Beach, bikini, body.

The lifeguard stands at Long Island's Jones Beach are ten feet high, but at the age of five or six I would have told you they stretched as tall as skyscrapers. I can remember sitting in one during a particularly sweltering summer day when I became separated from my family and was waited to be rescued. I can still remember the panic that lodged in my chest, the stomach-lurching view of the sand beneath me, the relief I felt when I was found.

I grew up about twenty minutes from the beach, in a modest apartment in Queens, and spent many summers building sandcastles and jumping waves and collecting shells and eating tuna salad sandwiches on tattered beach blankets. I got peeling sunburns and so many freckles that my camp counselor nicknamed me Spot. I also wore one-piece swimsuits that always rode up my butt, but I didn't care. I was just too busy, you see, chasing my cousins and looking for my shovel and ducking greasy applications of sunscreen to worry about silly things like swimsuits. I adored those afternoons at the beach. I adored them in a way I adored a Happy Meal or a new Barbie doll. That's what beaches are when you're young and innocent and free: places of total happiness.

But as I got older, Jones Beach became something different. Once I entered puberty, and my body filled out with curves that were as unwelcome as a splotchy birthmark on your face, I was seized with the terror of removing my cover-up and exposing my body to the beach goers around me - specifically, other girls my age. They wore string bikinis and Ray Bans and the glossy sheen of Ban De Soleil. They were confident, and chic, and splayed their long limbs on beach towels their moms bought at Benetton. Where I once splashed and played, I began to cower and flinch. I spent a lot of time in those days trying to apologize for my body. My legs were too squat. My stomach was too round. My butt was too defiantly a butt, a round thing that protruded where I wanted it to lie flat. I remember the agonizing dilemma of whether I would keep my tee shirt on once I dove into the ocean. Doing so was as good as admitting that my body deserved to be covered up, as if even I knew it was too flawed to be exposed to the public.

And so I hid as best as I could. I stopped going to the beach altogether. I made excuses when my mom planned outings. There were no sand castles for me, no sunscreen to apply, no tuna salad sandwiches to eat. And no swimsuits to wear.

I don't live near Jones Beach anymore. Actually, there isn't a beach anywhere near my house. But there are neighborhood pools, where I accompany my kids for long afternoons of swimming. It is at these pools where I sit, fixated on the women around me, wondering how my body compares to theirs. Could I wear a bikini like the woman next to me has on? Do I dare expose my thighs, my stomach?  What about a skirted tankini, meant to conceal that fleshy upper thigh area all women seem to despise? It seems that donning one is the same as hiding in my tee shirt - an admission that I have something worth hiding.

I wish I could go to the pool and just swim. I wish I could relax, and enjoy the breeze rustling my hair, and the sweet summertime scent of coconut SPF. But I just don't know how. I don't know how to enjoy being in my skin without those nagging voices in my head berating me. I don't know how to exorcise that screech that my body is just not good enough. Perhaps I never will. It's a tough thing, this learning to accept my body just as it is, and to stop comparing it to those around me.

Rant of the saggy knees

Since entering this world thirty-seven years ago, I've had a few memorable brushes with accomplishment. At seven I learned how to ride my bike without training wheels. In the sixth grade I won my class spelling bee. In high school I auditioned for all-city orchestra, and got in. I survived divorced parents, premature colicky twins, a husband constantly on the road for work and an unfortunate encounter with poison ivy. I'm pretty tough.

The other day I went out in shorts for the first time in over a year. Somehow this accomplishment feels mightier than all the things I'd accomplished previously. Now, to someone who wears shorts all the time, this might not be such a big deal. But to me, chronic shorts avoider, it is. You see, I hate my knees. Well, that's not entirely accurate. I hate the area above my knees. Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and put my hands just above that spot, pulling the skin up so it isn't saggy. Just to see how much better it'd be. Things would be so different, I think, if I didn't have saggy knees.

Oddly enough, I don't have a problem wearing skirts. Shirts gently swish over my hips and gracefully conceal the lumps and bumps above my knees. Skirts seem infinitely more forgiving. Shorts are ruthless devices of the devil, gripping the thighs. There's no hiding in a pair of shorts, what with their four-inch inseams and thin cotton twill.

I notice knees a lot. Especially here in Dallas, where it's been shorts-weather for weeks. It's hard not to. Everyone is waltzing around in shorts, as if saggy knees don't mean a damm thing. Somewhat bafflingly, the women in short shorts seem to care the least. I visited a designer's showroom last summer. She is known here in Dallas for creating clothes for the "mature" woman, the type who lives in the suburbs, collects art, plays tennis, and whose kids are off at college. While discussing skirt length, she explained that her designs feature just-below-the-knee length hems, in order to appease "those women whose knees have dropped."

Huh, I thought. My knees have dropped too.

As women, our bodies seem defined by change. As little girls we're freckles and skinned elbows and playing dress-up in our mom's closets. In adolescence, a surge in hormones causes our bodies to take on curves. We shed our baby weight and gangly limbs for breasts and hips, hips that jut out emphatically where hips had not been before. We don't understand what's going on, but it's happening to our friends too. We can't control it. We trade in our training bras for those with adjustable straps and molded cups. Our periods arrive and we become women. Just for fun, we dye our hair colors not found in nature. We graduate from high school and head to college or enter the workforce. Soon we discover that the candy bars we ate thoughtlessly as kids now make a lipidly bee line straight to our thighs. We gain weight. Upper arms, once sleek, become a bit soft. We buy creams and lotions for age spots, wrinkles, cellulite, crow's feet. We color our hair to cover the grey. Then we have children and really don't recognize ourselves anymore at all.

When I looked at my shorts, folded neatly in my drawer, they didn't seem so harmful. They're just shorts, after all. And my life really wouldn't be that different if my knees weren't saggy. Saggy knees are just a part of getting older, like age spots and crow's feet and grey hair. Perhaps, if I didn't have saggy knees, I'd go bare-legged more often. But here's the thing. Whether my knees are smooth and taunt, or drooping and saggy,  I'd still be me: an almost middle-aged, stay-at-home mom; a poison ivy survivor, occasional sewer and bike rider. I'd still get older. I'd still have to face the uncontrollable effect of gravity on my body, the loss of elasticity, the march towards menopause. It's going to happen, whether I wear the damm shorts or not.

