Why do so many women dislike their bodies?

We are all born beautiful; the greatest tragedy is being convinced we are not - anon

No human is born thinking their body isn’t good enough. Or in fact that they generally aren’t good enough. It’s something that happens over time and there is rarely just one reason why. A myriad of factors interplay and layer on top of each other over the years to sow and then grow the seed of doubt that your body may be inadequate, then consolidate, and leave you in no doubt whatsoever that you’re definitely, irrefutably not good enough physically. 

Disabilities

Anyone who is born with disabilities, congenital illnesses or similar, may learn from a very young age that their body mind isn’t working the way ‘normal’ people’s do simply from spending so much time with doctors or in hospitals, and being seen by experts who are all, with the very best of intentions, trying to ‘fix’ or cure you. To start with this seems normal, it’s the only thing you know, but at some point, you notice. 

You see that others are different from you, you’re the outlier, and you start to decide that something is wrong with your body in some way, and that this means something about your general worth as a person. Endless surgeries or conversations about making you better would do that to a person, wouldn’t it. Imagine the first day at school when you realise you’re the only one with a hearing aid or glasses, a wheelchair, leg braces…it doesn’t matter how much you’ve been told you’re loved and gorgeous just as you are, it’s going to be impossible to notice that your body doesn’t seem to work the same way as most if not all of the others. 

The impact of school experiences

Even if you don’t have any obvious physical disabilities or differences, the words of other children at school who point out anything that comes to their mind when they want to make a point. Age 6, I was told I couldn’t be part of the gang of girls who played with each other’s hair on the school bus. Apparently, my hair became uncontrollable when they tried to brush it, and it wouldn’t plait or ponytail nicely unlike all the others with their silky straight hair, and that made me someone they didn’t want to play with. Even a teacher agreed, telling me my hair was like a bush. I was excluded from this important bonding each week. As you can imagine that did wonders for my sense of belonging and self-worth. 

So, growing up, mean or insensitive words from other children or teachers can be taken on board as meaning that there is something wrong with your body. Imagine being told you’re too fat/thin/tall/short/legs not strong enough/arms too weak/blah blah blah, and being told these things over and over if you’re bullied. Or it could be someone who’s opinion you respect, like a sports teacher or the most popular kid in class. Once from someone like that could be enough to take it on board forever, as gospel truth that hurts, rather than mere opinion that could be disregarded. 

Perhaps you noticed certain others in your class or friendship circle always being told how pretty or lovely they were, yet it didn’t happen for you, and you decided that you didn’t look as good as them and the lack of attention turned into the seed of ‘my body isn’t good enough’. 

Family influences

And what about parents and siblings, grandparents and other family members? Their comments can have a profound effect as we tend to trust and believe them more than anyone else, plus their words are more likely to be repeated like a broken record, tens to thousands of times over the years. ‘Don’t eat too much, you’re being greedy, no one will want to be with you if you’re fat, such a shame you’re not tall like your mother, sit still  - your hair is so hard to manage, I wish it was different, you look just like your father when you make that face and you know how much I hate him, smile dear you look so unattractive and ugly when you frown.’ Ouch. Said by one adult to another and some of it could be classed as emotional abuse, with all the damaging consequences over the years. 

Some girls grow up with a parent with body dysmorphia or an eating disorder. This can bring its own special brand of never feeling your body is good enough, and that you absolutely must look a certain way, be a certain size and control your body to be acceptable and loveable. It also gifts you all sorts of unhealthy ways of thinking, feeling and acting around your body, food and other people’s bodies. If a parent was always hugely judgemental about others behind their back, you might adopt this for yourself. And you can’t only be judgemental about others, it always comes in tandem with frequent and harsh judgements about yourself. 

Even before we reach puberty, there can have already been a number of influences that can make us question whether we look right or whether our bodies work well enough. 

Changes you can't control aka puberty

And then…the hormones kick in. The starting gun is fired for whole new level of the game of comparison. Why has your friend so and so got much taller than you suddenly and has boobs (and all the boys can’t stop gawking at her), and why do you still look like a child that no one wants to go out with? With social media, it is definitely the case that what I call compare and despair culture has started much earlier, and it intensifies during puberty. 

Our bodies develop into adults without us having signed up for it, and without us being able to put in any orders to the universe when it comes to height, bra size, leg length or anything. We are powerless to a great extent over how exactly and when our bodies transform into our adult forms. And at the same time, we start looking at magazines and watching movies with fresh eyes, and see stick thin models or actresses (who’ve been airbrushed to within an inch of their life), pore over celebs and friends on social media (heavy filters anyone?), and notice that our bodies and faces don’t look like Victoria’s Secret models or the women on the red carpet. Well, the vast majority of us anyway…the unfairness of it all. And in our pjs at a sleep over, no one is going to look that glam anyway without an army of make-up artists, hair dressers, personal trainers, dieticians, chefs, beauticians et al that the models and actresses have at their disposal to support their image. But that doesn’t stop you from feeling like there’s something wrong with you. 

The media. The bloody media.

