There is a misconception that therapy is only for “serious” mental health concerns like eating disorders, body dysmorphia, or clinical depression and anxiety.

But therapy can be beneficial before negative body image, issues with food and eating, and body dissatisfaction lead to these clinical concerns.

What Is Negative Body Image?

Body image is how you see your body, how you feel about it, and the beliefs you have about your body.

Positive body image is when you’re able to see your body how it truly is and respect it with all its imperfections. You appreciate your body’s functions and abilities, but you also know that your body is not the most important thing about you. You’re generally comfortable in your body and can show compassion for its imperfections.

Negative body image is when you’re unhappy with your body and see it as flawed. You fixate on its imperfections or weight, and you compare yourself to others who have a “better” body. You feel guilt and shame for your appearance and might experience low self-esteem. You find it difficult to say positive things about the way that you look. Perhaps you’re trying to change the way you look by engaging in dieting and exercising for weight loss.

Body image is complex and is influenced by many factors, such as:

• Media. When social media, films, tv shows, and books only represent thin people as good, attractive, and interesting, and only show fat people as dumb, unattractive, and silly, it’s only normal to believe that being thin is the ideal.

• Diet culture. Dieting is promoted and normalised in our society. When we’re constantly being blasted with news about weight loss drugs, the newest diet, and videos like “how I lost 20kgs after giving birth”, it’s difficult to believe that we shouldn’t be losing weight. Everyone is doing it, right?

• Family. Negative body image can start from a young age, and family can have a significant impact on the way we view ourselves. Maybe your parents often made comments about your weight or how much you ate. Or maybe you were bigger than your siblings and always felt insecure about this. Or perhaps your parents put you on a diet when you were 8 years old. All these things can shape the way you see your body.

• Social circle. Those around us - friends, acquaintances, coworkers - can have a significant impact on how we view the world and what’s normal. If your friends are often telling you how happy they are with the weight they’ve lost, or if you’re in a workplace where your coworkers talk about their carb-free, sugar-free diet during lunch, you might find that those conversations and beliefs start to impact you and how you view your body.

• Bullying and teasing. Whether it happened at a young age or as an adult, bullying can have a significant impact on body image. It may cause you to feel ashamed over your appearance and hesitant to form new relationships with people.

• How the brain works. Some personality traits and ways of thinking may make you more predisposed to negative body image. For example, if you are perfectionist or tend to speak negatively to yourself, you might be more unhappy with how you look.

Mental Health Concerns Related to Body Image

Negative body image can have a serious effect on your mental health. If you are unhappy with your body, it’s possible that this is creeping into other parts of your life. For example, negative body image can increase the risk of depression and anxiety.

Those with negative body image might experience any of the following:

• Depression caused by the negative feelings towards their bodies

• Anxiety caused by foods, eating, buying clothes, being out in public, meeting new people

• Low self-esteem, for example in friendships, romantic relationships, in the workplace, or as a parent

• Social isolation or withdrawing from friends and family, for example out of fear for being judged for your appearance, weight, or body shape

• Avoidance of certain places, people, situations that limit the ability to participate in everyday life

• For those living in fat bodies, there might be the additional stress that comes with living in a big body: medical discrimination and not being taken seriously by medical professionals, being told you have to lose weight, feeling like you have to explain why you’re fat, not having clothes available in your size, not feeling comfortable eating in public, being stared at, etc.

How I Can Support You

If you’re dealing with negative body image or any mental health concerns relating to your body, weight, size, or appearance, I’m here to support you.

In our work together, we might explore any of the following:

• Determining any negative beliefs you hold about yourself and your body (“I’m a failure because I look like this”, “I’m not attractive”) and how they can be challenged with more neutral and compassionate beliefs (“it’s okay that my body looks like this,” “I don’t have to be attractive,” and “I deserve to be loved and respected no matter my body shape, size, or appearance”)

• Increasing self-compassion

• Challenging beliefs of diet culture, fatphobia, and understanding the vicious cycle of dieting and negative body image

• Exploring events or relationships that affected your negative body image, understanding how these contributed to the way you’re feeling, and healing those old wounds with self-compassion and empathy

• Determining the values that guide your life and your perception of yourself. For example, if you want to be guided by empathy, are you honouring that empathy by engaging in negative self-talk?

• Exploring your identity outside of your relationship with your body

• Implementing coping skills and emotional regulation strategies that can help you to manage anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, and avoidance in your day-to-day life