Women's Weight Concerns and Body Image
Body image, or how you feel about the way you look, affects girls and women at all ages and in all aspects of life. If body image is positive, it improves confidence, performance, and success. If body image is negative, it can lead to low self-esteem, shaky confidence, and eating disorders causing poor health and poor performance. Maintaining a positive body image can be very challenging for many reasons.Society plays a large role in girls' and women's unhealthy obsession with body image and weight concerns. Being female automatically subjects you to pressures to be thin and beautiful, thin and fit, or thin and successful. Athletic girls and women are also subject to athletic or performance pressures to be thin, especially those who are involved in activities such as skating, dance, and diving that are judged and require thin physiques. These problems usually start early in life and can be difficult to overcome. Most girls and women have struggled with weight concerns and body image problems at some time in their life.
Weight management can be a very difficult balancing act, because a desire to be as thin as possible combined with poor body image can lead to bizarre eating and exercise habits. Many active and athletic women struggle to achieve healthy yet nutritional lifestyles. Even elite athletes can tend to limit themselves from certain food groups, missing out on healthy fats, carbohydrates, and other essential nutrients. To have healthy eating habits, girls and women must develop an understanding of what their nutritional needs are and develop a realistic awareness and expectation of body shape. They need to understand that not everyone can be a size 6, and that this size is healthy for only a very small percentage of women. Striving for a healthy, well-muscled physique that performs at its best is the ideal goal. Fortunately, the popularity of women athletes such as Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Leila Ali, Jenny Thompson, Summer Sanders, Gaby Reece, and Lisa Leslie has made a strong, well-muscled female physique desirable. These women understand the strength and beauty of muscles and are role models for young girls. Their popularity is a tremendous breakthrough for girls and women.
Struggling with Weight and Body Image
Body Image
Body image is a term used to describe how you see your body. It is a state of mind that can affect confidence, not only in regard to how you look, but also how you feel about yourself, which can affect your physical and mental health. Unfortunately, many women have poor body image; even those who have beautiful, thin, fit bodies can look in a mirror and criticize themselves for their imperfections (that are often out of proportion to how they look) rather than their strengths. In contrast, women who have positive body image are confident in knowing that, no matter what the weight on the scale, they are fit, strong, healthy, and beautiful.
To have a positive body image you must realize that the women on TV, in magazines, and in movies spend their entire life and savings on their looks. Some images are not even real, and have been altered by computers or airbrushed to hide natural imperfections. Many models and actresses have had plastic surgery, are buried beneath tons of makeup, are shot with flattering camera angles, and wear only clothes that look good on them. Some models and actresses admit that they often don't look like their photos in real life!
Also, many female movie stars and fashion models live unhealthy lives; many smoke or take pills to control their weight, eat restrictive diets, and have abusive exercise schedules. Most do not have any significant muscle and would perform terribly as athletes. A recent study found that one-fourth of Miss America contestants have a Body Mass Index less than 18—far below healthy weight limits. These women do not represent ideals of fitness or health.
Pressure to Be Thin
Pressure to be thin can come from many areas—standards of the sport or athletic activity, coaches, trainers, parents, friends, and magazines. Because of this constant pressure, many girls and women feel "fat," whether they are or not (most athletic girls are not). The statistics are frightening—70 to 80 percent of women feel they need to lose weight, one-fourth of college women have some bulimic behaviors, and up to 60 percent of girls and women have some components of eating disorders.
In fact, most young girls who are thin are not eating enough and begin dieting and restricting calories at an early age in order to conform to the pressures of a coach, parent, society, or themselves. By eating less than their body needs, they can stunt growth and prevent bone development. Between the ages of 8 and 13, healthy girls are growing 2 to 3 inches per year. Along with this growth comes healthy weight gain, at an average of 40 pounds. This is no time for dieting! A young girl's body needs fuel not only to be active every day, but to supply growing bones, muscles, and nerves. Adolescence is the time when body image begins to develop, but it can be difficult to maintain a healthy body image as the body grows and changes so quickly, including gaining healthy weight. Unfortunately, this is the time that many girls begin to diet, trying to stop the changes on the scale. There are various ways dieting can be attempted—taking diet pills, skipping meals, eating low-calorie diets, avoiding certain foods, or eating artificial meal substitutes. Some very deadly habits and serious eating disorders can begin this way, interfering with normal development and decreasing metabolism. These bad eating habits make it difficult to maintain normal weight and good health and are especially destructive to athletic performance.
