A common theme of those conversations is the brief sense of satisfaction friends express when their body obeys, aka loses weight. But as, inevitably, harsh diets become impossible to maintain and their body rebels, the sense of failure and distaste for themselves resurfaces.
Though there is a spectrum to the intensity and impact of self-loathing, body-shame and disordered eating, there is always a cost.
Body image expert Zali Yager says the cost of hating one’s body can have many negative impacts.
A couple of years ago, Dr Zali Yager and Taryn Brumfitt, who run The Embrace Collective, threw out a question to followers on social media: What is the cost of hating your body?
“We had 3000 responses,” recalls Yager. “It’s actually quite pervasive in terms of all the areas of life that were impacted.”
The responses included time swimming at beaches and in pools, memories with their families, going out with friends, stepping up for opportunities at work and seeking work promotions.
What gives me hope amid the sad statistics and stories is that middle age can also be a time we find peace with food and ourselves, however we look.
Positive and enduring change needs to be driven by something we don’t tend to have much of in our youth: compassion for ourselves.
I know because I’ve found that peace myself.
For decades after a debilitating eating disorder in my teens, my body image was shot and my relationship with food swung between restrictive and out of control. It was punishment “for my own good”, but it was still punishment.
Positive and enduring change needs to be driven by something we don’t tend to have much of in our youth: compassion for ourselves.
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“A lot of the research shows that even just being less critical about ourselves can improve body image,” says Yager, who adds that focusing on our body’s functionality over appearance can also help. “I do think that there is hope. When you’ve spent 40 years being critical of yourself, it’s very hard to just turn that around quickly, but it is something that you can practice over time.”
For me, change happened in imperceptible degrees over years and involved gentle recalibration – more focus on nourishing, play, acknowledgement of the anxious feelings and curiosity – while consciously tempering the urge to react.
I’d done a lot of work by the time I started practising compassion towards myself in my 30s: empathising with how much body-shame and disordered eating had dominated my life, determined my moods and the decisions I made around socialising and eating.
I empathised with the lack of trust I had for my body and the fear about relinquishing control (would I “let myself go” if I was less vigilant?), as well as the knowledge that constantly trying to control it meant I had long stopped listening to what it needed. I had to rebuild the foundations of my relationship with myself from scratch. And throw the scales in the bin.
Having my daughters in my late 30s, and seeing their beautiful, imperfect, utterly loveable bodies drove further self-acceptance. And somewhere along the way, I realised that the stranglehold of this mad master had loosened to the point that it no longer controlled me. Not every thought about myself was positive, but it didn’t dictate my day, my mood or what I ate. My body and the caring, compassionate part of my brain I had nourished were now in charge: they saw but did not scrutinise.
It was a revelation. And I realised that though we might not magically grow out of our afflictions, we can grow, we can get past them, and we can learn to find freedom in our own bodies.
For support with eating disorders or body image concerns, call Butterfly’s National Helpline – on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673), chat online or email: [email protected]
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