Any Criticism About Your Body is BODY-SHAMING
It is cruel for anyone, especially someone who promised to be your soul-mate, life-long partner, to make negative statements about your body.
Covert Body Shaming is Doubly Harmful
I share this with the permission of a client, in her words:
We were meeting up with my parents on a tropical island. It had been over a year since I’d seen them, and I was so looking forward to this time together. As expected, we enjoyed the sun and the sea, played with the kids on the beach, and were just so happy to spend time with each other.
A couple of days into this week-long time together with my parents, my husband said, “Your mom looks like a beached whale. You’re going to have to really pay attention to your diet and exercise to not end up like her.”
It was still new enough in our marriage that I was not identifying his treatment toward me as abuse. I internalized what he said. I was hurt that he would be so negative about my mom, and although she looked age-appropriate on the beach, I thought that maybe my husband was right: I possessed genes to put on a few pounds once I reached middle-age.
Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I dropped down to about 20lbs below my ideal weight. Frankly, I’d lost my appetite. I didn’t think I was intentionally losing weight - I just didn’t want to eat anymore.
In this case, the abuser didn’t regularly body shame his wife. But he was regularly verbally and emotionally abusing her in other ways. She was primed to absorb this body shaming, and then she paid the price.
Reversing the Effects of Body Shaming
As with all forms of abuse, healing from body shaming begins with identifying it. Knowing that these thoughts have been planted in your mind as a means of control by an abusive partner will help you to fight against the abuse and claim the truth. If you can’t stop the abuser from speaking body-shaming things to you, at least combat them with positive, truthful affirmations. Reach out to a community that will help you, and practice gentleness with yourself.