More Food = Better Body Image? Part 1

When you are in recovery and somebody proposes that eating more could help with body image and self-perception, I get that it sounds entirely preposterous. When eating less has been tied to ‘feeling better about your body', and by extension, self, for so long, this contradictory suggestion seems unconvincing at best. I know this. I have lived that exact skeptic outrage. 

But, in the same breath, I ask you to hold as much openness as you can towards my explorations of how and why the act of nourishing ourselves fully can significantly support a more positive self-perception.

In Part 1 (of 2) of this blog series, I am going to touch on the concept of self-love, confirmation bias and selective attention. In Part 2, I will talk more specifically about how food plays a vital role in facilitating our sense of worthiness and acceptability.

The Roots of Self-Love, Esteem & Acceptance

When you took your first steps, however long ago this was, it was pure experience and presence. I obviously can't know what exactly you were thinking back then, but I do know that there was no voice inside your head calling you shit or worthless each time you fell.

It is therefore presumed that though we are not exactly born with innate self-esteem, we are born with the capacity to develop it. Initially, we are just existing, exploring, reacting with no concept of “I’m good” or “I’m bad.” But, as we grow, it is thought that our 'self-esteem seed' is nurtured  — or sometimes not. As we interact more and more with the world, we begin to form a sense of self shaped by personal experiences, relationships, and surrounding culture.

There is a vast amount of research examining what facilitates our sense of self, self-esteem and self-perception. Amongst other foundations, consistency of love, safety and emotional validation are of significant influence. Self-esteem then continues to be influenced by our life encounters, flourishing with confirmations of intrinsic value and reducing with shame. Childhood is certainly the area where we seem to get our base of self-esteem, but psychologists agree that even the most wonderful upbringing cannot necessarily protect somebody from afflictions down the line.

I think this is very necessary to mention at this point because, after a long time of not feeling a high degree of self-love, I think many of us forget that we are born worthy. This means that healing does not 'earn' us self-esteem or self-love, but rather assists us to rediscover it.

If you are reading this and do not currently a positive self-perception, it is not because you are not enough. It is because you feel not enough. I know that might sound like a silly differentiation to force, but please continue to offer me your openness as the difference is mighty. Your value is held within you right now. Your worthiness is innate. The fact you cannot see or feel this is the issue, rather than the issue being anything to do with an absence of worthiness. Healing can and will clear the misty lens that is currently leaving you unable to perceive it.

Reclaiming Self Worth

After a period of disrupted self-worth, many of us try to achieve self-love and self-acceptance by attending therapy. I think this in itself is a very loving act. It says, at least to some extent, I don't want to have to feel this way anymore. Can somebody help?

But since cycles of self-hate are often so deeply internalised, and are unfortunately so self-reinforcing, I want to gently suggest that there is more than you can and should be offering yourself.

The difficult truth is that self-love is not going to be unlocked in a conversation. Even if that conversation is £150/ hour!! Self love will not just 'kick in'. And that is because reclaiming self-love comes from action first. From all I have seen and come to learn, a feeling of self-love derives from beginning to show up for yourself - proving to yourself that you are worthy of love, respect, and care through intentional actions. Gathering proof of your own worth happens by dismantling the evidence that you are not enough by making choices that align with your inner peace.

As has probably been long apparent, this is yet another unfortunate case of Catch-22. You’ve got to do the right things before you start feeling better about yourself (e.g., your output, your lovability, your body image). It does not happen the other way around. You will not rebuild the sense of enoughness (that you were born with!) by waiting or wishing for self-love to possess you. This next chapter of your healing is about taking intentional action to build a case for yourself, one piece of evidence at a time.

I invite you to ponder this question:

What does the version of you, who is at entirely peace with themself, do?

• Do they unconditionally nourish themselves or do they ignore hunger?

• Do they rest and reclaim time for themselves or do they endlessly self-sacrifice?

• Do they speak up for themselves or remain quiet when disrespected?

• Do they nurture relationships that uplift them or step back from interactions due to feelings of inferiority?

• Do they limit undesirable connections that are impossible to remove or do they continue to reenter places and spaces of consistent pain?

• Do they interact within environments (real or virtual) that inspire their soul or feed them vulnerability?

When you reflect on yesterday and consider what behaviours you engaged in, do they align with this imagined version of you who is most content? Or to they continue to perpetuate the cycle of self-abandonment?

And before you let your brain come up with an excuse as to why yesterday was a particularly difficult day to show up for yourself — do not. I am not doubting it may well have been a very difficult day. I am doubting that there was absolutely no possibility that you couldn't have found ways to make looking after yourself possible  — even if that felt deeply uncomfortable.