Dieting at a young age is the start of developing poor body image. Mood can become directly related to weight fluctuations and dieting success or failure. Dieting itself can delay puberty and cause stunted growth, depression, difficulty concentrating, frequent illness, and injury, including fractures, pain, poor skin, brittle hair and nails, and irritability. These symptoms can cause a rebound effect of even worse body image, leading to further dieting, eating disorders, or overeating. These problems can interfere with participation in activities and even lead to dropping out of athletic activities.
Evaluating Body Image
Body image is affected positively and negatively by many events, including getting weighed at the doctors; trying on skimpy clothes; seeing a picture of yourself; spending time with someone much thinner or heavier than you; a coach, peer, or friend's comments; eating a large or small meal; or doing a challenging workout or athletic event. As a woman, the ups and downs of weight are normal; there are times in life when we eat more and less. Events such as an important competition or social event might lead us to slim down temporarily, and a battle to keep this weight off can be difficult. Pregnancy can also cause weight changes that are difficult to reverse. All these variations and events can lead to frustration, especially if you weigh yourself every day.
Body image and weight management problems become serious when this affects other aspects of life, such as not wanting to spend time with others when eating is involved, regularly skipping social, family, or work activities to work out, or cancelling social engagements based on weight. Your role in life as athlete, friend, and family member will not be affected by more or less pounds. It will be affected by happiness and self-confidence. Feel good about yourself, and understand that occasionally questioning how you look is normal.
If you have body image concerns, as most girls and women do, review the following statements and allow yourself to consider how positive you feel about your body image. Starred statements suggest a higher risk of eating disorders.
Statements to Consider When Evaluating Your Body Image
- I seriously worry about my weight on a daily basis.*
- I want to weigh 10 pounds more or less than I do now.
- I have been on more than one diet in the past year.
- I have or have had an eating disorder.
- People tell me I am "too thin," but I always feel fat.*
- Even though I weigh less than I have in the past year, I feel fat.*
- I weigh myself more than once a day.*
- I get anxious if I can't exercise more than one hour each day.
- If I gain more than one pound, I get anxious or depressed.*
- I feel guilty when I eat foods that contain any fat.*
- I would rather eat by myself than with family or friends.*
- I don't talk about my fear of being fat, because everyone tells me I am too thin.*
- I'm afraid I won't be able to stop eating if I start.
- I get very upset when people urge me to eat.
- Sometimes I think that my undereating or overexercising is not normal.*
Agreeing with many of these statements is a sign that you might have an eating disorder. Be aware that even women with an overall healthy body image occasionally agree with some of these statements. It takes some discipline to be successful in weight management; the danger is in letting this get out of control and letting it control you. Being able to recognize behaviors consistent with eating disorders and knowing that you need to correct thoughts and actions out of line with positive body image are key to maintaining confidence, happiness, and health.
The Problems with Dieting
To function most effectively as an athlete, and in all roles of life, your body must have enough fuel. Food is fuel. Not having enough interferes with your performance. It also causes overall fatigue, mood changes, weak muscles, and poor health. Restrictive dieting can also lead to eating disorders, which can be lifelong, and, at times, life-threatening.
Risks of Restrictive Dieting
- Temporary weight loss
- Eating disorders
- Rebound weight gain
- Poor athletic performance
- Slower metabolism
- Impaired mental functioning
- Serious health risks
- Mood Changes
Physical Problems of Restrictive Dieting That Interfere with Exercise
- Poor balance
- Light-headedness
- Overheating
- Fatigue
- Poor endurance
- Digestive problems
- Muscle weakness
- Illness
- Headaches
- Injury
Mind and Mood Changes Common to Restrictive Dieting
From The Active Woman's Health and Fitness Handbook by Nadya Swedan. Copyright © 2003 by Nadya Swedan. Used by arrangement with Perigee, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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