How to Stop Body Checking, Tips from a Pennsylvania Online Therapist
Body checking can be described as a habitual or often impulsive behavior that involves the assessment of a body’s shape, size, appearance, or weight. Body checking is often a symptom of disordered eating and is most definitely a symptom of experiencing some degree of body shame.
What we know to be true is that people with an eating disorder of any kind, engage in body-checking behaviors more frequently than people without an eating disorder.
some of these behaviors can include:
Frequent weighing
Fixation on body parts in the mirror
Measuring parts of the body
Pinching spots on the body, looking for fat, or the absence of fat
Feeling for bones
Using clothing to measure or judge shape or weight
Comparing pictures from previous seasons of life to the current time.
Asking for reassurance or validation that the body has, or has not, changed.
Engaging in rituals around the body-checking experience
Many people we work with here at Reclaim Therapy Online or in person, acknowledge that they are engaging in body-checking behaviors, but don’t know how to stop. Or, at times, why it could be helpful to stop.
Let’s start with why it could be helpful to stop body checking…
imagine what would be possible if you decided and trusted that your body is actually not a problem.
What would you do with your time?
How could you show up differently in your relationships?
How would you feel in your body?
Sit with that for a moment. Allow that possibility to settle in your body.
now, you might be wondering…
How do I stop body-checking?
bring awareness to the moments that you are engaging in body-checking behaviors.
What specific behaviors are you engaging in? How often? How long are you spending? What ritual are you engaging in while you are checking?
Consider… what am I looking for? Get curious. What feeling are you trying to achieve? What need is trying to be met?
After you engage in body-checking behaviors, consider what else you can do to feel the way you hope to feel after body-checking. Can you meet the need that you are trying to meet another way?
set a timer. give yourself full permission to check your body during a defined period of time (10 min, 5, min, 2 min).
Once the timer goes off, come back to the here and now and give yourself permission to move on. Reassure yourself that you will come back to check your body for another defined amount of time tomorrow. Over time brings curiosity to what it would be like to decrease the amount of time on the timer.
practice riding the urge to body check.
Urges to engage in behaviors can be uncomfortable AF. But urges are like waves. They build in energy and size, they crash over us, and if we allow them to, they recede.
Oftentimes we fly headfirst into the behavior because we don’t want to experience the discomfort of riding the waves of the urges. Consider how long you are comfortable riding the wave of the urge to check your body. Gradually be curious about what it would be like to extend that time and how you can soothe yourself as the discomfort of the urge builds.
change your ritual.
If you know you do x,y, and then z every morning before you get in the shower, play with doing y, z, and then x. How does that feel? Probably uncomfortable! But there you are, tolerating corners of discomfort. And surviving.
after an episode of body checking, extend compassion to the parts of your body you were focused on.
Get support for Body Checking, Body Image, and Body Anxiety in Pennsylvania!
If your goal is to stop body checking, or decrease the amount of body checking you are engaging in, try some of these tips, or talk with one of our skilled body image therapists.
Our hope is that by reducing body checking, your preoccupation with the image of your body can decrease. Freeing up time, energy, and perhaps access to the belief that your body is not, and never has been a problem.
🧡,
Other Services Offered At Reclaim Therapy in Pennsylvania
Reclaim Therapy in Pennsylvania is a specialized therapy practice that provides in-person and online therapy in Pennsylvania for people struggling with Eating Disorders, Body Image, Trauma, Loss, and Grief. We are a group of trauma therapists who are passionate about helping people reconnect minds and bodies so that they can find peace and joy in their everyday lives. Call now for support!