Are Other People Judging My Body?

If worrying about what other people think about your body is holding you back, in this blog, I explore why you might have come to place excessive importance on other’s opinions of your appearance, and make suggestions about how you can move on from this in empowering ways.

Our relationship with food is closely entwined with our relationship with our body. So, let’s say that you’ve decided to stop striving so hard to control your body size, and want to drop your battle with food. Instead, you are working towards eating more intuitively and supportively, and learning to better accept how you feel about your body.

But, how do you stop struggling with a niggling concern that even if you learn to relate to your body with more neutrality and acceptance, will other people? What judgements might people make if your body shape or size doesn’t fit societal beauty ideals?

Let’s explore…

WHY OTHERS’ PERCEPTIONS APPEAR TO MATTER

First, here are some of key reasons we human beings care about what other people think about our bodies. These stem from a combination of psychological, social, and cultural factors:

PSYCHO-SOCIAL Factors

1. Evolutionary basis: Historically, physical appearance could signal health, fertility, and genetic fitness, which were important for survival and reproduction. This deep-seated evolutionary trait may still play some part in influencing modern perceptions.

2. Social comparison: It is understood that humans naturally compare themselves to others to assess their own status and worth. This comparison can often include physical appearance due to its visible nature.

3. Social acceptance and belonging: Humans are inherently social beings who crave acceptance and belonging. Appearance can play a role in social dynamics, influencing how individuals are perceived and accepted by their peers.

4. Peer pressure and conformity: Especially in adolescence and young adulthood, peer pressure to conform to certain beauty standards can be intense. The desire to ‘fit in’ can lead individuals to place significant importance on their appearance, including body size.

Developmental Factors

1. Socialisation: From a young age, individuals are socialised to internalise and adhere to common narratives including those related to appearance and body weight. This process can reinforce an idea that looks matter.

2. Childhood and adolescent experiences: Early experiences and feedback from family, friends, and media can shape body image and the importance placed on appearance. Critical or positive remarks during formative years can have lasting impacts, providing negative or positive enforcement that looks matter.

PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS

1. Self-esteem and approval: We can tie appearance to our self-esteem. Positive feedback about our looks including body size and shape can provide validation and a sense of approval, fulfilling psychological needs for recognition and affirmation, boosting self-esteem. Meanwhile negative feedback can lower it.

2. Control and agency: For some, managing appearance through fashion, grooming, or fitness can provide a sense of control and agency in their lives which can, to a point, contribute to their overall sense of wellbeing.

Cultural Factors

1. Cultural beauty standards: Every culture has its own standards of beauty, which are often internalised from a young age. These standards can dictate what is considered to be the most attractive or desirable.

2. Media and popular culture: Media representations often highlight and glorify certain body types and appearances. This can create unrealistic standards and pressures to conform to these ideals.

3. Consumerism and marketing: The beauty and fashion industries tend to profit from promoting specific beauty ideals. Marketing strategies can exploit insecurities about appearance to sell products, reinforcing the importance placed on looks or driving it to unhealthy levels. Diet culture is pervasive, with countless products, programs, and influencers advocating for thinness as the ultimate goal. Wellness culture is also guilty of promoting weight loss as a key component of health and fitness. This can all perpetuate harmful stereotypes and reinforce societal pressures to conform to an unrealistic and narrow body ideal.

4. Healthcare and medical system bias: The medical system and health research community have long relied on the Body Mass Index (BMI) as a primary measure of health, perpetuating a belief that a ‘normal’ BMI is synonymous with good health, despite its numerous flaws and limitations. Healthcare providers often carry the bias that a thin body is inherently healthier into practice, despite the science on this being more sketchy than is acknowledged. Patients with larger bodies frequently report experiencing discrimination and judgment, which can lead to inadequate care, misdiagnoses, and a reluctance to seek medical help.

Understanding all these underlying factors can help individuals to recognise why they have come to place importance on body size and how their body looks - and why they might struggle not to place importance on others' opinions too. What is apparent is that whilst a healthy degree of interest in appearance may be human nature rooted in acceptance and survival; in today’s world a fear of negative societal judgments based on body size is largely a byproduct of a society that places an inordinate value on specific beauty ideals.

