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Social Media and Body Image: A Quick Checkup

Social Media and Body Image: A Quick Checkup

In today’s world, social media is a big part of connecting and communicating with others.  While it can be a helpful tool for those purposes, when left unchecked, social media can become problematic to our well-being.  Here are a few areas to quickly check-in and determine how healthy your relationship is with your social media platforms! 

Comparison: 

Do you often find yourself thinking about how you compare or measure up to what you are viewing on social media?

Social media platforms often present an idealized and curated version of other people’s lives, including their appearance. This can create a sense of pressure to measure up to these standards, leading to negative feelings about your own body. Constantly comparing yourself to others on social media can create a wide range of challenges- from fostering feelings of envy, inadequacy, and low self-esteem to inspiring disordered eating. 

Filters and editing: 

Do you feel comfortable posting unedited, unfiltered images of yourself online? Why or why not?  

When viewing images of others, are you allowing yourself to consider how those images may have been edited and filtered? 

Social media provides access to numerous filters and editing tools that allow people to alter their appearance, often beyond recognition. Seeing others post photos that have been heavily edited or filtered can create unrealistic beauty standards and make people feel like they need to change their own appearance to be more attractive or desirable. 

Body shaming and criticism: 

Are the communities you are interacting with online full of kindness and support, or are they critical and aggressive? 

What is your reaction when you see comments shaming bodies? 

Unfortunately, social media can also be a breeding ground for negative comments about people’s bodies. This can come in the form of direct criticism, such as fat shaming or body shaming, or more subtle comments that still perpetuate harmful beauty standards. These comments can be hurtful and contribute to negative feelings about your own body.

Perfectionism: 

After you have been online for a little bit, bring your awareness to how judgemental you are feeling about yourself.  Do you find yourself feeling inadequate? Like you are not good enough? 

Have you noticed an increase in perfectionistic tendencies as your time on social media increases? 

Social media can also promote a culture of perfectionism, where people feel like they need to present a flawless version of themselves to the world. This can lead to a focus on appearance as a key part of your identity and self-worth, which can be damaging to your relationship with their body.

It’s important to be mindful of how social media affects your own relationship with your body and to take steps to protect your mental health and well-being.

Eating Disorders in Older Populations

Eating Disorders in Older Populations

Surprising research shared by Harvard Medical School is highlighting the risk for eating disorders over a lifespan.  While eating concerns were once considered something impacting a more youthful demographic, research continues to shine a light on the impact of eating concerns in those middle aged and older.  

But what would drive an eating disorder to reemerge or even begin as a person ages?

“The importance of body image seems to be a key feature that makes women either return to or start an eating disorder,” says Dr. Bettina Bentley, a primary care physician at Harvard University Health Services. “With aging, many women are also disturbed by the lack of control over the ways their body is changing.”

As we age, our bodies undergo changes that we may find difficulty coping with.  Aging can also bring up unresolved or even new issues surrounding body image. During menopause, women often gain weight, and these changes might make you feel like your body is working against you or is uncomfortably out of your control.   

Interestingly, some researchers are noticing that eating disorders peak for women during critical periods of reproductive hormone change, like puberty, post pregnancy, or menopause.  These fluctuations in hormones, combined with the unique social pressures women face during each of these times of transition, can create a prime environment for an eating disorder to develop in.

While an eating disorder brings immense risk at any age, there are special concerns in older populations.  Women with anorexia are seven times more at risk of a bone fracture than the general population, for example.  Middle aged populations are also more likely to be on medication for chronic conditions, which increases the risk of complications when engaging in disordered eating.  Other unique concerns to this population include an increased risk of pneumonia for those who force themselves to vomit and poor wound healing due to improper nutrition. 

If you find yourself beginning to fixate or feel intrusive thoughts about body image or eating concerns as you age, know that you aren’t the only one!  You are worthy of care at any age, stage, or phase.  If you find your body is changing, you are capable of changing with it, and learning healthy ways to respond to your new needs.  

Reference:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/womens-health/eating-disorders-in-midlife

Coping With Mortal Bodies

Coping With Mortal Bodies

Coping with mortal bodies

We all live in bodies that will die someday.  (Nothing like starting off this blog post on a high like that, right?!)  

