Page 22 - Healthy (March - April 2020)

by the media, often coupled with lacking a sense of
purpose or feeling unloved – can trigger anxiety.
It’s a pervasive problem: estimates from the
British Social Attitudes Survey found that, when
reflecting on their body image, 40 per cent of
women felt anxious, and 45 per cent had felt
depressed. ‘This happens because we feel our body
is something that we have the power to control,’
says Devon. ‘The bodies we see everywhere are
highly sexualized and often manipulated, so that
creates a kind of psychological narrative that those
bodies are normal and unless we look like that too,
we’re falling short.’ These narratives can then be
perpetuated by the way our brain builds the
information and ideals that make us who we are.
‘Our brains work with repetition, so the more we
tell ourselves these narratives – my stretch marks
are ugly, my stomach is too big – the more those
associations are connecting in your brain to create
what feels like a truth,’ says relationships and
psychosexual therapist, Dr Amani Zarroug.
It’s not just about the shape we are, but how we
perceive ourselves in terms of ‘looking the part’,
hindering confidence in everything from going for
promotions to entering new relationships. The
British Social Attitudes Survey found that, in the
past year, 25 per cent of women felt shame, 34 per
cent felt low and 26 per cent felt disgusted when
thinking about their bodies.
Devon explains that we can have a tendency
to divide our bodies into chunks – things we like
and don’t like. ‘They then become magnified and
much more obvious to us than it is to other people.
We’re not objective observers of ourselves.’
We’re particularly vulnerable to developing
negative body image – or for existing insecurities
to become worse – during times of change, either
physically or to our lifestyle. Having a support
network is crucial. ‘Listening to the things friends
and family like about us gives us positives to focus
on,’ says Devon. ‘But staying away from people
who over-emphasise things like diets or surgery
is also important because those conversations
reinforce the idea that our bodies need to be
fixed – they don’t, and focusing on that can
make issues worse.’
There are a few moments in life where we
can be extra vulnerable to poor self-esteem
and though everyone is individual, the tips to
help with each issue can be applied to anything
that’s bugging you, body-wise…
BECOMING BODY
POSITIVE… AFTER
WEIGHT CHANGES
Last year, Jennifer Lewis*, 40, from the
Wirral lost two stone, going from a size
14 to a 10. ‘Though I was happy that

22 healthy-magazine.co.uk