Part II
The following are some helpful tips for improving one’s body image:
- Identify and Challenge Negative Thoughts You Have About Your Appearance: Attune yourself to the self-talk and automatic negative thoughts that should be challenged or debunked. What we tell ourselves can become deeply entrenched and “repetitive mantras.” Are the statements that we make to ourselves based upon facts or opinion? Are they realistic? What evidence is there to bolster them? Many see a skewed vision of themselves reflected in the mirror and inaccurately perceive themselves as larger than they are.
- Recognize Underlying Motivation for Criticism: Why are you criticizing your body? Do you really think you need to be thinner or are you perhaps attempting to assert control over something else? Which emotions underlie that criticism? Fat is not a feeling but an avoidance of feeling something. Try to decode what is really bothering you! Do you really dislike your hair or another part of your body or are you echoing criticism that you have heard or are projecting from some other source?
- Appreciate Your Body for What It Can Accomplish: Our bodies afford us immense power and capabilities if we allow ourselves to perceive them that way. Make time each morning to recognize every functional bone, muscle, limb, our eyes, ears and posture as well. Cultivate gratitude for your body’s capabilities. When we appreciate what our bodies can do, we are more apt to tend to them and nourish them. Use the Birkat Hashachar and Asher Yatzar prayers as tools to acknowledge and internalize all the wondrous workings of your body. Recognize how we can manipulate our bodies to daven, move, explore, exercise and connect to others. Adipose tissue cushions us, insulates us, and enables females to procreate and give birth.
- Concentrate on Positive Aspects: A) Record what you like about your body in a journal. B) Repeat affirmations daily. C) Select foods and activities that nurture and strengthen your body. D) Meditate on what you are grateful for.
- Body Dissatisfaction Often Arises From Comparisons to Peers or Celebrities, Even Family Members: Acknowledge that everyone’s body is unique and there is no ideal look. Adjust your social media platforms and settings to avoid comparing yourself to others. Incorporate healthy images in your feed and reduce the time you spend looking at detrimental images. Fight “fatism,” trying to accept other people in all different shapes in sizes will help us to be less critical of others and ourselves.
- Challenge Media Portrayals: One in two girls considers social media damaging to their self-esteem. Young girls are bombarded by 400-600 media images daily of thin bodies, and negative or false media portrayals of the “ideal” body. Much of what we are exposed to in the media is false advertising. Pictures and movies are edited to enhance appearance. Challenge the validity of these images; do not look at them in a naive fashion. Limiting screen time in general will likely be beneficial. We are often bombarded by these images and are being affected by them without realizing it.
- Identify Non-Physical Traits You Admire: What other attributes do you possess that are meaningful and not in the physical realm: kindness, intelligence, creativity? That funny expression “I am more than just a pretty face or body?” We really are much more than our bodies. Reflect upon the beauty of your mind, spirit, character and personality.
- Surround Yourself With Body-Positive People: Assess whether your peers speak positively about their bodies. Their comments can impact the way you perceive your own body. As much as many social media sites counteract body positivity with negative images, there are many that promote it. Attempt to change the conversation if someone keeps addressing conversations related to the body. You can express your preference not to talk about the body since you are working towards healing your own relationship with your body or ask if there is something else that may be bothering them or change the topic altogether.
- Intuitive-Mindful Eating: Focus on enjoying your food, the texture, taste, your ability to access it easily. Attempt to strive for enjoyment and moderation simultaneously so that you can feel satiated but not overstuffed. Take time to eat and digest your food. Employ brachot (blessings) as ways of pausing and praising God or healthy and hearty food prior to eating and following a meal once you feel satiated.
- Dress for the Size You Are: Find clothes that comfortably fit the body you have rather than a “coveted body.” Avoid clothing with constricting zippers, buttons and belts if they increase your discomfort and self-consciousness.
- Try to Engage in Activities That You May Have Been Avoiding, Such as Swimming, Dancing, etc: Celebrate your body, its strength and freedom of expression.
- With a Therapist or Even Independently: Draw Different Contours of Your Body and Discuss Why You Do or Do Not Like It: Shade colors reflecting how you feel about each body part and attempt to isolate the etiology of this being such a negative experience for you, perhaps due to past teasing, bullying, internalized messages. Try to challenge yourself to wear less-baggy clothing or engage in activities that reflect the courage to engage with the world once again and confront fears.
Desperate to lose weight, we employ the language of war and disease when we describe the battle we wage upon our bodies. We blast, burn, fight, torch our bellies or we try to shrink, trim and cut down our bodies to inhabit less space. My patient Shani would pore over her “skinny pictures” and bemoan how much weight she had gained since taking them. Yet upon exploring how content she was at those “skinny” junctures in her life when she starved herself, Shani was able to recall feeling “pretty miserable.” Some patients starve themselves to achieve an asexualized physique to the degree that they stop menstruating or gain weight to hide behind layers of fat to conceal their sexuality and to avoid intimacy. Other young women develop eating disorders after they attempt their first diet and receive positive feedback for their transformed bodies. They feel this immense sense of achievement in asserting their will and strength to control and withhold until their dieting begins to control and unravel them emotionally and physically.
In the book “Feed Me,” Brenda Copeland illustrates her rationale for, experience of, and the detriment of going on a diet:
… There were … reasons for my diets: a harsh word, a nameless worry … loneliness … For years I measured the success of my day by what and how much I ate. I would lose weight, keep it off for a time, and then gradually gain it back … my own dark serpent whispering in my ear … I reminded myself that nothing tastes as good as thin feels, but my appetite felt larger than that. It felt lusty and shameful, something to be hidden even from me … It’s an interesting split. You tell yourself you’re being good to yourself by being good, but it’s a lie … the sort of dieting I’m talking about denies not only the experience of food but the wonder of appetite and taste.
Let us consider the charge of “v’nishmartem meod et nafshotechem,” (Deuteronomy 4:15) “You should be very watchful over yourself,” and find ways of showing our bodies and ourselves compassion and kindness. While we should always strive for health, balance and strength, at the end of our lives, we will likely wish we had spent less time exercising, restricting our food intake and preening in front of the mirror obsessively. Rather, we will wish we had devoted more time to being present while engaging in the activities we relish, savoring life’s delicacies, feeling content in our skin, and spending time with those whom we love.
Shira Silton, LCSW received her BA from Brandeis University, an MSW in clinical social work from Columbia University, an MA in Jewish studies and is currently pursuing a doctorate in social welfare and policy at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work. Silton has been working as a psychotherapist for over 20 years providing individual, couples, family and group counseling in English, Hebrew and Spanish. Currently she works as a senior therapist and outreach program director at Yeshiva University’s Counseling Center with undergraduate and graduate students and has a private practice on the Upper West Side. She can be reached at [email protected].
