How to Help Someone with Body Image Issues

Nobody wants to see the people they love in pain. While body image issues are extremely common in today’s society, some people experience distress over their body to the point where it feels debilitating. When this is the case, it can be difficult to watch someone that you care about struggle with body image issues.

Someone you know could be struggling with body image if you notice things like:

• Frequent “body checking” (i.e. checking themselves out in mirrors or reflective surfaces, pinching or measuring parts of their body, etc.)

• Preoccupation with their body or appearance

• Describing their body in ways that indicate a perception disturbance

• Fixation on specific body parts (stomach, thighs, etc.) 

• Putting themselves down or talking about their body negatively

• Constantly working towards a “goal weight” or trying to change things about their appearance

• Seeking reassurance from others regarding their appearance

If you know someone who checks any of these boxes, you may be wondering if you can offer any support. Here are some ways that you can help someone with body image issues.

Name Your concerns

Telling someone you are concerned they might be struggling with body image issues can be a tricky subject to navigate. But, addressing your concerns with the person directly can help bring the issue into the light. 

We live in a society steeped in diet culture, so body image issues can often be normalized. For example, it’s not uncommon to hear someone casually talking about their weight loss journey or even nonchalantly drop an insult about their own appearance into a conversation. All of us struggle with things we don’t love about our bodies, so it often doesn’t strike people as weird when people do these things. However, continuing to normalize passive body hatred in our daily lives allows people who are really struggling to fly under the radar. In some cases, it may even validate a person’s shame around their body. This can result in the belief that peoples’ bodies are the problem rather than how we treat and talk about them.

It can be especially important to bring your concerns up with someone struggling with body image issues if you also notice signs of an eating disorder or disordered eating. Eating disorders can be deadly. The earlier a person is able to get treatment with an eating disorder specialist, the better the outcomes tend to be. If you believe that you or someone else might be struggling, I offer online eating disorder treatment. You can go to my contact page to schedule a free, 15-minute consultation. 

Practice Body Positivity

It can be extremely difficult to make peace with your body when the people around you are constantly putting down their own bodies. A person working on body image issues who is surrounded by people talking about the diets they are on, criticizing their appearance, or making negative comments about other bodies can kind of feel like a recovering alcoholic hanging out with someone boasting about their adventures at the bar. Changing behaviors and thought processes is already a challenging task in and of itself, but it can feel impossible when the people around you are glorifying the very mindset you are trying to kick. Even comments that feel like a joke but have hidden putdowns towards your body can be really difficult to be around for someone recovering from body image issues.

For this reason, one of the most helpful things that you can do to help someone with body image issues is to practice body positivity in your own life. By shifting your language about bodies to reflect body positivity (or even body neutrality), you can help to create an environment that is supportive of recovery from body image issues. Here are some little things that you can do to incorporate more body positivity into your daily life:

• Avoid commenting on other peoples’ bodies

• Stop comparing yourself to others

• Look up body positive quotes

• Follow body positive social media accounts

• Honor your body’s hunger and fullness cues

• Do things that feel good for your body

• Focus on the things that your body allows you to do

• Combat negative self-talk

Don’t Make Appearance the Focus

Let’s face it – we live in a society that places high value on looks and appearances. However, your relationship with your body is so much more complex than the way that you look, even if that still feels like the most important thing. Your relationship with your body is influenced by a variety of factors like how you see your body, what you think about your body, what you believe other people think about your body, and how you feel  living inside of your body.

When you are hanging out with our friends and family, you are doing them a disservice when appearance is the topic of our conversations. This places the emphasis on how you look, and then you pay less attention to things that to make up other aspects of your relationship with your body - things like what it feels like to embrace a loved one, the sensation of warmth when sun touches your skin, and how it is to experience appreciation for what your body does for you on a daily basis. 

Remember that it’s not your job to fix it for them

Like most things, it is not your job to fix someone else’s body image issues for them. Even if you really, really want to make it better, the reality is that you can’t. They have to do that for themselves. What you can do is lend a listening ear when you have the capacity, do your own body image work, and practice body positivity in your interactions with others. The more people that make the shift from the world of diet culture and body hatred to food freedom and body positivity, the better the environment we create for those who are struggling with body image issues.

If you or someone you know is struggling with body image issues, know that you don’t have to do it alone. I’m an eating disorder specialist, and I offer online body image therapy. Reach out to schedule your free, 15 minute consultation.

Start body image therapy today!