Size is a big part of the attempt to turn around negative body image along with challenging research studies that argue fat is unhealthy (Bacon, 2008).

These healthier images of people in larger bodies are important because they show that smaller size is not a prerequisite to being all you can be. When the media begins to portray people of all sizes and not just stereotype them in roles that diminish their essence or spirit (for example, only portraying fat people as comic figures), it allows all of us to be the most that we can be—whatever that is for you as an individual. Whenever you use your body size or shape to keep you from being who you want to be or who you truly are, you are stuck in fear. Being in fear and succumbing to its limits is a way of keeping yourself small.

Attachment styles and body image

Have you ever wondered why certain people are more affected by these media images? Research is now showing that “attachment styles” may explain why (Tasca and Balfour, 2014). Attachment style is derived from a parent or caregiver’s relationship with his or her child and it has a direct effect on the child’s later social development, individual perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and expectations in future relationships. If you got the message that adults are not reliable and that you should not trust people very easily, you may have developed an insecure attachment style. This pivotal early relationship also has an effect on one's body image.

Trauma and body image

Bessel van der Kolk, noted expert on trauma, says, “What most people do not realize is that trauma is not the story of something awful that happened in the past, but the residue of imprints left behind in people’s sensory and hormonal systems.”

Traumatic experiences are stored in what is called “body memory” as opposed to conscious memory. You may have experienced this phenomenon, which may have made it difficult for you to remember or talk about your past trauma.

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Trauma also triggers the stress response (fight-flight-freeze), causing you to feel as if you are constantly on red alert. This can make it difficult for you to regulate your emotions and soothe yourself during times of stress. And it may be one of the reasons you use food (or alcohol, drugs, sex, or gambling) to self-regulate, self-soothe, and deal with stress.

Your body is the reservoir of all the wisdom you need to manage your life. If you’ve been struggling with binge eating, emotional eating, and food obsessions for most of your life, you may view your body as an adversary, as Marla did, when in fact it can be your greatest ally. The body is the early warning system that helps you identify the emotions that drive your behaviors. Your body can provide you with expert advice on what to eat and how much to eat.

When you experience negative feelings about your body, it may be the result of past hurtful experiences from childhood, which can lead to a disconnection between you and your body. This can lead to your self-evaluation (how you feel about yourself) being tied to your body size or shape and a desire to whip your body into shape.

The body is where you start to heal from past hurts, trauma, and abuse. The body is constantly offering you wise feedback on what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat, and on when to be active, and when to rest or relax. And despite what it has gone through, it has continued to work on your behalf throughout your lifetime. Listen to your body’s eloquent voice, make your body your ally, and use your body to live in the present, moment by moment.

Here are some questions to help you begin to think about your relationship with your body:

1. Describe how your weight and food issues led you to play certain roles in your life, to choose certain careers, or even to marry or have relationships with certain people.
2. If you were to listen to your body’s wisdom, how would you address your negative body thoughts differently? (Example: I would interrupt these negative thoughts and speak more kindly to my body.)