Doreen came to me exhausted and anxious because she was constantly thinking about what others thought of her body and what she ate.
At her granddaughter’s birthday party she ate a sliver of cake, the whole time feeling guilty, and worried that other people thought she was making a bad decision.
As the party wore on she kept slipping into the kitchen to secretly enjoy more slivers… each piece adding to her shame and embarrassment.
Doreen knew that her pattern of closet eating, self-hatred, and mentally beating herself up for not living up to what she perceived as others’ opinion of her was harmful… but she was stuck. She wondered, “How do I stop caring what others think of me?”.
Find out the techniques I used to stop caring what others think by registering for my upcoming Masterclass, “How To Stop Obsessing About Food And Make Consistently Healthy Choices”.
Why women in midlife and beyond care so much about what other people think of their bodies
If you struggle like Doreen, it’s important to understand first that:
You’re not alone.
An Ohio State University study found that the most important factor for whether a woman over 40 liked her body was how she believed her body was perceived by others, not her actual size.
Furthermore, these women were more likely to believe that others wouldn’t accept their bodies if they were larger, compared to younger women.
It’s common for women in midlife and beyond to base their own body acceptance on how they perceive others to accept their bodies.
In other words: women 40+ place greater importance in how other people feel about their bodies as opposed to how they feel about their bodies.
This external-validation seeking has 2 problems (at least):
- Other people may be thinking mean things about your body… weight stigma, (which I talk all about in this blog article) is a real problem in our society. People have inaccurate and discriminatory beliefs about people living in larger bodies that are perpetuated in our culture.If someone is judging your eating choices or size, it reflects an unhelpful and unloving piece of their heart rather than saying anything about you.
- You can’t read people’s minds – Most of the time when we believe people are thinking about us, judging us, etc.… they actually aren’t.
Find out the techniques I used to stop caring what others think by registering for my upcoming Masterclass, “How To Stop Obsessing About Food And Make Consistently Healthy Choices”.
How caring what others think can lead to body shame
If the anxiety of constantly worrying about what others think isn’t enough, the impact of weight stigma and feeling like there is something wrong with you because of your size creates body shame.
In her blog on shame vs. guilt, Brené Brown defines shame as:
I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.
So applied to your body, when you care what others think of you and your weight, you are at risk of believing you are unworthy of love and belonging because of your eating habits or size.
Where body shame gets developed
It’s important to understand how we receive body shaming messages so that you realize this equation between larger bodies and unworthiness is a made up (and evil) construct, and not fact.
1) Messages received in childhood
As children we trust and accept what we hear from adults, and it’s possible that the adults in your life didn’t have healthy relationships with their bodies and passed that on to you.
Some common messages relayed to me by my clients (ages 45 and up) that they heard from trusted adults as children include:
“A man will never love you if you’re fat.”
“Your daughter should always feel self-conscious about her body so she doesn’t get too fat” (Advice one woman overheard her pediatrician tell her mother).
“You look awful” (in regards to weight gain).
“You look amazing” (in regards to weight loss).
Find out the techniques I used to stop caring what others think by registering for my upcoming Masterclass, “How To Stop Obsessing About Food And Make Consistently Healthy Choices”.
2) Cultural standards of beauty
The “thin-ideal” is a reality of modern culture, but it hasn’t always been that way.
If you want to explore what various cultures throughout time set as beauty standards I recommend this Youtube video (although I recognize there is no age-diversity in this video, which is also problematic).
It can be very freeing to start to question “who says?” that thin, toned, young, no belly fat is the ideal for beauty (or who says there even needs to be an ideal?).
What to do when you realize your perceptions of beauty are external and harmful
Once you realize you have been hating yourself and feeling unworthy of connection due to very real and valid but also flimsy reasons… it’s time to grieve.
I truly believe as a culture we need to grieve the bullying, discrimination, and pain we’ve put on those living in larger bodies. It’s not OK.
Giving yourself space to grieve the harm done by others because of your body allows you to examine the beliefs you hold and the beliefs you’d like to hold.
You probably suffer from fatphobia without realizing it
One common belief many people suffer from that leads to caring about what others think of their bodies is fatphobia.
Fatphobia is literally fear of (phobia): fat.
This manifests itself both in our thoughts and actions towards others and ourselves.
One Courage to Trust member, very vulnerably shared that while she was feeling insecure about her own body, she would judge others in the class. She would think “at least I’m not as fat as that woman”, or “at least my arms aren’t so flabby”.
This criticism of herself and other people was a sign of fatphobia and not something she was proud of. She realized the unkindness was hurting her and changing could actually help her care less about what others thought of her.
Find out the techniques I used to stop caring what others think by registering for my upcoming Masterclass, “How To Stop Obsessing About Food And Make Consistently Healthy Choices”.
How to fix your own fatphobia
The advice I gave to this woman was this:
When you notice body-shaming, fatphobic thoughts about other people, take a pause and think of a new thought.
For this Zumba lover, she reframed her thoughts to things like “that woman has so much energy” or “I so admire how she unashamedly enjoys dancing without seeming to have the insecurity I feel.”
This kindness towards others started to bleed into her thoughts about herself. Instead of looking in the dance mirror and fixating on things she believed others found undesirable… she noticed the things she liked.
Her strong arms, her smile because she was having fun, her new haircut.
And she focused less on the things she didn’t love about her body.
How to stop caring what other people think
- Find out the techniques I used to stop caring what others think by registering for my upcoming Masterclass, “How To Stop Obsessing About Food And Make Consistently Healthy Choices“.
- Decide what you want to believe about bodies (for example that all bodies are worthy of love). When you notice thoughts to the contrary, take a mental pause and choose thoughts that are in line with your new body beliefs. You may not catch every thought or feel enthusiasm for your new beliefs each time but the practice of becoming more aware of your thoughts will get you there when practiced over time.
- Practice loving-kindness to yourself and people of all body sizes when you notice fatphobic thoughts or words.
- Don’t comment or compliment anyone’s size. If someone looks like they have lost weight, refrain from commenting. Praising people for losing weight sends the message that those who have not lost weight are less valuable or desirable. (Or that if/when they gain the weight back, something is wrong with them).
- Create a body-positive affirmation, such as “My body is a blessing” and write it out daily, say it out loud, share it with your friends and family.