I tend towards a natural disposition of optimism, and as part of that, I shy away from more realistic or pessimistic points of view.  However, when it comes to my body- I find myself leaning into the very certain realities that my body will one day fail.  I will die.  Nothing within my power to control can change that reality.   

I was delighted the other day to stumble upon an article where elderly persons were asked what advice they would give to their younger selves.  Predictably, much of the advice centered around cherishing relationships, straightening out priorities, and the pursuit of education.  None of the advice touched on things I frequently work through with my clients in therapy- themes of needing control over their bodies and appearances, many times, at the detriment to the other priorities in their lives.

While being realistic on what the certain end to our mortal journey will be, I find there is a lot of freedom in the perspective that controlling my body is not the central task of my personhood.  I am a whole person, with a mind that needs enlightening, relationships that need looking after and delighting in, and responsibilities that need attention.  My body is a part of who I am, but in the end, I will likely not be remembered- for better or for worse- by my body.  And I will likely not come to the end of my life wishing I had spent less time in work I was fulfilled by or with people I love and more time obsessing over my calorie count, pant size, or outward appearance. 

Illusions of control

An eating disorder so often can take over your thinking, causing you to grow numb to the reality that your body will be ever changing and fragile, even as you do all in your power to control it.  As part of being human, we are subject to frailties.  The thought that engaging in the strict control an eating disorder will have over your body will not exempt you from this reality.  The feeling of control an eating disorder can provide is in actuality just an illusion.  

Acceptance of what we can’t change

We can’t change the reality that our bodies are meant to age with the passage of time- no amount of botox can stop the process.  I often have clients ask me, “Why would I accept what I can’t change?”  This concept feels like relinquishing control or giving up entirely.  But I have found there is great freedom in the act of acceptance of things we can not change. 

Freedom in acceptance 

It can be helpful in understanding this concept to think first about what the opposite of acceptance is- denial.  When we are denying reality, we stay locked up in the pain and struggle within ourselves.  The ability to look reality squarely in the eye and move forward with acceptance is actually such a radical act of courage. 

Psychologist Christopher Germer suggests that arriving at  true acceptance is a process. He theorized the path to acceptance often happens in this way:

“Step 1: Aversion: We instinctively respond to uncomfortable feelings with resistance, avoidance, or rumination (repetitively reviewing a problem to solve it). You’ll do anything to escape the feelings or situation, or you lay awake at night going over and over it in our mind, without coming to any solutions.

Stage 2: Curiosity:  When aversion and avoidance doesn’t work, you may become curious about your problem. You are very gradually starting to see the issue with more objectivity and clarity. You want to learn more about it; even though you may not like it and you feel anxious. However, when you become curious, you may find your anxiety decreases. You are starting to try to find meaning and learn from the experience.

Stage 3: Tolerance:  In this stage, you begin to be able to tolerate and endure the pain you feel about a situation, even though you still wish it would disappear.  Tolerating means staying with the feeling or situation, rather than avoiding and resisting reality.

Stage 4: Allowing: As your resistance begins to disappear, you can begin letting feelings come and go—much like the tides come in and go out again.  You realize that no feeling lasts forever and you’re able to acknowledge feelings and really feel them.  You allow reality into your awareness, without pushing it away.

Stage 5: Friendship:  In this stage, you value and appreciate your feelings.  They are not something to be avoided anymore. It’s not that you want to feel upset or sad, but you can be grateful for the benefits that a situation brings to your life. Until you reach this stage, it can be very hard to see any benefit to a painful situation” (Germer, 2009). 

As we move away from the denial of the natural changes our bodies will go through and move towards acceptance, there is a very real peace to be found.  And as we make peace with our bodies, we are freed up to pursue lives full of meaning- meaning that we get to be very selective and intentional about!  

https://seasonsretirement.com/15-seniors-give-advice-to-their-younger-selves/

Germer, C. K. (2009). The mindful path to self-compassion: Freeing yourself from destructive thoughts and emotions. New York:Guilford Press.

