Stop Body Checking through Body Image Therapy in Pennsylvania
Struggling with body image issues and body dysmorphia can be overwhelming, and at times, debilitating.
Body checking is one of the behaviors that many people with and without eating disorders engage in attempt manage their anxiety and attempt to find safety. However helpful it might feel in the moment, body checking typically only fuels more negative thoughts, feelings obsession and hyper-vigilance about the body, making recovery difficult.
What is Body Checking?
Body checking is a behavior that involves examining your body, usually to check for flaws, changes or imperfections. Body checking can manifest in a number of ways, including repeatedly looking in the mirror, touching certain body parts, creating rituals around looking for body changes, or comparing yourself to others.
Body checking can lead to anxiety, distress and is often associated with body dysmorphic disorder.
Examples of body checking include taking measuring measurements of your body, pinching specific areas of the skin to see if it has changed since the last time checked, counting calories burned during exercise, measuring or limiting food intake out of fear of gaining weight.
If these behaviors sound familiar and cause you any amount of distress, finding a body image therapist who specializes in treating eating disorders/body image issues near you (Pennsylvania) might be helpful.
What is body dysmorphic disorder?
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental health condition characterized by a persistent and excessive preoccupation with one's perceived flaws or defects in their physical appearance.
Individuals with BDD often spend a significant amount of time obsessing over their appearance, engaging in behaviors like body checking, reassurance-seeking, and avoidance. These behaviors can significantly interfere with daily functioning, social interactions, and overall quality of life.
People with BDD might fixate on a specific body part, such as their skin, hair, nose, or stomach, believing that it is abnormal or deformed, even if others see it as normal. They may also experience shame, embarrassment, and anxiety about their perceived flaws, leading them to avoid social situations or seek out cosmetic procedures to "fix" the problem.
BDD can co-occur with other mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, and can be challenging to diagnose and treat. However, with therapy and support, people with BDD can learn to manage their symptoms, understand what is at the root of their struggles and begin healing.
The Definition of Body Checking
Body checking refers to the act of monitoring and scrutinizing your appearance or specific body parts. This behavior can stem from a variety of reasons, including trauma, anxiety and body dysmorphic disorder. The impact of excessive body checking on mental health can be detrimental, leading to increased levels of isolation, anxiety and depression.
Examples of Body Checking
Mirror-checking, obsessive measuring and weighing practices, and comparison to others in terms of physique are all examples of body checking. These behaviors can have a negative impact on self-esteem, leading to anxiety, isolation and body dysmorphic disorder. It is important to recognize these habits and seek help from a body image therapist near me.
Here are some specific examples:
Mirror-checking: Looking at your reflection in the mirror, or other reflective surfaces, can lead to unrealistic expectations about appearance. This behavior often causes spikes in anxiety and perpetuates negative self-talk.
Measuring/weighing: Tracking numerical values such as weight or measurements often leads to obsessing about the numbers changing, and feelings of inadequacy or dissatisfaction with physical appearance.
Comparison to others: Comparing yourself to peers based on physical attributes often causes significant emotional distress. This form of body checking is particularly damaging because it reinforces the notion that our worth is determined by how we look in comparison to others.
Pinching or feeling: This common practice is a form of body checking that many people unconsciously engage in. Feeling certain areas of the body to look for changes or to feel find security that nothing has changed.
Why is Body Checking Harmful?
Body checking, or consistently examining and scrutinizing your physical appearance, can have detrimental effects on mental health. This behavior often leads to negative thoughts and feelings about one's body image and can contribute to the development of eating disorders and body dysmorphia.
Effects of Body Checking on Mental Health
Decreased self-esteem and confidence: Constant focus on perceived flaws in the body can cause you to hyperfocus on finding worth in your appearance according the thin ideal, instead of settling into your inherent worthiness.
Increased anxiety and stress: The pressure to look a certain way leads to heightened levels of stress.
Development of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD): BDD is an intense preoccupation with one’s appearance, leading individuals to become excessively concerned over minor or imagined imperfections.