DROPPING YOUR STRUGGLE WITH WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ‘MAY’ BE THINKING

There is no doubt that navigating the complex reality of judgment is challenging. Even so, it is entirely possibly to create your own personal buffer against unhelpful influences and pressures, and develop more body image resilience, whatever your body shape or size.

Here are some of many ways to start building a more empowered perspective and a strong sense of self-worth that is not reliant on others' opinions:

1. Improve your media and cultural literacy: Educating oneself about the cultural factors around body image can be liberating in itself. For example, understanding the deeply flawed science around weight and health, and learning the ways media can manipulate images and promote unrealistic beauty standards can help mitigate its impact. Reading about body positivity and fat acceptance movements, and connecting with the communities challenging the narrow societal norms and working towards cultural change can also be empowering.

2. Focus on your inner qualities and strengths: Focus on what makes you unique and valuable, beyond your physical appearance. Cultivating and valuing your broader strengths, achievements and inner qualities such as kindness, determination or creativity can shift focus away from placing excessive value on appearance.

3. Acknowledge that individual perceptions play a role: Some people tend to overestimate the degree to which others notice their appearance and actions '- it’s called the ‘spotlight effect’. While societal body judgments are real, in our daily life encounters with other people, most are more focused on themselves and their own insecurities, and the people that matter most to us will invariably value us as a whole. Recognising this can help reduce the feeling of being scrutinised.

4. Develop a body neutral mindset: Instead of focusing on the things you don’t like about your body, or even striving to ‘love’ your body, aim for more neutrality in your relationship with your body. Practice appreciating it for what it does and enables you to do, rather than how it looks. For example, practice saying neutral statements like, "My legs help me walk and move" instead of focusing on their appearance.

   Understand that even if you want to make your body smaller, there are personal costs and significant mental and physical risks to any process that focusses on driving intentional weight loss. Adopting a weight-neutral approach in my Food and Body Confidence programmes, I coach you how to attune with your body and be more accepting of the body you have, whilst learning to eat and live in intuitive ways that support your health and wellbeing.
   If, after finding more neutrality and peace in their relationship with food and their bodies, my clients go on to set themselves body goals such as fitness goals related to physical appearance, importantly their reasons are no longer tied up with attachment between their sense their self-worth and looking a certain way for others.

5. Practical body image strategies: There are a numerous strategies and tools that I share with my clients that can be helpful in managing feelings of self-consciousness and judgement, and also building we call ‘body image resilience’. This includes mindfulness around self-talk, grounding, self-compassion practices, values work and building confidence through action. Every person can find a toolbox that helps them.

If or when you find yourself at the receiving end of judgement about your body, remember you have an opportunity to consider your reactions. Can you discern whether it’s come from a place of mal-intent, or from an inadvertent place of ‘naivety’ (bear in my how common this given the insidious diet culture is)? Can you discern where there may an opportunity to call-out diet culture or fat bias, and also to help others to see that there is an alternative path that embraces a more compassionate, accepting approach to all bodies?

MY CONCLUSIONS

Societal judgments based on body size are real, and it's important to acknowledge the impact of fat phobia and thin privilege in our culture.

However, it's also true that at a personal level, most other human beings do not bind your individual worth with your body in the way perhaps you have learnt to do, and our real world relationships are based on so much more than appearances. In any case, we can’t ‘control’ others' perceptions of us, but we can compassionately work on building our own inner resilience and confidence.

The quote "The more you like yourself, the less you'll need others to" is often attributed to the motivational speaker and author, Wayne Dyer. He was known for his teachings on self-reliance and personal empowerment. This quote encapsulates the idea that self-acceptance and ‘self-love’ reduce the dependency on external validation from others.

Remember, you are not alone in facing challenging body feelings and help is available to help you navigate this. Please see below for more details of the type of support and coaching I offer at Gut Reaction to support your food and body confidence. (However, if you have concerns about mental health conditions or an eating disorder, you must seek counselling or therapy).

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Next steps

Are worries about food, weight, or overeating draining your time, energy, and peace of mind? Are you struggling with low mood, food cravings, gut health, or digestion challenges?

If you are looking for a fresh, nourishing approach to nutrition that values your physical and emotional wellbeing, my personalised support brings together Intuitive Eating and Nutritional Therapy, empowering you to overcome the barriers to living a healthier life in harmony with food and your body.

If you would you benefit from this type of support, then please check out my private programmes here, or contact me for an exploratory chat to find out more.