In the end, I wore my shorts with a striped 3/4 sleeve tee and slip-on sneakers. It wasn't that bad. I didn't experience a euphoric moment of self-acceptance and saggy knee love. I didn't rush out to J Crew and load up on their rainbow-hued chino shorts. But I creep one step closer to understanding that hating the aging process, and it's effect on my knees, is really a waste of time. It doesn't sound like much. But I'll take my victories where I can get them.

Which part of your body are you most afraid to expose? Do you find yourself nit-picking at a particular area? Are their certain articles of clothing you avoid wearing?

Polka dot jeans, and my relationship with food

On Sunday, I changed my clothes twelve times.

It was one of those days where nothing seemed to go right. My husband and I had argued about something trivial. The house was a mess. I had a long list of emails to catch up on. And I suffered a humiliating fall in front of my kids while playing tennis. Earlier in the week,  I had bought a pair of jeans from Urban Outfitters, a store whose clothes seem better suited for long-limbed gangly teenagers than a middle aged mom such as myself. They were slim cut with a playful polka dot print and ended right at my ankles. I wanted these jeans to work for me. I wanted them to make me look laid-back and relaxed and youthful. I wanted them to turn me into the wistful models in the Urban Outfitters catalog, with their long straight hair and penchant for standing on cliffs in the middle of the desert staring out blankly at nothing.

I slid the jeans on and paired them with a selection of tee shirts and button-downs and thin knit sweaters. Nothing worked. The jeans constricted around my stomach and thighs. I felt myself becoming anxious. I changed and changed again, until clothes piled in a depressing heap on my bed. I felt fat. I know fat is not a feeling, but that was all I could think about. I was old and fat.

I had eaten a big meal out with my husband the night before, a meal I couldn't stop thinking it. The food was luscious - the kind that features butter as both a main ingredient and a garnish, and I felt guilty about eating it. I felt like the jeans were punishing me for it. It was hard for me to even decide if I'd liked what I'd eaten because the meal was so indulgent. I couldn't separate the guilty feelings I had from eating foods I classified as "bad" with whether I had even liked them in the first place. The jeans only made my confusion more pronounced.

There is so much discomfort about food and what normal eating is. We worry about our weight and qualify foods into "good" or "bad" types. We count calories and carefully monitor what we do and do not eat. We might shun foods that are actually good for us in an effort to avoid weight gain. Whether we count points, calories or fat grams or keep a food journal or observe and restrict ourselves in other ways, the message is the same: Following the rules is more important that actually tasting or even enjoying what we're eating. So it's no surprise that we lose touch with our bodies, and get iffy about signs that we're even hungry or full, and feel guilty when we do eat. Sometimes, once a meal is over, we often don't realize how much we ate. At the end of the day we might even struggle to recall what we put in our bodies.

Yesterday I came across an article which quoted Ellyn Satter, a renowned eating and feeding expert and a registered dietician and therapist. I love Satter’s definition of normal eating:

Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it -not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

I worry about enjoying eating. Especially during times like now when I find myself trying more foods I've previously been uncomfortable with. I feel ashamed that I like to eat, and wish that food was just neutral to me. But enjoying food, as Satter writes on her website, is healthy.

Eating is supposed to be enjoyable. For too many of us, eating represents trouble. We feel guilty if we eat what we ”shouldn’t” and deprived if we eat what we ”should.” We eat more than we think we should, and we worry about weight. Surveys show that when the joy goes out of eating, nutrition suffers.

I don't have a very refined palette, but honestly, I adore food. I love the memories certain foods have for me - latkes at Hanukkah and cookies during Christmas; a particularly memorable piece of strawberry creme cake devoured during my 26th birthday while living in Brooklyn; the sushi my husband and I ate during one of our first dates. But of course, because I’m a woman, and because I’m a woman who grew up in an era of food awareness, in a household that reinforced dieting, I can't love food without reservation.

What's your relationship with food? How often do you feel guilty after eating? Do you categorize foods as "good" or "bad"? Do you ever feel confused about what normal eating is?

And in the naked light I saw: Nudity, shame and celebrity

{Source}

I have never, ever enjoyed being naked. Not as a child, and certainly not as an adult. I did not grow up in a naked house. My parents were firm believers in sheathing our naked bits in layers of clothing, preferably made from wool. I don't walk around my house naked. I don't go to sleep naked. I don't wash the dishes, or so any sort of housework, naked. I don't soak for hours in the tub or read books naked in front of my fireplace or go to nudist beaches. And I cannot relate to those inane magazine spreads featuring naked models just lounging around, looking simultaneously bored and glamorous. Those are the worst.

So you can imagine my confusion when I, chronic avoider of nakedness, gave birth to three children who adore nothing more than being au natural. My children are the nudist version of Hansel and Gretel, shedding clothes around the house the moment they arrive home from school. They strut from room to room, bare stomachs jutting out in front of them, without a care in the world. Warm, rainy weather brings not the opportunity to huddle inside watching cartoons, but the chance to scamper outside in rainboots and their birthday suits. Their bodies are an endless source of fascination, and their lumps, smells and sounds are debated with the same intensity as the Nurenburg trials.

As far as my children are concerned, clothes are confining, itchy, suffocating instruments of torment better left to uptight adults like myself. Clothes squeeze their necks and leave marks on their skin. Clothes make them sweaty. No matter what they're made from, clothes will never feel as good as being naked does.

The other day I came across the following quote from Carey Mulligan, the pixie-like actress from An Education (one of my favorite movies):

"I tend to clamp up on camera, but this meant working with no inhibitions. I mean, I don't wear a bikini on the beach. I walk around my house in pyjamas. I haven't seen myself naked in the mirror for probably a decade. I'm very prudish."

I like to think that actresses spend hours starring at their naked reflections in the mirror, transfixed by their own glistening perfection. They pay obscene sums to personal trainers and get spray-tanned and spend long, luxurious hours under the strong hands of a masseuse at an exotic spa somewhere in Bali. It's challenging for me to wrap my head around the concept that tiny framed Carey Mulligan, she of the pixie cut and poreless skin, purposely avoids seeing her nude self. I wonder if her prudishness is a cover for body insecurity. I wonder if she feels ashamed with how she looks. And I wonder if she always has. Did she wander around naked as a child and stomp around nude in the rain? Did she shed her clothes like a snake slithering from its skin after a day at school? Did her body ever fascinate and entertain, rather than admonish and scold?

