Body Image

Ugh.  This is one that probably everyone deals with. 

Body image is something I have always struggled with.  Having a child (especially a daughter) is difficult in this respect, because I am trying my best not to pass these problems on to her.

I realized a few years ago that the way I feel about my body now, as a size 14, is probably the same or even better than the way that I felt about it when I was a size 6.  Why is that?  If I was smaller before then, according to our cultural standards, I should have been happier, right?  I realized what many of you probably have.  My body image is not actually tied in any way to my body.  I am told that no matter what - I must feel dissatisfied with who I am – and so I am.

In reality, although I am ‘overweight’, I am probably in better physical shape than I have been most of my life.  I try to eat more ‘whole foods’ and less fast food, many health problems have become managed and my asthma is to the point where I can actually walk a several flights of stairs without being winded.  Despite knowing this, weight is still something that affects so many decisions that I make.  Where I sit, what I say, who I talk to, how I act.  Why do we let this permeate so much of our existence?

Despite making a conscious effort, I know that I am not always good about the way I speak around my daughter.  We try to never talk about people dieting or losing weight and instead talk about making healthy choices in our food and activities.  But I know she will pick this crap up.  We are so saturated in body image that even if you avoid traditional mediums you can never fully avoid the reach of advertising and peers.

An amazing article I read about this is, “The Body Politic”, by Abra Fortune Chernik.  In it she talks about a health store clerk telling her she was the healthiest person of the week because of her low BMI, all the while she was close to dying because of anorexia.

Some statistics about weight and eating disorders: (Statistics from the chapter entitled,“Hunger”,from The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf)

-          Half the women on college campuses suffer at some point from an eating disorder.

-          Babies have shown stunted growth by mothers underfeeding them

o   In the U.S., 99% of boys are breastfed, but only 66% of girls and girls were given 50% less time to feed.

-          Studies show that women may live longer and be generally healthier if they weighed 10-15% more than life insurance figures suggest and they refrain from dieting

-          When poor health is correlated to fatness in women, it is due to chronic dieting and the stress of self-hatred, not their weight.

-          A study by J. Polivy and C.P. Herman found that prolonged and periodic caloric restriction resulted in a distinctive personality whose traits are – “passivity, anxiety and emotionality’

Instead of women focusing on doing what is healthiest in both food and exercise, we have decided to focus on the unhealthy obsession of fitting into a certain size standard.  How do we keep from passing this on to the next generation?