Body Shame: Exploring the Roots
Hi! My name is Sydney and I am a registered dietitian at Sunrise Nutrition. Today let’s discuss body shame. This article will define body shame and identify its sources.
What is body shame?
Existing in a human body is a wild ride. It can be wondrous and enjoyable in some moments, weird at others, and at times downright painful. At some point in life, most of us will encounter body shame. What exactly is body shame, you ask? The Oxford English Dictionary defines shame as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.” Synonyms include; humiliation, indignity, and discomfort.
Body shame is an overwhelming and distressing sense that your body is wrong*, often accompanied by the feeling that it needs to change in order to be acceptable. Body shame can make you feel that your body doesn’t belong, and even that it may be holding you back in life. Body shame may be focused on your whole body or a specific part of your body, may get better or worse in different settings, and may come and go during the course of your life.
*If the shame and wrongness you feel in your body relates to your gender, this is distinct from other experiences of body shame. If accessible, gender affirming care with a trusted provider can help address the feeling that your body is wrong, and open the door to transitioning and changing your body should you want to explore this.
Where does it come from?
How does a person come to feel that their body is wrong? When we are born and during our toddler years, our bodies explore the world with a sense of curiosity. For young children raised in a body affirming environment, the body may feel completely neutral, or perhaps like an exciting place to learn and adventure. But somewhere along the lines, this changes. As the years go by, our once curious and connected experience of the body may become clouded or completely overtaken with shame.
Sources of body shame include;
Living in an oppressive world that is not safe for all bodies. Experiencing racism, anti-blackness, misogynoir, misogyny, ableism, transphobia, fatphobia, homophobia, or any other body based form of oppression means that you have been told in one or many ways that your body is wrong. The violence, indignity, and disrespect baked into oppressive power dynamics contributes to body shame.
Beauty standards that place thin, white, straight, cisgender, able bodies on a pedestal contribute to shame as well.The very existence of this societally held hierarchy of bodies creates a comparison point for many. All the tallies of ways you don’t “add up” can amplify body shame. It is hard not to feel that your body is wrong if it is not acknowledged as beautiful, valuable, or desirable.
Living in a world that is afraid of aging and death contributes to body shame. Even if you live in a praised body, we will all age, wrinkle and eventually die. In a world that glorifies youth, many people experience shame and a sense of invisibility as their body ages.
Diet culture is yet another source of body shame. It tells you that your body is something to be manipulated, controlled, and shrunken. That if you make the “right” choices with food, that your body will attain respect, praise, and proximity to the beauty standard. Diet culture promotes disordered eating which disrupts your connection to the body, while at the same time promising you that you will feel so much better in your body. However, more often than not, diet culture leaves you hungry, undernourished, out of touch with your body’s needs, and like a failure when the promises dieting made don’t come to fruition. The combination of body chaos, and diet culture’s insistence that your body needs to change contributes to body shame.
Body based trauma can contribute to body shame as well. Working with a trauma based therapist can help address this source of body shame.
The way that the people in your life talk about bodies (theirs, yours, other peoples’) can contribute to shame. If you grew up with parents who constantly criticized their own bodies and/or your body, have friends who make fun of others’ bodies, or have coworkers who bond over ways to lose weight, it is no wonder that you may feel like your body is wrong. Being around other people who dislike their own bodies creates an environment where finding your body wrong is normalized, and in some cases a way to bond.
Lastly, the ever insidious internalized body shame. This happens when you notice your thoughts, feelings and perceptions of your body aligning with oppressive body dynamics and beauty standards of society. It is no longer just society telling you that your body is wrong. You hear yourself chiming in in agreement and feel the shame deeply. You may come to hate your body, and feel that it is bad, unworthy, or embarrassing for simply existing. I would like to note that the individual experience of body shame is given the limelight in many discussions about body image, however I see it more so as a symptom of the conditions I describe above. Shame does not happen in a vacuum, and is intimately tied to oppressive power structures. If some bodies are designated as superior and right, how could you not feel the impact of being in a body deemed inferior and wrong?
At this point, it may be helpful to reflect on your experience in your body, and identify which sources contribute the most to your body shame. In a future blog, I will share with you ten strategies to begin healing from body shame. If you would like to talk to someone about your experience of body shame, I encourage you to start conversations with trusted loved ones or healthcare providers. Additionally, our team at Sunrise Nutrition is here to help. Feel free to submit an inquiry here, or get connected to support here.
With care and solidarity,
Sydney
Sydney Carroll, RDN, CD is a dietitian based out of Seattle, WA. She specializes in the treatment of eating disorders, disordered eating and chronic dieting and relationship with food concerns.