I wonder if I will ever be comfortable being naked. Perhaps I'm just not a naked person. But it would be nice not to avert my eyes when faced with my own nude reflection. Claiming my nakedness would reaffirm my commitment towards self-acceptance, flaws and all. It would help destroy those irrational thoughts of having to be being perfect or looking as I "should."  It would force me to examine who I am without my protective layers of wool and cotton, cable knit and denim. And it would bring me closer to the pure delight of living in my body and embracing what it is to be me.

Now I ask you: How comfortable are you with being naked? Do you enjoy spending time in the nude when you're at home? Does your naked body make you feel self-conscious, whether you're alone or with a significant other? Has being naked ever interfered between intimate moments with your spouse or boyfriend?

The issue of my perfect weight.

In October, while I was in New York, I took the train out to Long Island to visit family I hadn't seen in nearly two years. My stomach was in knots. The relatives I'd planned to meet had never seen my tattoos, my red hair, my nose piercing (which I'll admit is tiny, but significant) and I was unsure how they would react. And there was also the matter of my weight - as a byproduct of recovery from my eating disorder, I'd gained about 35 pounds since our last visit. In the days preceding our reunion I played out various scenarios of how the day might go. I girding myself against possible shock or hostility or long, uncomfortable pauses. I was anxious. I couldn't sleep. I talked to my husband about it.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" he asked.
"Because," I said, but then I realized I had no idea. I was an accomplished woman, with three beautiful children, a successful blog, a blossoming freelance writing career and a book to publish. My anxiety made no rational sense.  These people were my family, and they loved me. I was being ridiculous.

When I arrived at my family's house, there were hugs and kisses and no mention of any of the things I was worried about. Well, not at first.

"Well," said my relative. "You look great. Really. You're at your perfect weight. This is your perfect weight."

The rest of the visit went by in a blur. Through our afternoon of lunch and shopping and coffee and chatter, I felt increasingly flummoxed. The words "perfect weight" hung over me like one of those thought bubbles in a cartoon. What did they mean? Was I at my perfect weight? Was this the way I was destined to look? That morning I'd spent fifteen minutes in front of the full-length mirror in my hotel room, examining the way my thighs looked in my suede skirt. They didn't seem perfect to me. Neither did my stomach, or my knees, or the backs of my arms. As a matter of fact, I was pretty dissatisfied with my body in general. It jiggled and took up too much space. If this was my perfect weight, I wanted no part of it at all. No sir.

Sometimes I feel like there's an invisible scale that follows me around. It sits next to me when I eat, staring pointedly at the pat of butter on my bread roll. It lurks in the corner while I'm running on my treadmill. I open the door to my pantry and the invisible scale glares at me from a shelf, dictating what I should and should not eat. And worst of all, it regularly reminds me of my lowest weight, the number I was when I was sick and starving.

That damm scale.
My damm weight.

I don't want to be the kind of woman who thinks about their weight all the time. Truthfully, I don't really give a damm what my perfect weight is. I invest a lot of energy in not thinking about my weight, and only perseverate on it when someone else (like my doctor, or husband...or relative) brings it up. I'd much rather spend my time concentrating on writing, or hiking with my kids, or thrifting, or reading a good book.

I understand that my relative meant well. I know they never intended to send me into a spiral of self-doubt. Ultimately, it's up to me to process comments about my body in a healthy, rational way. There will always be people who take it upon themselves to comment on my body, well-meaning or not, and that invasion is much more concerning than whatever my "perfect weight" is. I'm not sure when it became acceptable for anyone to comment on another person's weight, or body shape, or other attribute of appearance. Increasingly, it seems our bodies are not our own. Whether it's relatives, or the media, or self-help books telling us how we should look, the message is the same: As women, we exist for public display.

This morning I ate Greek yogurt with granola and bananas for breakfast. It was delicious. And I didn't think about my perfect weight once.

Being your own best friend

 I have this person who follows me around all day. "Idiot!" she yells when I delete the wrong email. "Fat cow," she sneers, when I order an entree instead of a salad for dinner. "Lazybones!" she shrieks, if I turn over for an extra five minutes in bed.

It's very wearing, this constant litany of  putdowns and insults. And oddly enough, despite this person being so severe and critical, she doesn't succeed in making me change my behavior. She certainly doesn't build up my confidence or make me feel good about myself in any way. And yet I find it very hard to shake her off.

Compare her with my real friends. These wonderful women tell me I look great when I've made an effort to look good. They tell me to relax, that I'm being too hard on myself. They remind me of things I have accomplished, of things I've done that have made me happy.

The thing is, this other person is me. She is a collection of all the negative judgments, late-night terrors and critical harshness that I have ever experienced. And the really crazy thing is that she is the one I listen to.

Lately I've been thinking about what it means to really love yourself. I've come to the conclusion that doing so is the same as being your own best friend. You enjoy spending time alone; are appreciative of your strengths; and forgive yourself after making mistakes. Best friends are kind, supportive, and respectful of each other. They speak to one another with kindness, know when to offer the other a pep talk, and honor one another's opinions.

It's pretty powerful stuff, this being my own best friend business. But the challenge becomes when we recognize how hard we are on ourselves all of the time. Whether I'm bashing my appearance, my job as a parent, my writing skills, the way I'm dressed or the way I treat my husband, it's more often than not that I'm closer to my own worst enemy than best friend.

I think that being our own best friend becomes a priority when thinking about ways to improve body image. It's a surefire way to turn wanting to have a healthy body imagine into actually having a healthy body image. Think about it: Your best friend would never tell you your thighs are too big or your stomach too jiggly. She would never say that you don't deserve to go out on a Saturday night because you've gained ten pounds, or that you should wait to buy new clothes until you lose weight. She'd never call you or your body cruel names. She'd never tell you to put off living life to the fullest until your body is "perfect." And she'd never think less of you because of the way you look.

I believe we can talk to ourselves about anything. Just as we put ourselves down, we can pull ourselves up. The dark side of each of us, the insulting inner voice, can be challenged and replaced with something more nurturing. If we pay attention to the way we talk to ourselves in private we can learn to correct the harshness and become our own best friend. One way to get rid of that negative voice we hear muttering in our ear is to ask ourselves, "What would my best friend say to me in this moment?" Whatever the answer is -  be it that you're beautiful, or capable, or intelligent, or talented - say that to yourself, and make the choice to believe it.