 

“Sick Enough” Is a Lie

“Sick Enough” Is a Lie

Recently, I have been reading about the disparity in medical responses based on gender. One study*, published in Academic Emergency Medicine, found that women who went to the emergency room with severe stomach pain had to wait almost 33% longer than men with the same symptoms. Research has shown that women’s pain and health concerns are often routinely underestimated and downplayed by medical providers. 

A different study focused on another alarming role doctors are playing in the treatment of eating disorders- people in larger bodies are reporting being largely overlooked by their providers, even being told they couldn’t have an eating disorder due to their size.** Even when eating concerns are causing significant health concerns and distress, the idea of someone in a larger body having an eating disorder is dismissed prematurely in evaluation. 

I hear anecdotal evidence of this all of the time in my office- oftentimes, concerns about eating have been downplayed by well-meaning healthcare providers. It can be hard to move forward in seeking treatment when you have been told your weight is “healthy” or that you don’t “look” like you have an eating disorder.  

And yet, inner wisdom may still be pointing you towards seeking additional help, realizing the intrusive thoughts about your body and food can’t possibly be healthy and wondering how to even hope for some freedom from the distress it causes.  

If this struggle sounds familiar to you- you have come to the right place! Working with providers who are trained and skilled at treating eating concerns can be an incredibly validating experience. Your body does not have to reach a “sick enough” status in order to be worthy of care. If you struggle with body or eating concerns, you are worthy of being taken seriously, heard, and helped.  

Sources: 

*https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1553-2712.2008.00100.x

**https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a32303881/atypical-anorexia/

 

Aging

Aging

Anti Anti-aging Advocacy 

We live in a world that is obsessed with preventing aging. Ponce de Leon, a 16th century Spanish explorer, set sail in search of the fountain of youth- a legendary magical spring of water that would restore youth. While he failed to accomplish that lofty goal, he was onto something – people will go to the ends of the earth to prevent the natural course of aging.  

Everything has a lifetime

Nearly ten years ago, I gave birth to my fourth child, a beautiful baby boy who would only live four months. In the aftermath of losing my son, Atticus, I was also faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of mothering three children mourning the loss of their beloved baby brother.  

While trying to explain death to children in developmentally appropriate ways (and trying to understand it myself, frankly), we began to talk about the concept of “lifetimes”.  

Everything has a lifetime. Some things live for a long time, like giant tortoises that can live nearly 200 years. Some things live for only a short time, like mayflies that only live 24 hours.  

Acceptance of lifetimes is important, as we are truly powerless to change the lifetime of anything. I can’t do anything to change a mayfly’s lifetime to two days. I could spend a lot of energy and emotion trying- but it’s not changing. The mayfly has a lifetime. Giant tortoises have their own lifetime. My sweet baby boy had an entire lifetime. I have a lifetime.  

The gift of aging 

As I worked to process my own grief and make sense of what had happened, I found myself having a strange sense of awe in ordinary places. The first time this happened, I was at the swimming pool with my children. They took turns jumping off a diving board and asked me to join them. Begrudgingly, foggy with my despair, I stepped onto the board to join my children in their play. As I jumped, the thought came to me- “Atticus never got to jump off a diving board”. We took turns jumping again, and as I went into the water next, I felt overwhelmed by the sensations of plunging into the deep end- the feeling of being fully immersed in water, followed by the feeling of buoyancy in my body as I kicked to the surface, and finally, experiencing the sensory rush as I broke the surface and heard the squeals of children playing and felt the hot sun on my face. Atticus didn’t get to experience a diving board in his lifetime. In my lifetime, I have. We jumped and jumped that afternoon, and I began to savor the experience for myself and my son. I was filled with the sense that I was showing respect and gratitude for his lifetime by fully embracing my own.  

That feeling has kept me company since then- my lifetime experiences are a gift. I get to have them. I’ve gotten to experience 40 years so far in my lifetime, and I want to experience that not only for my own enjoyment but also with a deep gratitude, knowing that not every lifetime includes 40 years. Those 40 years have been a gift. If I get 40 more, I want to spend them fully embodied, with gratitude that I get to experience aging.  

Anti-anti-aging

I’ve embraced aging in a world obsessed with the mythical fountain of youth. After all, the fountain of youth is a myth! The alternative to aging is having a shorter lifetime. And I want my own entire lifetime, wrinkles and all.