“You’re so thin.”
“You don’t need to lose any more weight.”
“What fat?”
Have you ever been told any of these? How often do you believe it? If you’re like me, almost never.
I suffer from poor body image, and I, like many other people, can't see these comments as positive. For me personally, it makes me feel even worse. But I haven’t always been this way.
When I was in middle school, I started showing my "German hefty" side, but I never felt it was part of who I was. I never accounted it in my self-worth. I had so many other things to distract me at that point that my body was the last thing on my mind. Come high school, everything started changing. I began putting on weight as a result of puberty and hormones being out of whack.
By the end of my senior year, I had maxed out my weight at 215 pounds. That was the heaviest I had ever been in my entire life. I felt so uncomfortable about my body. I remember that, during senior year, I only ever wore hoodies and coats; even when it got really hot, I would refuse to take off that top layer. That extra layer felt like a safe haven; like it would take away from what I felt I was trying to hide.
Let me give you a perspective of what I thought of myself at that time. Every time I walked, or took a step, my sides would jiggle. I hated stretching because my chest would bulge out, revealing what I could only perceive as man boobs. I would stare into a mirror at my face and squeeze it so tight, with some hope that I could minimize my chubby cheeks into a chiseled jaw. I had a terrible time picking out pants, because I couldn’t find any that would fit my thighs and my waist simultaneously. I could only find two pairs that would fit. I would poke and prod every part of myself that I was uncomfortable with. I began hating my body.
Come college, I took action. I attempted to eat better. Every now and then I would exercise. I would try to only wear t-shirts instead of my usual hoodies. I progressed really well. By the end of summer before my junior year, I dropped nearly 50 pounds. I was much healthier and much more fit. I knew that and I was proud of my accomplishments. Honestly. But there was still some things I couldn’t stand about my body. I still hated the way I looked. I still felt my legs were too big. My belly pooch still wouldn’t recede. My arms were still very squishy. My chest still wasn’t flat.
I am still so very uncomfortable with my body.
Recently I have made a decision to really hit the gym as much as I could. I want to be in the best shape of my life. In an attempt to gather support from others, I made a Facebook status about my diet and workout plans. Almost instantly people started commenting saying things like “you look fine,” “you’ll look anorexic,” “you need to put more weight back on.”
I know that these people come from a good place with their concerns for my health, but those comments are not welcome. It doesn’t make me feel any better about myself.
When someone is on a journey of accepting and improving themselves, it is very destructive to try to convince them against their decisions. It's like saying, "stop trying. You're not going to get any better." Those of us who suffer from this mindset of poor body image don’t see what you see. Every detail of ourselves is analyzed over and over in our heads. It’s a monster that we have to live with.
This issue goes beyond the physical looks. We can't see ourselves as anything other than how we've always imagined ourselves. It doesn't help with the media portraying the ideal body image for both men and women. Men have to be tall, muscular, tanned. Women have to be small, toned, and thin. Those of us who suffer poor body image are always comparing ourselves to these media-perpetrated images. Our features that we view as bad are magnified under our anxiety to be aesthetically pleasing. What you may see as a thin, healthy body, we see the parts of ourselves that we hate so much.
The best way to help is to be supportive in our decisions to move our journey of self acceptance along its way.