A pimple, perfection, and Victoria's Secret

On Monday I woke up with a pimple. This was a pimple with roots, the kind that promised to stick around for a week and seemed impervious to over-the-counter acne medication and homemade potions designed to eradicate it. I spent a good fifteen minutes in front of the mirror trying to conceal it from the general public, attempting to cover it up with cream foundation, then powder, then a particularly viscous combination of both. But no matter how hard I tried, Pimple wasn't going anywhere. I spent most of the day thinking about it. I repeatedly inspected it in every mirrored surface I passed, deciphering whether it'd gotten smaller or more swollen since waking up. Pimple haunted me, invading every thought.

Pimple ruined my day.

In our appearance-obsessed society, we learn at an early age the importance of a perfect figure. We learn to nitpick at our body parts. We suck in our stomachs, our cheeks; we wear Spanx and push-up bras and tummy-tucking pantyhose. We lament our inner thighs and wonder why there isn't space between them. We try workout trends like Zumba and P90X and wonder why our abs aren't as sculpted as the instructors. We restrict ourselves on odd diets, eating very specific organic gluten-free foods, believing that if we do so, we'll be perfect.

We deeply, deeply believe we can be perfect. Everything revolves around this quest. If we lose the weight, we will be successful. Men will love us. Women will envy us. Stores will cater to us. Our every dream will be attainable, if only we can be perfect. We assume that if we're perfect, model-thin and blemish-free, we'll be popular, successful and happy. Perfectionism greatly contributes to a negative body image. It leads us to focus on our faults and flaws, and it makes our messy selves seem unacceptable.

Here's the thing about perfection: It's impossible to reach. And it makes us miserable. Yesterday I ran across an article on the Huffington Post describing the diet regime of a Adriana Lima, Victoria's Secret supermodel, before a runway show. Lima confessed that beginning three months before the show, she works out twice a day with a personal trainer. She also sees a nutritionist, who measures her body's muscle mass, fat ratio and levels of water retention. He prescribes protein shakes, vitamins and supplements to keep Lima's energy levels up during this training period. Lima drinks a gallon of water a day, and for nine days before the show she will drink only protein shakes - "no solids". The concoctions include powdered egg. Two days before the show she will abstain from the gallon of water a day and "just drink normally". Then, 12 hours before the show she will stop drinking entirely.

The fact that the Huffington Post chose to highlight the extreme diet of a Victoria's Secret supermodel, a woman whose appearance is revered, left me rankled. What message are we, as women, supposed to take from this? Should we be horrified that our beauty standards are so skewed that women are expected to be nutritionally compromised and dehydrated in order to advertise this season's skimpy lingerie? Are we to be so motivated by Lima's extreme dieting that we emulate her routine? The article manages to shame Lima ("So no solids and no liquids... it's a wonder Lima and her winged gal pals don't just pass out right on the runway!"), shames the reader for eating too much ("Want to feel bad about your own workout and diet regimen? Just talk to a Victoria's Secret Angel"), and promotes impossible beauty standards ("The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is the Super Bowl of modeling") all at the same time.

When it comes to articles that highlight a celebrity's diet, it's natural that we'd be curious. We live in a society that promotes a specific female ideal body type - white, tall, thin, able-bodied and young. Perfect. So why wouldn't we find it irresistible to read pieces which give hints as how we can achieve this body type? However, when we focus on what models and celebrities women eat, and then point fingers and judge them for it without talking about the cultural climate that accepts and encourages these beauty standards, everyone loses. Lima is not  to blame here. Rather, the unquestionable female standards for perfection are. 

How has perfection affected your body image? Be honest - do you read pieces that describe celebrity diets?  What do you think of Lima's diet? Have you ever gone on an extreme diet for a specific event?

Nose jobs and body dysmorphic disorder: More connected than you might think.

When I was pregnant with my children, something weird happened to my body. I'm not referring to the swollen ankles, or the stretch marks, or the smattering of broken blood vessels across my chest (in case you were searching for reasons to avoid becoming pregnant.) No, I'm talking about my nose. During those magical, perplexing nine months, my nose became plumper and rounder and wider. At first I thought I was imagining things; somehow directing all the anxiety about my pregnancy weight gain towards my nose. But it was true - my nose definitely changed. Now I had this thing, this snout on my face. I was Christina Ricci's character in Penelope, a girl cursed with a pig nose. An awful, protruding, pig nose.

Miraculously, things went back to normal after giving birth. But the post traumatic stress disorder remained. When I put on my makeup on the morning, my vision pinpoints directly to my nose. Has it become rounder? Is that a bump? I preen and examine, turning my head this way and that to be sure nothing has changed.

I have never considered a nose job, but I can certainly see why some women have. There are women who are at war with their big noses, though I kind of think a big nose can be striking on some. Nose jobs have become so socially acceptable that teenage girls are asking for them as sweet sixteen presents. And just weeks ago  Nightline ran a story a thirteen year-old girl who got who to prevent being bullied at school. Nose jobs these days are no big deal.

Or so we think. The New York Times recently reported that about one in three people who seek rhinoplasty (aka, a nose job) have symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), "a mental health condition in which a person has an unnatural preoccupation with slight or imagined defects in appearance." BDD, first introduced in the revised third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1987, is characterized by a preoccupation with an aspect of one's appearance. People with BDD repeatedly change or examine the offending body part to the point that the obsession interferes with other aspects of their life.

Belgium researchers studied 266 patients over a 16-month period and say that as many of 43 percent of nose job patients may have the condition. The study, published in the August issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, shows a surprisingly high rate of body dysmorphic disorder among nose-job patients. Previous studies have shown that about 10 percent of patients seeking plastic surgery suffer from the condition.

“We know body image dissatisfaction falls on a continuum, and there has to be some degree of dissatisfaction that leads us to see a plastic surgeon in the first place,” said David B. Sarwer, associate professor of psychology at the Center for Human Appearance at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s when it begins to interfere with daily functioning. Patients with more severe B.D.D. struggle to maintain social relationships and have difficulty getting to work or staying employed.”

It's important to note that the majority of BDD patients who have cosmetic surgery do not experience improvement in their BDD symptoms, often asking for multiple procedures on the same or other body features. In a small retrospective study of 200 individuals with BDD, 31 percent sought and 21 percent received surgical or minimally invasive treatment for BDD symptoms. Nearly all of these individuals continued to have BDD symptoms, and some actually developed new appearance preoccupations. A related a survey of 265 cosmetic surgeons, 178 (65 percent) reported treating patients with BDD, yet only one percent of the cases resulted in BDD symptom improvement.

