It’s fair to say it’s almost second nature to have body judgments, either good or bad, in a culture that teaches women our main value and worthiness comes from the composition of our body.  Given this, it makes sense we give compliments to others about their bodies and feel validated when we receive them as well.  It seems innocent to celebrate one’s weight loss because we have been taught for so long that weight loss is a good thing.  However, we never really know what’s going on underneath the body changes.  Although the compliments may be in good nature, it can cause damage on the receiving end.

The summer season can be challenging to navigate for those who are in eating disorder recovery or are healing a negative relationship with their body. The pressure of diet culture is exacerbated as we take advantage of the sun and warm weather. Summer activities and celebrations can increase food and body anxieties, so learning to cope with summer eating disorder triggers is important to keep you aligned with your recovery.

Body image very rarely is about our actual body. Oftentimes body image stems from a lack of self-worth and value as well as a perceived loss of control. Diet culture revs up this unhealthy and irrational view of our bodies by creating the fantasy that if our bodies are “fixed” our lives might be fixed as well. Although body image can be deeply rooted and lead to poor self-esteem and even the development of an eating disorder there is hope. Body image is a learned behavior and can be reversed!

A lot of our body image in our adult years stems from our younger years. This is an age when filtering out hurtful and untrue messages was hard because we were not cognitively or emotionally mature enough to fully process these thoughts and oftentimes are not equipped with the tools to combat diet culture, especially from loved ones. The views of our bodies can shape our views of self and have a damaging ripple effect on overall self-love. Although we cannot go back in time and pluck out those thoughts we can challenge ourselves to deprogram the hurtful and unproductive messages we picked up when we were younger and to speak to ourselves and others with the gentleness that our younger selves deserve!