"I Hate My Body"—Body Image and Weight
by Joyce Nash, Ph.D.

"I'm fat and I hate how I look," exclaimed 32 year-old Marsha. "I don't look good in any of my clothes and I hate going shopping. No one could possibly be attracted to me the way I look." At most, Marsha was 15 pounds over ideal body weight. To most people, Marsha looked fine. She, however, saw herself as fat, and she hated her body.

At 35 years of age and measuring 6 feet, Amy was tall and thin. "I'm ugly and I look weird. My stomach sticks out and my thighs are fat. I have a lousy job, and I'm a total failure." Throughout grade school and high school, Amy had been the tallest one in her classes. She had also worn glasses and braces during that time. After graduating from college and law school, she took a job processing insurance claims.

Patty complained, "I've been successful in everything I do except managing my weight." A businesswoman and married for 20 years, Patty was about 50 pounds overweight. "My husband doesn't seem to mind my weight, but I do. I can't stand to look in the mirror. I don't want to have sex any more. I shudder at the thought of anyone touching those rolls of fat."

Marsha, Amy, and Patty suffer from a poor body image. In Marsha's case, she exaggerated a small imperfection to the point that she was convinced she was grossly overweight. Although quite attractive, Amy saw herself as a fat, ugly failure. Patty was admittedly quite overweight, and her self-consciousness about it was interfering with her relationship with her husband.

Significant body dissatisfaction is a characteristic of all eating disorders. Even those who do not have a full-fledged eating disorder may suffer greatly from a negative body image. It is even possible to have a poor body image and not actually be fat or ugly.

What is Body Image?

Some experts have defined body image as the mental representation or perception a person has of his or her body at any given moment in time. Another way of putting this is that body image is the picture of the body as seen through the mind's eye. In reality, body image is more than just an image in the mind. It is made up of the perceptions, thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and concepts a person has about her body. Amy perceived herself as fat, even though she was not. Marsha believed she looked awful in her clothes, and Patty had the attitude that no one would want to touch her because she was fat. All three felt ashamed, angry, afraid, and distressed because of their feelings about their physical selves. Body image encompasses the emotional significance of the body as a whole, as well as its various parts. Sometimes a negative body image is reflected in hating some aspect of the body — one's nose or one's buttocks. In other cases, a negative body image is more encompassing — hating one's shape or body weight.

How Body Image Develops

A person's body image begins to emerge in infancy and continues to develop and change throughout the life cycle. Each person organizes and constructs his or her body image through the integration of many perceptions and experiences over a lifetime. How others treat us influences how we feel about our physical self. In Amy's case, she had parents who criticized her frequently for not measuring up to their expectations. As a result, she internalized a self-concept that she was basically 'not okay.' Marsha, on the other hand, had wonderfully supportive parents, but she never felt she measured up to her peers in junior high or high school. Her expectations for herself were unrealistic from about the age of 15 on. Although body image continues to evolve throughout life, adolescence is a particularly difficult time. Adjusting to changes in body image is a major psychological task for all teens.

By adulthood, body image has more or less stabilized. Even so, small fluctuations and changes can and do occur over relatively short periods of time. Even during a single day body image can vary. For example, after strenuous exercise a person may feel 'thin' for a while, but after eating a large meal, that same person may feel bloated and 'fat.' Patty felt fat and imagined that her spouse found this disgusting. As a result, she withdrew from him, which contributed to strain in their relationship.

Imagined Ugliness

Amy was the victim of 'imagined ugliness' — the technical name of which is Body Dysmorphic Disorder. This psychological disorder involves a preoccupation with a defect in appearance. This defect is either imagined, or if a defect is indeed present, the person's concern about it is excessive and out of proportion to reality. Amy saw herself as fat and ugly, despite the fact that she was tall, slender, and quite attractive. Her conviction that she was basically 'not okay' came from a long history of being criticized by her parents, not just about her appearance, but also about all manner of her behaviors as a child and adolescent. In addition, peers teased her. As a result, Amy suffered not just from a negative body image, but also from a distorted body image. She could not see her physical from a realistic perspective.

Self-consciousness

Self-consciousness about appearance comes from focusing too much on oneself and worrying too much about what others might be thinking. Shame is often at the bottom of self-consciousness, prompted by the fear that others will be judgmental and negative. Shame is the experience of feeling 'under a microscope' with everyone watching. It produces an intense desire to disappear or dissolve into the floor. A negative body image triggers self-consciousness and shame and the desire to hide. When Patty refused intimate relations with her spouse, she in effect was hiding from her shame and self-consciousness. Marsha avoided social situations because she felt unattractive — another way of dealing with self-consciousness.

The Comparison Trap

All three of these women were caught in the comparison trap. They either compared themselves to others or to some internal standard about how they ought to be-always coming up short. Amy usually took the bus to work. Whenever an attractive woman boarded the bus, she mentally compared herself and found herself wanting. But even when a dumpy woman boarded, Amy found herself thinking essentially, "Oh my God, that could be me." When any man — young, old, or ugly — boarded, Amy said to herself, "I'm so awful, he wouldn't want me." As a result, she descended into the depths of depression and despair and the confirmed her conviction that she was basically not okay.

Marsha wouldn't go to social events, convinced that no one would want to meet her anyway. When she looked in the mirror, all she saw was fat and ugly. She avoided situations that might prove otherwise. Marsha compared herself to an internal standard of what she thought she ought to be. Inevitably, she failed to measure up.

Patty judged herself harshly. She was a successful businesswoman, but she couldn't manage her physical self. She set high standards for herself, demanding that she work long hours, manage her household, and adhere to what she defined as an ideal weight. Never mind that there were not enough hours in the day or personal energy to fulfill all of these demands. When she compared herself to what she expected she should be able to achieve, she fell short, and she berated herself.

Toward a More Positive Body Image

At various times, most people experience minor dissatisfactions with their physical appearance. A problem with body image exists when unhappiness reaches such a level that a person has trouble accepting his or her appearance, when the felt dissatisfaction interferes with the ability to have satisfactory relationships, or when the focus of energy is on being unhappy with some aspect of physical appearance. Fortunately, a negative body image can be overcome.

The first step in overcoming unreasonable body dissatisfaction is to identify the sources of shame that underlie the self-consciousness about a perceived personal deficit. What cultural, developmental, interpersonal, or emotional influences contributed to concern about appearance? For Amy, it was being teased by peers for being a 'bean pole' and being constantly criticized by her parents and family for any variety of shortcomings. For Marsha, it was overconcern about measuring up to perceived cultural standards about what is acceptable body weight. For Patty, it was trying to do too much in too little time with not enough attention paid to meeting her own needs.

An important part of creating a more positive body image is to change thinking. The discrepancy between the ideal self and the actual self needs to be understood and reconciled. The reasonableness of the 'ideal' needs to be examined and challenged. This was especially true for Patty. In some cases, the perceived self needs to be reevaluated, emphasizing the positive qualities, as opposed to the negative. That was true for Amy as well. Critical and disparaging internal dialogues must be replaced by more positive thinking. Marsha needed to be more realistic and accepting in her self-evaluation. All three needed to replace negative and self-critical thinking with more self-accepting and supportive self-talk.

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