It's kind of terrifying to imagine that there are physicians performing cosmetic surgery on patients with a mental illness who believe their looks are so damaged that they require it. It is the rare woman who can see herself honestly in the mirror without negative body thoughts clouding her perception. How many plastic surgeons actually turn away people who really look fine but are obsessed with changing a nose - or some other body part? This sort of obsession, fed by media presentation of impossibly perfectly beautiful women, fuels the plastic surgery industry. It is this anxiety, this quest for perfection based on skewed perceptions of appearance, that keeps surgeons in business. If every appearance-obsessed plastic surgery-obsessed patient was turned away, plastic surgeons would go broke in a hurry.

Have you ever considered a nose job, or other plastic surgery procedure? What do you think of this study? Are you surprised by the high correlation between body dysmorphic disorder and nose jobs?

In case you missed it:

• Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a large Missoni for Target cosmetics case and $25 Starbucks gift card, just for being you.

Does your actual appearance match what you see in the mirror?

Image via We Heart It

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Where do you focus your attention? If you're anything like me, your eyes zero in on the areas that you think need the most improvement, are ashamed of, or otherwise cause your distress and anxiety.

When I look into the mirror, my eyes immediately zoom in on my stomach. I am by far the most sensitive about that part of my body than any other, so much so that in July I devoted an entire post to the contentious relationship I've had with that body part. The state of my stomach defines my mood, my diet, and the level of anxiety I feel during the day. When it is flat I feel confident; when it's bloated or bulging I feel anxious and depressed. I don't want to be touched; I wear long shirts and Spanx in an effort to conceal what I am certain looks like a 9 month pregnancy belly; and, worst of all, I miss the days of my anorexia and bulimia, when my hipbones jutted forward proudly and my stomach was concave.

I was having dinner with two friends the other day when the conversation wound to our bodies - specifically, what parts each of us despised the most. One friend lamented her calves and thighs, which she proclaimed "huge." Her discomfort towards them was so strong that it dictated how she dressed - no short skirts, shorts or body skimming pants for her. The other complained about the "junk in her trunk" - her booty, which she felt had gotten bigger and bigger in the past few years. For the life of me, I could not see what either had to complain about. I didn't see huge legs, or a big butt, or any flaws at all. They each looked beautiful - two well-dressed, intelligent women I was proud to have dinner with.

Most of the time, the image someone has of their body is pretty close to its external appearance. You may see your thighs as slightly bigger than they actually are, or your arm muscles as slightly smaller, but the discrepancy is usually minimal. In some mental disorders, however, body image can become dramatically distorted. Those who suffer from body dysmorphic disorder think that parts of their bodies are malformed or grotesque, even when these supposed flaws are not noticeable to others. In eating disorders such as anorexia patients continue to think they need to lose weight even as their bodies become emaciated.

When I was in treatment for anorexia, one common group therapy activity was body tracing. We'd sketch an outline of our bodies on a life-size piece of butcher paper, then lie in the outline as another patient traced our actual size inside of it. The discrepancy between what we thought our body shape was, and what it actually was, astounded us. I couldn't help but flash back to this memory after dinner concluded. I wondered how far off the average woman's perception of her body is from her actual size.

What people see in their mirror and how they believe they look varies wildly according to age, ethnic group, sexual orientation, mood, what they've been watching on TV, what magazines they read, whether they're married or single, what kind of childhood they had, whether they take part in sports, what phase of the menstrual cycle they're in, whether they are pregnant, where they've been shopping – and even what they had for lunch. All research to date on body image shows that women are much more critical of their appearance than men, and much less likely to admire what they see in the mirror. Up to 8 out of 10 women will be dissatisfied with their reflection, and more than half may see a distorted image. According to the authors of the website My Body Gallery,  95 percent of non-eating disordered women overestimate the size of their hips by 16 percent and their waists by 25 percent, yet the same women were able to correctly estimate the width of a box. In a world full of images of how we ‘should’ look it can get difficult to tell how we DO look.

Your body image is how you perceive, think and feel about your body. This may have no bearing at all on your actual appearance. I've been feeling really crappy about my appearance lately, but while I'm struggling, I'm trying to figure out what has triggered these negative thoughts. My two friends mentioned the anxieties they're currently struggling with - work stress, and shame for having not attending college. I believe there's a direct correlation between how we see our bodies and external stress.

So now I ask you: What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you believe you over or under-estimate your size? Have you ever noticed a correlation between poor body image and mood?

In case you missed it:

• Don't forget to enter my giveaway to win a $25 gift card to JC Penney! 

The connection between low body image and shopping behavior

I have some seriously beautiful friends. Friends with long legs. Friends with translucently pale skin. Friends with interesting faces and luxuriously thick heads of hair. They know how to dress, these friends, and have that mystically quality of looking put-together without as if they tried to look put together. They walk with an elegant, confident stride. They can go without make-up, have enviable tiny waists and project an air of confidence that's hard to ignore.

There is no question that when I'm with these women, I'm the odd one out. I am not statuesque nor tall like most of them are. My hair refuses to be coaxed into submission, and becomes rebelliously disheveled the longer the day drags on. And it's red - aggressively red. Without mascara, I look half-asleep. And I have a few very prominent tattoos that make me appear both quirky and slightly dangerous.

But I like spending time with these women. We meet over drinks and laugh and share appetizers and gossip about blogging stuff. But we've rarely gone shopping together. I was thinking about this when I wrote last week's post regarding shopping as a female bonding activity. Then I came upon an article in the Huffington Post that's somewhat related. According to a study conducted by Science Daily, as reported in the Journal of Consumer Research, new research shows that when you feel unhappy about your body while trying on an outfit in a store and you see an attractive customer or salesperson wearing that same outfit, you are less likely to buy it.

The authors of the paper write:

"If [the low self-esteem customer] sees a dress on an attractive consumer in the store and is trying on the same dress herself, as she looks in the mirror she now thinks to herself, 'That dress is really cute and stylish on me, but compared to her, I look terrible!'"

