Can Poor Body Image Lead to Relapse?

Contributor: W. Travis Stewart, Licensed Professional Counselor, Revision Recovery Coaching

student girls looking at notebook at schoolRecently, I have been experiencing intense feelings of anxiety related to a number of personal challenges. I’ve laid awake at night with racing thoughts. My concentration during the day has been interrupted. My ability to be present with friends and family has been compromised. Why?

Because, in my anxious state, my brain is actively seeking ways to solve the perceived problems and resolve the anxious feelings. In the same way, an individual with poor body image, will find his or her mind focused (or shall we say obsessed) with fixing the perceived problem of an unattractive or overweight body.

How Do Body Image and Relapse Relate?

What does this have to do with relapse? If you think that flaws in your body are the primary reason you are depressed, anxious, or lonely, then changing your body will be the main focus of your energy and attention. When the body is seen as the primary problem in your life, you will make fixing the body the primary goal of your life.

Unfortunately, the body is merely the perceived problem and ‘fixing’ it through the use of eating disorder behaviors does not resolve the anxiety. This lines up with research that suggest that poor body image can predict relapse1 and body image therapy can help prevent it2.

Developing a Healthy Body Image

Developing a healthy body image is no easy task. Many things must be considered; cultural factors, family attitudes, and traumatic experiences to name a few. For the remainder of this article I want to consider how we view and talk about the body and the role these have in improving body image.

How We View the Body

Senior adult healthcareDr. Thomas Fuchs, in his paper The Phenomenology of Shame, Guilt and the Body in Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Depression3, describes two ways in which we experience our body. What he calls the lived body describes our experience of living in our body:

The lived body means not only the felt body and bodily sensations… In other words – everyday life when I’m not thinking about or reflecting on my body as a body but simply experiencing life the only way I can – AS a body.

By this he means how we go about our daily lives, walking, talking, smelling, and touching our physical world. The lived body is the body we experience when we enjoy a hug, a walk on the beach, the warm sun on our skin. When we are in our lived body we don’t experience the body as separate from us, we experienced our lives in an embodied way.

The Corporeal Body

On the other hand, what he calls the corporeal body, is the “anatomical object…which can be observed, grasped and even manipulated—an object.”

The corporeal body is often most apparent to us when we perceive there to be something wrong with it. When we feel tired, injured, sick we begin to say things about the body “I have”. “My legs are sore” as opposed to I’m sore. My head hurts as opposed to “I hurt”.

The corporeal body experience is something all humans experience but, I would suggest, is more intense for those with body dissatisfaction.

The Body as Something to be “Fixed”

worried-womanFor someone with poor body image, the body is seen as something to be fixed. It becomes an object of scorn. There is a distancing between the sense of self and the bodily form. Fuchs writes:

When the body becomes objectified it feels more ‘alien’ to me, takes up more of my attention and energy and may even feel like an enemy.

Feeling like the body is the enemy is a common experience, not only for those with an eating disorder but for many in our culture, as evidenced by how we talk about bodies.

How We Talk About the Body

In a recent New York Times article, Renee Engeln, a psychologist at Northwestern University, wrote about the damaging effects of ‘fat-talk’. This is an acceptable cultural way of viewing the body as a corporeal body rather than a lived body. She writes:

Conversational shaming of the body has become practically a ritual of womanhood (though men also engage in it). In a survey4 that a colleague and I reported in 2011 in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, we found that more than 90 percent of college women reported engaging in fat talk — despite the fact that only 9 percent were actually overweight.

Fat Talk Is Common

Attractive Mixed Race Girlfriends Talking Over Drinks Outdoors.In another survey5, which we published in December in the Journal of Health Psychology, we canvassed thousands of women ranging in age from 16 to 70. Contrary to the stereotype of fat talk as a young woman’s practice, we found that fat talk was common across all ages and all body sizes6.

Making the ‘imperfect’ body (particularly the female body) the target of scorn, hatred and objectification seems to have become a national past-time. For women this appears to have significant mental health consequences as studies have found that such talk contributes to depression, anxiety, body shame and sexual dysfunction7.

Seeing the Body in Healthy Ways

So how do we better see and live in the body in such a way to prevent eating disorders and relapse? There are lots of ideas out there. For now, I want to suggest one; valuing function over form.
The emphasis in our culture, when talking about the body, is almost always on how the body looks (form) and results in comparison, critique and a desire to manipulate and change the appearance. When taken to an extreme this directly corresponds to eating disorder behaviors of restricting, purging, laxative use and excessive exercise.

On the other hand, valuing what the body allows you to do (function) results in a lived body experience; one where you are experiencing life through the body rather than separate from it.

Expressing Gratitude for Your Body

In order to build this type of thinking, try this exercise for the next month; every night before you fall asleep, identify 3 things your body allowed you to do that day and express gratitude. Here are some examples to get you started:

  • Walk with a friend
  • Listen to music
  • Hug a baby
  • Pet a dog
  • Feel the wind on your skin
  • Complete a craft
  • Write a letter
  • Read a book

Become a proponent of healthy body image and begin changing the cultural conversation.

Community Discussion – Share your thoughts here!

Do you take time to be grateful for your body? What are three things that your body helped you do today?

About the Author:

Travis Stewart is a Licensed Professional Counselor who has worked in the field of eating disorders since 2003. He also offers recovery coaching for individuals wanting to develop more autonomy, mastery and purpose in their lives.

References:

  1. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.12.2263
  2. http://www.jpsychores.com/article/S0022-3999(02)00488-9/fulltext
  3. www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/fileadmin/zpm/psychatrie/fuchs/Shame.pdf
  4. http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/35/1/18.abstracthttp://pwq.sagepub.com/content/35/1/18.abstract
  5. http://hpq.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/12/04/1359105314560918.abstract
  6. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/the-perils-of-fat-alk.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
  7. http://www.medicaldaily.com/body-image-and-social-media-scientists-analyze-harmful-thinspiration-photos-women-332830

Last Updated & Reviewed By: Jacquelyn Ekern, MS, LPC on June 19th, 2015
Published on EatingDisorderHope.com