Your commitment to healing your relationship with yourself is one that cannot just happen on easier days. These actions must happen when you view the operation of looking after yourself with a steadfast resolve, irrespective of how you feel. Your feelings will fluctuate. Your self-love endeavour absolutely cannot. In this interim period, you must become somebody whose behaviours of respect are untied to their in-the-moment feeling and who holds themself responsible for creating an inner sense of safety that their body can begin to trust.

To summarise: building evidence that we are unconditionally worth looking after is how we become people who feel unconditionally worth looking after. How we become the people who feel deserving of being well-nourished, well-rested, self-advocating and loved is by doing those very things.

As ever, this is about ACTION, ACTION, ACTION.

Confirmation Bias

As you’ll likely already know, confirmation bias describes our tendency to search for, interpret, favour and recall information in a way that confirms or supports our prior beliefs or values. Therefore, once we develop a belief, our brains find information that supports this perspective. Having briefly just mentioned that self-hate is self-reinforcing, I think this is an important topic to touch on.

Something that I have acknowledged with sincere awe since working in the field of mental health is that our minds are master storytellers. They consistently look for evidence to confirm what we have told it (and confirmed to it via repetitive action). I have no doubt at all that happens a great deal with our self-perception & body image curation.

When we have a belief about the physical body — such as "what bodies look like of integral importance" — you bet that the brain is going to find evidence to confirm that sentiment. It will find data that corroborates its narrative and swiftly filter out anything that does not align with its supposition.

Practicing self-abandoning and disordered behaviours means we are consistently behaving as though our our needs mean nothing, and that our body is the most interesting thing about us. This means we pay selective attention to the notions that confirm our worthlessness and it means our brains pay attention to everything that verifies the importance of bodies. After all, confirmation bias means that the brain is innately wired to pay attention to what we tell it to. By that standard, it is doing a great job. I think this has a lot to answer for why so many of us feel mistrust about the potential for our self-perception and body to heal.

Body image

During my very early 'recovery', it felt like my brain was profusely dumping data upon me to support my ingrained ideology that what my body looked and felt like was of significant relevance to my safety. This message felt to be everywhere I turned.

From having a sonar for every single body-related comment within a 15 metre radius to a hyper-vigilance of the legs of pre-prepubescent 8-year-old girls who walked past me in the street — I was chronically aware of physicality. I would also absorb what felt like everything that somewhat related to bodies too, including information on food or movement. For example, my brain would consistently zoom into the tiniest article in the paper that my parents wouldn't even have observed was there, almost as though it was trawling for confirmation of its bias. The feature? Probably a piece describing a study wherein dogs who had been forced to eat only vegan kibble had consequently lost weight. Heaven forbid the body of an omnivore suffers when starved of its nutritional necessities !!

This bias also made me hold critical attention to my own body. From the visceral sensations of tummy or legs to those that were part of my interoception (e.g., my body temperature or breathing rate), I was drawn to my inward analysis. Essentially, bodies became something that were of significant value to my brain.

The question that spun around my brain was: How would my body image EVER heal if small bodies were EVERYWHERE to be seen, diet culture was perpetually in my face and my body was so disturbingly intense in my consciousness?

The answer is not all that incredulous. My body image healed because my brain stopped seeking out data that supported that old ideology. If confirmation bias means that I noticed, focused, and gave greater credence to evidence that fits with my belief that bodies are important, that I had the pivotal role in dismantling this narrative — via my consistent actions. 

This started with the change of my own behaviour.

I very, very strongly believe that in order to change your body image, you MUST not continue with behaviours that perpetuate that controlling your body is essential, or even... an option.

You must Stop restricting.

Stop compulsively moving.

Stop body checking.

Stop engaging in any environment that centres bodies.

Stop holding onto clothes that exacerbated focus on your body.

After a long time of trying to meditate myself into self-acceptance, journal myself into self-appreciation, the new way I saw it was this: if I want to change my perception, I must be intentional about the reality I was creating.

I continued with the meditation and journaling and breathwork, but alongside that, I committed to my recovery as best I could. I disengaged from ED behaviours (and those promoted diet- culture promoted) and replaced them with ones that positioned me as someone who was worthy of care — consistently AND irrespective of how I felt about that.

The main point I wanted to make here in Part 1 of this blog post is that we create our reality through our daily actions — which filter down from where our attention is being placed.

You will see profound impacts on the importance you place on the very things that your ED champions (such as smallness, hyper-productivity) when you allow your behaviours to unremittingly put you first.

See you in Part 2. Probably best you grab a mid-way snack.