For this phenomenon to occur, both parties needed to be wearing the same item. In the study, the negative evaluations did not occur if the other shopper was merely carrying the item or if consumers didn't try on the item but saw someone else wearing it. It should also be noted that the sample population the study relied on had low body image to begin with, and as a result, the findings only apply when shoppers have low self-esteem before entering a store. But I found it compelling that we, as consumers, are so influenced by the shoppers (and salespeople) around us that they might prevent us from making a purchase. That's because consumers take in social cues when shopping, meaning even if a shopper thinks a shirt looks stylish on the rack or on another person wearing the item in a store, when the shopper tries on the item, he or she has a tendency to think, "I look terrible compared to the good-looking person who had this on!"

The study concludes that retailers should design their stores so shoppers can try on clothes without having to leave private dressing rooms and be distracted by other people. It also questions whether employees should be required to wear a brand's clothing. States like California already have laws in place to prevent brands such as Abercrombie, Gap and Polo Ralph Lauren from requiring their employees to buy and wear their clothes, but there are no laws requiring stores to have private dressing rooms

It is nearly an impossible task to avoid comparing yourself to other women when we're wearing the same clothes as they are. In addition, when we're already struggling with low self-esteem, concurrent body image issues aren't that far behind. When I'm feeling especially low about how look (which is approximately 75% of the time) the last thing I want to do is examine how I stack up to my gorgeous friends or customers wearing the same clothes. Women with low opinions of their physical appearance are at a greater risk for negative effects from any sort of media or environmental influence, whether it's advertisements with skinny models or commercials related to dieting or weight loss.

I'm wondering what you think of the results of this study. Do you think attractive customers and salespeople influence the buying habits of consumers? Would you be less inclined to make a purchase if you saw someone attractive trying on the same clothes you're considering? How much of a influence do you believe low self-esteem and body image plays into buying habits? Are you less likely to buy when you're having negative thoughts about your appearance?

In case you missed it:

I currently have TWO giveaways running this week!

• Win a pack of custom business cards from UPrinting (giveaway ends on October 5th.)
• Win a Missoni for Target winter gift set (giveaway ends October 7th.)

The sacrifice of beauty

Stop what you're doing for a moment, and consider everything that can happen in a year. You might land a new job, achieve a promotion, get engaged or married, make new friends, move to a dream location or perhaps get a new pet. You might finally grow your hair out of that awkward I-got-a-pixie-cut-that-I-immediately-regretted incident. Maybe you'll resolve a conflict that's been dragging out.

In any case, twelve months can bring many things, good and bad. It's the possibility of greatness that we all look forward to, the idea that things will probably get better, that we can grow and change into the people we dream of being. These thoughts immediately came to my mind when I came across a study which concluded that among women18 to 65 at British universities, some 16% said they would swap one year of their life for their ideal body and 10% were willing to trade between two and five years. In addition, almost one in three would be willing to die younger in exchange for the ‘ideal’ figure. The finding is all the more shocking because almost all of those polled were in the normal weight range – or even underweight.

According to the study conducted by eating disorder charity the Succeed Foundation, 2% of women polled were willing to forgo up to a  decade, and 1% saying they'd give up at least 21 years younger in exchange for a slimmer shape. Overall, 30% of the 320 women questioned said they would be willing to make a trade. But it wasn't just years women were willing to sacrifice. Seven per cent would give up spending time with their family, 9% their friends and 7% would give up their health to achieve their 'ideal' shape.

In the 19th century, women used whitening agents with lead oxide to appear striking. In ancient China, the four-inch bound "lotus foot" was considered the sign of perfect beauty. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the wealthy used belladonna eye drops to dilate their pupils, generating an "attractive" doe-like appearance. Today, some women are undergoing cosmetic limb-lengthening surgery, an extraordinarily painful procedure costing upwards of $200,000. Limb lengthening involves surgically breaking the shin and femur bones, and gradually pulling them apart over the course of a year with a gruesome system of metal rods and pins. Patients are confined to a wheelchair, undergo intensive physical therapy, and risk bone infection, avascular necrosis (bone death) and destruction of cartilage. Just 40% of patients achieve desired results: a mere two to three inches gained in height.

Sacrifice and beauty seem to go hand in hand. Whether we're pouring hot wax onto our neither regions to remove hair, or starving ourselves to lose a few pounds, or pushing ourselves to exhaustion at the gym, the unspoken message is that we must sacrifice to achieve our physical ideal, whatever that is. How we chose to sacrifice depends on many things - the specific cultural norms of our geographic location; our ethnicity; even our religious beliefs. Beauty standards are striated even within the same socioeconomic class and geographic location. Because of these concurrent concepts of attractiveness, our cultural criteria for good looks is nearly impossible to define. As a result, how we determine the value of sacrifice for beauty can widely differ.

There's also the ways in which we emotionally sacrifice for attractiveness. In my past, I've given up relationships with friends (to avoid eating with them,)  recreational activities (particularly those involving the need to wear a swim suit,) and intimacy within my relationships (such as the avoidance of sex due to low body image.) My battle with anorexia led me to prioritize losing weight over academic achievement, relationships, and nearly everything else.

I believe it's important for us to be aware of the sacrifices we make to attain beauty. Most of them are done with little thought, as they're so integrated into the norms of our subcultures. But without mindfulness, we might end up making sacrifices that deeply subtract from the joy and happiness we deserve to have.

Now I ask you: What sacrifices do you make for beauty? How would you define the cultural standard of beauty where you live? (Some locals value tanning, Botox, teeth whitening; others a more athletic standard; still more a curvaceous silhouette.) Do you give much thought as to the things you give up to attain attractiveness? Would you trade a year (or more) of your life for a slimmer, more 'ideal' shape? Are you surprised by the results of this study?

Do women choose the fear of aging over health?

Photo via We Heart It

Every night at five o'clock I watch the news. I like to believe that I'm staying current with world events, or keeping an eye out for potential weather disasters, or even following local community news. Truthfully, I'm most interested in those salacious stories that come at the end of the newscast. You know - the ones which are solely focused on the seemingly innocent things in our environment that could kill us. Last night, for example, my local news screeched the terrifying prospect of coma and death if I didn't clean out my medicine cabinet. Eating microwave popcorn could KILL ME, it warned. Drinking too much water? Get ready for kidney failure, impaired breathing and ZOMG brain swelling. Even the simple act of packing my kids lunchboxes in the morning is fraught with danger.It's enough to make one consider a life spent breathing in purified oxygen in a plastic bubble tent, because WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE TERROR IN THE STREETS START STOCKPILING ANTIBIOTICS RIGHT NOW OR ELSE AAAARRRGGHHHH!