Perhaps you’re with your mates and looking at the latest celeb gossip magazine and there are zoomed in paparazzi pictures of the latest soap star or footballer’s wife who had a baby a few months ago, who is daring to go on the beach and  - gasp - she has a slightly saggy tummy and looks tired. Some other reality star has a less than perfectly toned shoulder on display and a bit of cellulite on her thighs. What a disgrace the magazine screams, why isn’t she covered up or in the gym or starving herself? Women must look perfect at all times, don’t you know, otherwise we shall collectively shame them and reject them - this is the underlying message that is out there the whole time. And what does all this make you feel about yourself? How could it make you feel anything other than distressed about your own perfectly normal and acceptable body and worry about anything that could be seen as an imperfection. 

The media does show a variety of ethnicities thank goodness now. Naomi Campbell was pretty much the only non white model of any fame when I was a teen, so god knows how awful it may have been growing up in the 80s and 90s if you weren’t white in terms of how you felt about your looks. The billion dollar industry of skin whitening creams speaks for itself in this regard, and it’s still doing a roaring trade 

Social media has a lot to answer for. We compare, not just as teens but also as adults, our insides and feelings, plus our no makeup first thing in the morning glory, to the photoshopped, filtered, marketed highlights reel of others. No wonder we think we fall short and feel we can never look good enough (or that our lives are successful or wonderful enough). At least the newness of it all helps me to know that there is a very unreal element to it all, but that’s not how it might feel if you’ve grown up with it as the norm. Kids who spend a significant amount of time on social media are more likely to have mental health problems.

The advertising industry also peddles the not good enough story. After all, if we thought our thighs were fine just as they are, why on earth would be need anti-cellulite smoothing cream to be rubbed in vigorously at least twice a day the week before a beach holiday? The whole beach body ready industry makes me furious. Crash diets for a flat tummy, exercise routines to lift your bum and tone your tum - magazines scream them from their front cover and adverts make promises. What are they all really saying? 

‘Your body isn’t good enough to be seen in swimwear. Buy this thing and you just might become acceptable, attractive and loveable.’

The fashion industry

Fashion…our old friend the fashion industry, with its clothes made for women with uniform, quite small bodies for the most part. It’s easy for clothes shopping to end up in tears of despair, especially when the fashion of the season isn’t made for your body shape. One year curves are in so sorry to all burgeoning teenagers with boyish figures, it’s your turn to feel inadequate. Oh now it’s waif fashion, so everyone with curves, now you can feel like crap because nothing looks good or like the girl in the magazine. Yuk. 

Capitalism

Capitalism must take some of the blame, with its focus on external image. Forget being kind, a positive contributor to society and healthy, you’d better have the right handbag, look amazing in your designer gear and drive an expensive car if you want anyone to thing you are a brilliant person. Success has been overtaken by the capitalists in terms of definition. And by taking it on board without questioning it, you also accept that you must look right to be part of the cool gang. It’s an image based rather than character based paradigm.

So, to recap, bitchy comments at school, repeated criticism and warnings at home, social media, advertising, movies, magazines, capitalism…it’s incredible that anyone actually feels their body is up to standard quite frankly. 

Cruel partners

Now let’s add those first romantic relationships. Some are lucky in that they are healthy and respectful. Not everyone is so fortunate. Some might have partners who prey on your weaknesses or insecurities, and make cruel comments in the heat of an argument. Or just make cruel comments because that’s the kind of person they are; maybe their parents role modelled this to them and they think it’s acceptable or normal. No matter the reason why it happens, already secretly not feeling good enough because of everything mentioned so far, the things that are now said by partners add fuel to fire. The flames of ‘my body isn’t good enough’ rise higher and higher until you’ve accepted it all as fact.

A string of unhealthy or abusive relationships will consolidate these feelings about yourself. Especially comments like ‘no one else will want you, have you seen the state you’re in’ will reinforce the idea that you really don’t look in anyway loveable or attractive.  Once you’ve started putting up with them rather than leaving, it becomes a reinforcing spiral of self-loathing. 

All of these image-based contributors to not feeling good about your body can have a huge impact. Layer upon layer of negative messaging, repeated over and over. It’s a miracle anyone feels good about their body quite frankly.

Now, imagine someone with a disability or an injury that means they can’t exercise or wear certain things. What about illnesses that have needed surgery and now there’s scars - how does that fit with the bikini beautiful ideal? It doesn’t…are you sensing quite how indiscriminately cruel the image-based society that we live in is? 

All praise to celebrities like Kate Winslet and Jameela Jamil, who refuse to have their pictures airbrushed or modified, and want people to see the truth so that they aren’t part of perpetuating the myth of what amazing bodies and faces look like. But they are the exception not the rule. So much more needs to be done in this area. 

Reading this, I want you to know my aim is to help you understand where you’re at, why you might have come to not like your body and think it’s not good enough, and to help you have some compassion for yourself. It is also for you to start questioning whether it really is true, or whether you might have taken on board some opinions as cast iron facts. Show yourself some compassion, kindness and understanding.

If you'd love to have a better relationship with yourself and your body, and see your wellbeing, confidence and success soar, book a call with me on this link: https://bit.ly/HWCconsultation

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