Greater risk for engagement in disordered eating patterns: People who engage in frequent body checking behaviors might resort to shifting their eating patterns in effort to gain "control" over the way their body appears. This often leads to disordered eating cycles that can feel very hard to escape.
Distorted perception of body size and shape: Constantly scrutinizing your appearance can lead to a skewed perception of how their body actually looks.
Compulsive behaviors related to exercise or dieting: Body checking often goes hand-in-hand with excessive exercising or restrictive eating habits if you're striving for weight loss. These compulsive behaviors can take a toll on physical health, leading to fatigue, malnutrition, and injury.
Negative impact on relationships with food, exercise, and sexuality: When an individual is preoccupied with their appearance through constant self-monitoring, it can affect their relationship with food as well as intimacy with other people.
Tips to Stop Body Checking
If you're struggling with body image issues and looking for ways to stop body checking, consider finding a body image therapist near you. They can help guide you through identifying triggers that lead to negative self-talk and harmful behaviors. In addition, they can teach you mindfulness techniques to increase awareness of your thoughts and emotions in the moment.
To further combat negative self-talk, it's important to challenge those thoughts and reframe them in a more positive light. This takes practice but is an essential step towards improving your overall body image and reducing the urge to constantly check yourself. Remember, seeking therapy for body image issues is a brave step towards healing and should be celebrated as such!
Identify Triggers
We know that social media that promotes unrealistic body standards, but social media is often one of the greatest triggers people experience. Get curious about your social media feed- is filling your cup, or is it draining it? Do you scroll with a sense of dread regarding your body, or a greater sense of connection and acceptance?
Start to notice people who constantly comment on your appearance and recognize situations that trigger body checking behavior.
If someone in your life is constantly commenting on your appearance, try setting boundaries around body comments, body talk and food talk. If they aren't receptive to your boundary, it might be time to distance yourself from them and focus on being with people who can honor your boundaries.
Identifying situations where you're more likely to engage in body checking (like changing rooms or bathrooms) can help you prepare mentally beforehand and reduce the urge to do so when faced with triggering circumstances.
Minimize Availability of Mirrors
Cover your mirrors, take them down, or cover them with affirmations.
Surf the Urge
Start to feel into the urge to body check. For many people there is a lot of fear around the discomfort of not obeying urges. If you can identify when the urge is building, and notice the feelings as they rise and fall, you can start to build confidence in your ability to successfully ride out the urges althogether.
Get Curious About What You REALLY Need
When you have a hard body checking day, it's like a red flag that there is something emotionally going on under the surface. See if you can get quiet with yourself to understand that self-beliefs under the behaviors, and what parts of you need to less fear and more safety.
Practice Letting the Thoughts Pass
Mindfulness practices can help you notice your thoughts instead of believing them as truths. The reality is that thoughts are simply functions of our brains- they are not facts. When we can detach ourselves from our thoughts, we're more likely to let them pass without getting caught in the worry and narrative of the thought. Here is a meditation to try to support you in doing this.
Change Your Ritual
Changing the order or timing of body image rituals can be a solid start in feeling into the worry underneath body checking behaviors. Can you take care of yourself through the rise and fall of that distress?
Set a Timer
Limit your body checking to a specific amount of time. Once your time goes off, reset, take a deep breath, and offer yourself compassion for the same amount of time.
Body image issues are painful, but recovery from body dysmorphia and body checking is possible.
The team here at Reclaim Therapy specializes in treating body image issues and body dysmorphia. We provide therapy in Pennsylvania for eating disorders and body image concerns. If you're looking support as you navigate your recovery from disordered eating or body shame, we'd be happy to work with you.
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Reclaim Therapy provides specialized body image counseling in Pennsylvania and eating disorder treatment online and in Horsham, PA.
Our team utilizes EMDR Therapy for eating disorders and body image concerns. We also specialize in treating PTSD and CPTSD in our therapy clinic in Horsham, PA. We believe that all people are deserving of reclaiming themselves from body-shame, trauma and disordered eating.