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Mirror, mirror
on the wall
Does your body image need updating?
June 29 — If you think you’re too fat, or too small, or you see the biggest flaw on your face every time you look in the mirror, you’re not alone. Most women see someone else when they look in the mirror; someone who doesn’t measure up to our culture’s definition of beauty. On NBC’s “Today” show, Dr. Christiane Northrup, from the Woman to Woman Health Center in Yarmouth, Maine, discusses some of the red flags of a person with a body image problem and what you can do about it. Read some of her tips below.
ONE OF THE places that we get addicted to the body image we don’t have is through the media. What we see from the time we are little kids, and this is true today more than ever, are perfect bodies or whatever the current standard is for perfect.
We are so dissatisfied with our looks. Breast implants are up 200 percent and the perfect body type is more unattainable today than ever before.
Look at Marilyn Monroe or other models from the ’40s - 50’s — actresses like Jayne Mansfield and others. If they went to Hollywood today, they wouldn’t get a job. The young Marilyn would have never gotten through the door, and yet she was an example of perfection then. And she was a size 12; she had to struggle to be a size 12.
Today’s models are size two or four, a maximum of size six. So a size 12 today wouldn’t even been considered. They’re taller than those older images, but they’re thinner, too. So the bar has been raised in terms of how we have to look in terms of what we think we should look like. Never before have women been barraged with these perfect bodies and faces. And it’s far less likely that you can find yourself represented in the media images.
What this has done is focused on fat. Statistics say dieting starts in fourth graders. However, I tell women to look at their frame. If you have a large frame, chances are you’re just going to be heavier. So what we want to tell women, that’s realistic, is that 18 to 26 percent body fat is normal. And if you look at the weight ranges for what’s normal, you’ll see that there is a range that has not changed much. However, there’s great controversy about ideal weight. So we’ve moved to body mass index (BMI) to settle some of the controversy of how much fat is healthy. So if women are OK with their BMI, and their body fat is OK, then they’re OK, but the problem is that women who are OK, are still obsessed.
Is this obsession affecting how you live your life?
You have to ask yourself:
Despite the fact that your husband, or your partner, or any of those who love you, likes your body, are you always obsessing about your looks?
Does your body shape and size prevent you from engaging in activities you enjoy? Going to the beach and enjoying the summer? Or wearing shorts or a short sleeved shirt?
There are some women who won’t even go to the gym to get in shape because of what they look like, or think they look like.
At what age does all this start?
It starts at a very young. Unfortunately, the body image we have in middle school stays with us because our sense of ourselves gets solidified there.
Why don’t men have these problems?
The reason guys don’t have a problem with body image is that boys are rewarded for who they are and what they do but women are rewarded for how they look. So the key to self-esteem and a positive body image is to have other areas in which to feel good about yourself. If you do, if you concentrate with young women, with your daughters, on being strong, being capable, the body image stuff is less of a problem because they see themselves as capable. That’s why sports are important for girls. You need areas in which you feel good about yourself and the capability of your body other than how someone feels about you when they look at you.
So what we are asking young women to do is to come home to themselves and their bodies younger then they would. Mid-life women come to terms with how they look, but younger women often have a painful struggle.
Do you equate food with weight?
One of the things that keeps young women from eating healthy food is that everything that goes in their mouth is about their weight — never about their health. Food and health should be equated. Equating food with fat leads to disordered eating and can lead to diseases like osteoporosis, which can start in the teenage years because of restricted calories and calcium.
Does your body image need updating?
Are you as bad as you think you are? What you find out when you hit 40 is that you were never as bad as you thought you were your entire life. There’s a perceptual problem that women must learn to deal with. There was a photographer who did a series of photos on anorexic women and when she showed these women the photos, they saw how unhealthily thin they were, much thinner than they thought. It helped some of them get help for their anorexia when they saw what they really looked like. In your brain you have an image that’s different than how you really look. After being confronted with that reality, they could begin to heal. They couldn’t heal before because every time they looked in the mirror they saw a fat person.
How do you know if your daughter has a distorted body image?
If she feels she is too fat, that’s normal. Studies show 80 percent of fourth graders think they are too fat. What is important is you have to ask yourself what’s going on with you before you ask what’s going on with your daughter? Is your body healthy? Do you exercise regularly? If the mother does those things, the daughter follows. If the mother is continually counting calories the kids do as we do, not what we say. Kids may be obsessed about looks in middle school. Your job is to model eating healthfully and not be too controlling about food. Have healthy stuff at home. If you give your child a hard time about what they’re eating and have donuts in the morning, that’s what your kid is getting as a model. Don’t try to control what they put in their mouths.
Until we retrain our eyes to look for beauty — somewhere
outside of the mainstream media — this is all tricky. My daughters have both noticed when they don’t read fashion magazines, they feel much better about their bodies.
You can make peace with your body image and still want to lose that last ten pounds. We’re not asking for the impossible, but we want women to go for strength, capability and health. This is also a call to men to stop riding women about their weight. And women should not ask men if they should lose weight. It’s a loaded, stupid question.
What women have to say to themselves is, ‘I accept myself unconditionally right now.’ I write it on a prescription pad and tell them to put it on their mirror. It’s powerful. That’s what we have to do. It’s part of reprogramming our lives. We all want quick fixes, but since it doesn’t work, it’s insane to keep doing the same thing to ourselves.
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Christiane Northrup, M.D. is a medical doctor and bestselling author. Her books include, “Women’s Bodies, Women’s” and “The Wisdom of Menopause.” To read an excerpt of “The Wisdom of Menopause,”
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