July 9, 2025
The Body Image Identity Stumbling Block Part 1
I wonder often what would change the course of this stumbling block, and how long would that course change take?
I imagine this will be the first of many writings about body image in the life of this newsletter, because there is just so much to say about it. People think a lot about it and have many varied, yet still universal, experiences of it. I don’t think I could write a newsletter on Body Image as a single topic. Maybe I could write a book about it… But I won’t because it mostly bores me at this point. It is something that many of us will waste exorbitant amounts of time and energy on in our lives. I know I have and I don’t want to do anymore of that, but I am deeply committed to exploring ways to stop investing in beauty standards. I am curious about what gets in the way of us releasing our grip on the image of our bodies so we can let ourselves gently evolve as we are meant to. For this newsletter, I’ll be mainly focusing on the grip that body image has on our sense of self and ways that this can really get in the way and be an obstacle on the road to eating disorder recovery.
Beauty standards have been “a thing” for centuries which means, if you are reading this now, you’ve likely been amidst and have been influenced by beauty standards and, more specifically, the thin ideal for your entire life. Has it shifted here and there? Sure. But no matter how they change, they are profoundly problematic when they have to do with the shape and size of people’s bodies, which are primarily determined by genetics. Bodies like stability, and they will stabilize for periods, but they are also supposed to change, grow, ripen, and age. They hold the amazing stories of our lives in a multitude of different ways, and we are so occupied with how to hammer and mold them into particular, tiny little shapes that we do not stop to give them the respect, time, space, and pleasure that they deserve.
Having spent my childhood in the 80’s and my teen years in the 90’s, I saw shifts and changes, but thin, in one form or another, has always been the beauty ideal. Having been in the eating disorder field for the last decade, I’ve seen more representation develop for folks in larger bodies and bodies in different shapes and sizes. The body positivity movement emerged, and then I began to hear and learn more about fat positivity. Fat liberation movements began to have small amounts of spaces to have their voices heard and the movement grew. Recently, though, I see less and less of that space. The dawn of GLP-1’s seems to have halted some of that growth.
In a world of dieting and beauty standards, body acceptance is not a natural inclination. It requires intention and rebellion. It is an honoring of oneself that is not respected or supported in a fast-moving culture that wishes to skirt along the surface. Because if we are moving fast enough, there’s no need to sink into the depths of who we are if we can rely on just being an image that everyone worships. And just as it seemed that we were beginning to be given the option of acceptance, there’s a new flavor of diet culture on the market. And now people are asking, Do I actually want to accept my body? Maybe I don’t have to, because there is this new hope for weight loss, for thinness, for a shrinking of bodies that felt otherwise impossible.
I want to be clear. I am not passing judgment on the decision to take GLP-1s or even the decision to pursue dieting. It makes sense. It is a clear path for many, often even one that’s recommended by medical professionals (despite some excellent research that dieting actually causes weight gain), and it’s a socially safer path. But what it has done to the fat acceptance movement is a major bummer.
This writing isn’t even about GLP-1’s though. It’s about mistaking our body shape and size for who we are, and how problematic it can be to view the shapes and sizes of our bodies as an expression of our identity. The fact that dieting is a multi-billion-dollar industry is a symptom of this. Why do so many people, so many women, powerful women, CEO’s, I mean truly badass women, give so much of their power away to the pursuit of thinness? Why is it this thing we can’t let go of?
I believe, and there’s good research to support this, that the way that we have been inundated with images of thin bodies doing glamorous and fun things for much of our lives has essentially brainwashed us. It’s not just images; it’s how those images have also impacted everyone else around us. So if you had a mom who avoided putting on a swimsuit and playing with you at the beach because she hated her body or, just more generally, adults in your life who hid their bodies because they weren’t thin enough or “toned” enough, that was a filtering of the impact of those images and the messages you received about how people should behave and who they should be based on the bodies they lived in.
It’s a problem for everyone. It is limiting for everyone, and I mean devastatingly limiting. But for someone with an eating disorder or for someone trying to recover from an eating disorder, it can be poison. And when we don’t uncouple the image of our bodies from our identities, we have a vulnerability for relapse. There has to be room for change, we have to allow room for change. Our bodies are many things; they do not need to be pictures or images of how the world interprets us. I have sat with many a client in ED recovery who has avoided something they really want to do or someone they want to connect with because their body has changed, and they are worried about how they will be seen and judged.
For some, they feel they don’t know who they are anymore, but for others, they fear their friends won’t see who they are anymore. This idea that our body size has something to do with who we are as people is so deeply ingrained. It may be underneath our thoughts and inside our actions and the experiences we allow ourselves to have, which can change the trajectory of our lives.
Oof. And a person with an ED is more susceptible to getting stuck in this thin identity because of the fact that eating disorders are ego-syntonic. They are something that the person begins to associate with who they are as a person, and weight lost, or lower weights maintained as a result of eating disorder symptoms also can get wrapped into this, which can keep someone very stuck in their eating disorder, making body image a huge stumbling block in recovery.
My friend and fellow therapist, Kate Sutton, @counselorkate, does a phenomenal job of speaking to this and the ego-syntonic nature of eating disorders in her wonderful podcast, “Recovery Deep Dish.” She covers this exceptionally well in an episode titled “Who Are You Without Your Eating Disorder? 3 Steps to Reclaiming Your True Identity.” It’s a great listen, and you can check out that episode here:
In part 2 of this exploration, I will reflect further on my personal experience of untangling my own identity from the image of my body. As I wrap part 1 up and begin part 2, I want to name that I have thin privilege or size privilege. If you’re less familiar with these terms, this does not mean that I am what many people might describe as thin. It means that I can go into most stores and find something that fits me, go into any space and assume the seating will accommodate my body effectively, sit on an airplane without issue, and a host of other privileges. It feels important to name this because I know that layers of privilege have made recovery more accessible to me than it might be to others with less layers of privilege. And even outside of ED Recovery, I do have more access and safety when I decide not to try some diet or go on a GLP1. To me, this privilege is also a responsibility. I do believe that if I accept my body and let her be where she wants to be, then maybe I can make the world a teensy bit safer for others to do the same. And that feels more aligned with my identity than any body shape or size ever has.
MORE TO COME SOON!
Thanks for reading,
Christine
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