Body image is how you see and feel about yourself when you look in the mirror. Do you have a positive body image? See them for what they really are? Do you feel confident and comfortable in your own skin? Or do you have a negative body image, looking in the mirror do you feel anxious, self-conscious, loathing?
This week is mental health awareness week, and this years theme is 'body image', so to be fitting I thought I'd write about my experience with my body image, and my up and down relationship with my own as well as my experience with an eating disorder.
The Mental Health Foundation stated that 30% of adults have felt stressed by their body image and appearance to the point of being unable to cope, meaning almost a third of adults have faced issues with their appearance and how they look. But body issues can affect a lot of people of all ages and have a serious impact on their mental health.
Then
As a kid I was always skinny, always lanky and a bit odd - check the questionable fashion choices above. When I was 11/12 I started to self harm, I had a very negative body image and hated the way I looked. I would look in the mirror and hate who I was, I thought I was morbidly overweight (I was around 8/9 stone) and saw myself as so whenever I looked at myself.
I started to throw away my lunches at school, not finishing my dinner at home or blank refusing to eat. I would sit at my desk at school and work out how long I should need to work out when I got home to work off the food I had eaten that day. I skipped meals, hid in the library at lunch time so I didn't have to eat and gradually got skinnier and skinnier until I was around 5/6 stone and incredibly slim. I felt faint and sick and ignored every pang of hunger I felt crying myself to sleep.
I started going to mental health services when my mum saw my self-harm scars one morning before school and they diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa, a serious mental illness and eating disorder where someone who is a healthy weight or underweight thinks they are much fatter than they are and stops eating or reduces food intake to lose weight. Anorexia can affect anyone of any age or gender, and often have a very distorted view of their appearance, seeing themselves as much bigger than they really are and have a deep fear of gaining weight. You don't necessarily have to be skin and bones and the usual picture of someone with anorexia to be struggling, this can be an internal battle with food in your mind that gets your diagnosis.
I was incredibly unwell and was told at one session if I lost anymore weight I would be hospitalised. Luckily I started eating small amounts and started my road to recovery after that and didn't need to, but it was a close call. Sadly we lost our Uncle John to suicide in 2012 and this spurred my mental health recovery in his memory.
I had an incredibly bad relationship with my body and food, and would snack exclusively on random foods like crab sticks, cheese slices or digestive biscuits, and then work off the calories I had eaten on an exercise machine or my wii fit (throwback) at home. I was convinced I was obese, and in need to lose weight, and would refuse to listen to anyone who said otherwise. But after losing my uncle, I decided it was time to change and started to slowly gain weight and eventually, I recovered. But many others don't, anorexia is the mental illness with the highest mortality rate, with nearly 20% of sufferers not surviving, and of those survivors, only 50% truly recover. So I consider myself a very lucky survivor of anorexia.
And Now
I think it's pretty rare these days with social media for people, both men and women, to say they are 100% comfortable with their body, there are so many ways to see images of people with amazing bodies, most of the time they are photoshopped and not even real, or the person knows just how to use angles and lighting to make them look slimmer and more toned than they are. So I won't lie and say I love my body because a lot of the time, I still hate how I look.
I find it just as hard as the next person to see the difference in someone who has the money and time to have these 'perfect' bodies on instagram/magazines and having an average sized body and liking what you see in the mirror. I don't have a distorted view of my body as I used to, sure I look in the mirror and I've had times where I've been upset by my weight, but I would never starve myself anymore. Now, I cut out the junk food and hit the gym, a healthy way of dealing with your weight.
What I'm getting to, is no one is perfect, not even these people you see plastered on the runway, on the cover of magazines and on instagram, these people aren't your average joe, they have professionals to help them look and take photos as well as they do. It's normal to feel as though you could look better, but rather than wallowing in it, hit the gym, try eating healthier meals and snacking less, do what you need to do to feel good about yourself. OR, eat what you want and don't hit the gym, all that matters is that you are happy and confident in yourself no matter how you look.
We only have one body and one skin, so it's about time we learned to love them right?
Meg x
Useful links:
1. What is Anorexia?2. Body Image and Eating Disorders
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