I suppose we all do things, wittingly or not, that could potentially harm us. Whether it's eating french fries, smoking, tanning, riding a bike without a helmet or keeping cosmetics past their recommended usage date, we take chances and court risks. We know that smoking and leading a sedentary lifestyle are bad for us. And yet there we are, lying out in the sun and couch surfing to our heart's content.

Last week, there was a delightful little read over at the Huffington Post which warned that the mere act of having good hair could kill you. Wha? Surgeon general Regina M. Benjamin recently warned attendees of the Bronner Bros. International Hair Show in Atlanta, Georgia that women who skip exercising in order to protect their hairstyles should focus more on their health. "Oftentimes you get women saying, 'I can't exercise today because I don't want to sweat my hair back or get my hair wet,' said Dr. Benjamin. "When you're starting to exercise, you look for reasons not to, and sometimes the hair is one of those reasons."

Multiple studies have shown that women focus more on their looks than they do on their health. A survey conducted last year by East Tennessee State University found that women are more likely to buy products that ward off "age spots" than skin cancer. According to Sociological Images, the study at East Tennessee State University found that "if you want to get women to stop using tanning beds, warning them about the risk of skin cancer isn’t nearly as effective as warning them about the risk of age spots and other forms of damage to their appearance." And a recent report shows that women spend way more on beauty products than health care: $540 a month on hair products, make-up, and fake tanners, compared to $360 on their physical well-being.

Although a healthcare spokesperson told TheMoneyTimes.com, "So many of us are guilty of taking shortcuts to ensure we look good - often at the expense of our health" However, I believe the message behind these studies has much more to do with vanity and the fear of aging than a lack of concern over our health. Women purchase products such as anti-wrinkle cream, anti-cellulite lotions and cosmetics to look younger and feel more confident. And that's exactly the way these products are marketed. Advertisements crow that you can "Erase the years" and "Look ten years younger!" rather than point to the ways products prevent illness. The message is that we need these products to beautify ourselves, not to be healthier. For example, while Oil of Olay's Total Effects Daily Moisturizer contains an SPF 15 (presumably to prevent skin cancer) it is marketed on the Olay website that it "moisturizes to create visibly younger-looking skin and fight 7 signs of aging." Sure, the SPF is there to protect against sun damage...which is terrifying because it leads to "premature visible skin aging."

We live in an era in which there is a fascination with youth. Women around the world seem to worry about aging more than men do, according to the 2010 Bupa Health Pulse, a 12-country survey by the British health care company Bupa. Let's see . . . wrinkles. Saggy breasts. Gray hair. Permanent post-baby belly. Dry skin. Weight gain. Each change brought by time and gravity renders most women a bit more invisible in a culture that prizes youth. Enter the booms in plastic surgery, laser skin resurfacing, and "anti-aging" cosmetics.

And as women pass middle age, the pressure to look youthful doesn't end. Fear about appearance persists right into the 70s and 80s - when women add hearing aids, walkers, canes, and stooped posture to the dreaded "visible markers of being old," says geriatrician Laurie Jacobs, director of the Jack and Pearl Resnick Gerontology Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. "Women are always, unfortunately, more concerned about whether they appear old," she says. "Your sense of appearance is associated with your functional status."

So now I ask you: Do you buy more products with the purpose of maintaining health or are you more concerned with delaying the effects of aging? How do you feel about getting older? Have you begun worrying about the effects time will have on your appearance? What do you think of the studies which suggest that women are more focused on looks than on health?

In case you missed it:

• Enter my giveaway to win a $25 gift card from Marshalls/TJ Maxx!


• Like this post? PLEASE take a minute and vote for me in the CBS DFW Most Valuable Blogger Awards! I'm a finalist!

Celebrities: Just as screwed up about their bodies as we are.

 Years ago, I had a fairly sizable case of celebrity worship. Glossy tabloid magazines peppered my nightstand like salacious confetti, headlines screaming about alleged infidelity, gay rumors, secret plastic surgeries and marriage woes. I eagerly followed the progress of a certain actress' baby bump, analyzing whether her loose-fitting top was an attempt at food baby camouflage or existed to hide an actual baby. I pondered the possibility that my favorite celebrity chef might be (GASP) a cocaine addict. Was the z-list I'd had a crush on forever REALLY GAY? These things kept me awake at night.

I don't read those magazines anymore. I prefer to get my celebrity gossip the old-fashioned way...through 30-miunute snippets on Entertainment Tonight. The other evening I was lounging on my couch and caught coverage of an interview Jennifer Hudson did with Self Magazine, in which she mentioned that she’s prouder of her weight loss than her Oscar. She also stated, “I didn’t even know I was considered plus-sized until I came to Hollywood.”

Then I opened my Lucky Magazine, and was startled by the following quotes from cover girl Jessica Alba:

"I have a hard time with portion control, so I have 1,200 calorie meals delivered. But I also work out, so basically I'm starving. It sucks. I drink a lot of water. In the gym, I have like five things to distract me: TV, iPod, magazines. Working partners are good, too, so you can chat and not just drown in your own misery."

One of the best way to sell magazines and books is to mention weight loss. In fact, as of this post, five of the top ten New York Times non-fiction hardcover bestsellers address weight loss. And now research suggests that women might be more likely to believe the media over loved ones when assessing their own body image.

Researchers at Arizona State University studied 112 women ages 18-45, and linked 823 people in their families and social networks for follow-up interviews. They measured the degree to which the women felt stigmatized about their weight, and they asked the women “Do you think (so-and-so) thinks you should lose weight?” Members of the social network were asked if they thought the women should lose weight.

According to Psych Central, researchers expected to find ways that friends and family made women feel bad about their weight. Instead, they found friends and family were less likely to say that the woman needed to lose weight than the woman herself predicted. “We found that women generally missed the mark when estimating what their friends and family thought about their weight,” said Daniel J. Hruschka, co-author of the study. “Women were a bit more attuned to the views of close friends and family, but even then, they generally perceived the judgments of others inaccurately.”

But here's what jumped out at me: The women in the study felt stigmatized about their weight despite the fact that people in their lives thought they looked just fine. The researchers speculated that media messages about the body override the messages women get from friends and family.

