Body Preoccupation

March 16, 2023 Magdalena Konopacka

What is body preoccupation?

Body preoccupation is applying extreme amounts of focus to key parts of your body, often resulting in poor body image. Body image is how we think and feel about our body and how we perceive others see our body. Our world is super fixated on the outer appearance and we experience it on the daily. This societal fixation then impacts us in the way we think, and pulls our focus to our body’s appearance. Children as young as 3 years old have been found to be dissatisfied with their body, 52% of children as young as 11 years old regularly worry about their body and 36% said they’d do anything to look good, including plastic surgery. Body preoccupation is a massive problem in general, and for some, it can be so bad it is diagnosable as a mental health condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD).

To some extent, it’s normal to be aware of your body. However, when it begins to be time-consuming, expensive, intrusive, negatively impacting your mental health, that’s when it it becoming a problem. The internal dialogue can be extremely powerful, and sometimes you may not notice just how extremely cruel it’s being. If you were to list or say to another person the different things your mind tells you about your body, you may be surprised at how mean those comments are. You may even outright refuse to say them to another person, because you’d never dare say something so horrible. You may also notice how often your mind drifts to how you look - walking past shop windows and seeing your reflection, while exercising and thinking of how your body looks while performing moves, while doing mundane tasks. Often people resort to trying to change their body to fix these thoughts and feelings they’re having, such as body composition changes, plastic surgery, purchasing expensive gadgets and make up and more. However, the issue isn’t to body. The problem is to do with how you think and feel about your body, and making the physical changes won’t always solve this problem.

If you’re finding that you’re struggling with your body image, and that you’re often thinking about your body, speak to a professional. Get help. You’re not the only one and you don’t need to struggle through this on your own. Speak to your doctor, with trusted friends and family, or reach out to me. If you want to Book a Discovery Call, you can do that here. I’m a nutritionist who works with people on rebuilding a positive relationship with food, exercise and their body.