Since the 1960s, eating disorder incidence rates have doubled (Eating Disorders Coalition, 2006). Interestingly, during the same period of time, mass media has increasingly portrayed progressively thinner representations of the female body. In a renowned study, Garner and colleagues reported that the body measurements and weights of Playboy centerfolds and Miss America Pageant contestants decreased dramatically between 1959 and 1978. More recently, Wiseman and colleagues (1992) observed that this trend continued through 1988. Television has also contributed to this obsession with thinness. A 2000 study found that thinner female characters in television situation comedies received more compliments from men than did heavier characters.

All of these finding tell me that we are increasingly disconnected with what our bodies actually look like. We have no idea of reality when it comes to our own body image. Vanity sizing has basically destroyed any standard of measurement in women's clothing. Actresses are getting thinner and thinner. Our brains become consumed with varieties of compare and contrast, pitting us against celebrities, TV and movie stars in a desperate quest for perfection. "Can I really lose seven pounds in seven days?" "Heidi Klum shaved off her baby weight in four months, so I should be able to do that too." "If Jessica Alba thinks she needs to lose weight, then I must look like a hippopotamus" (that one is from me.)

It's nearly impossible to turn our attention away from messages the media churns out. But it's even more heartbreaking when celebrities confess to being as miserable and skewed about their bodies and diets as we might be. The best we can do is understand that while we might admire acting ability or singing talent, coveting a celebrity's body might mean taking on their distorted body image as well.


In case you missed it:

• Enter my giveaway to win a $25 gift care from Marshalls/TJ Maxx!


• Like this post? PLEASE take a minute and vote for me in the CBS DFW Most Valuable Blogger Awards! I'm a finalist!
  

The New York Times tackles cleavage wrinkles and makes me stabby.

Image via Back 2 Retro

We now have two new additions to our ever-growing list of body parts the world wants us to feel bad about: Cleavage wrinkles and big feet.

According to the New York Times: "Cleavage wrinkles are deep, vertical creases caused by hours spent sleeping on one’s side, where gravity forces the top breast to bend farther past the body’s midline than it should. The lines can also be caused by sports and push-up bras, which smush the breasts together and are often worn for hours." Now, products like the ChestSavers bra ($56 to $78) and the Kush Support ($19.99), are on the market, designed to be worn between your breasts while you sleep to prevent the dreaded boob-squishing. Just like the products invented by the marketers of Dove deodorant,  Spanx and Bye Bye Cankles to combat horrifying things like ugly armpits, cankles, and muffin-tops. And don't even get me started on the popularity of a gross cream designed to whiten skin with a special ingredient - nightingale poop.

A few weeks before the Times' expose, The Daily Mail ran a feature in which big feet were the subject of female body angst. According to the Mail, a study from Debenhams department store stated that women’s feet have increased by an average size-and-a-half in the past 20 years – from a 4½ in 1990 to a six in 2011. The study claimed that 82% of women with size eight or nine feet said their feet made them feel particularly ashamed. In addition, almost two thirds of women hated asking sales assistants for help, and a further third were uncomfortable taking their shoes off in public.

Though the New York Times piece seems to target women who have had their breasts surgically augmented, the fact is that all women now have yet another thing to worry about, and for some, yet another object to purchase in order to "fix" their bodies. Naturally, the Times never dares to question the mixed beauty standard the article suggests - that women are supposed to have breasts so large that special garments are needed to hold them in place, while demanding that other parts of their bodies remain small, tight and flat. The piece also manages to ignore the fact that it is impossible for the skin around the breasts to remain forever tight and wrinkle-free, whether you are small-chested or well-endowed.

These two articles are a tiny portion of the message given to women that we must constantly remain vigilant in the fight towards perfection. Whether the issue is stretch marks, body hair, inner-thigh fat or sun spots, there is a product marketed to target that area and make women hyper-focused on our bodies. My friend Sal called this manufactured discontent - stealthy marketing that targets out body confidence. Like much else in our society, none of this occurs by accident, but rather by design. Using low self-esteem to manipulate and control populations is not a new trick. For eons, mankind has used these techniques to control people and group them. Dividing people along racial, class, and other lines, and programming people to feel they are "inferior" is an easy way to manipulate people.

Psychological experiments along this line have shown that once people are told they are an inferior class, they will behave in a manner that fulfills these expectations. Students told, in an experiment, that they are prisoners, tend to act like, well, prisoners. Young students with brown eyes who are told, in an experiment, that they are inferior to students with blue eyes will not only believe, but act in a manner consistent with the expectations.

It is an easy task to program people to believe that they are less than whole or even less than human by training them with a controlled set of expectations. It is no longer acceptable in America to teach people they are inferior based on race, religion, or even class. So appearance is the new discriminator, and an easy way to keep consumers in line and get them to spend money on things they really don't need.

Whether the issue is cleavage wrinkles, big feet, blotchy skin or "problem areas", being conscious of the attempts of companies to manipulate our self-esteem in order to sell products is a valid way to battle negative body image. Emptying our wallets in order to "fix" our imperfections not only generates profits for both the media and companies marketing these products, but also keeps us enslaved to the idea that we need to be perfect, and that our bodies are just not good enough.

Our bodies go through massive changes as we grow older. It's inevitable. And there is nothing we can do about it. In the end, spending money on special bras and support tools isn't going to eliminate cleavage wrinkles and sagging. These things will happen, because breasts can not defy gravity. And being ashamed of having big feet isn't going to make them go away. So I'm vowing to keep my money in my wallet, to be spent on useful things, like thrifting and movies with my kids and dinner out with friends. In the end, those are the things that make me feel good about myself. And that's what counts.

What do you think of the Times article? Do pieces like this make you feel more self-conscious about how you look? What products do you buy with the purpose to "fix" what you consider a flaw?

Like this post? PLEASE take a minute and vote for me in the CBS DFW Most Valuable Blogger Awards! I'm a finalist!

Compare and despair chatter, and My Body Gallery

I used to be a size zero. This was just a couple of years ago. I clearly remember how good it felt to stand in my closet and pick out a pair of jeans in that size. Zero wasn't just a number. It was a smug statement about my strength of will, the commitment I had towards achieving a goal. I was proud of being a zero. It fed me, in a way. It almost made up for all the meals I'd skipped, all the time I spent hunched over the toilet, all the minutes I spent mentally calculating the meager number of calories I'd eaten. That zero seemed worth all the sacrifice.

And now I'm a size six. I wear a 32 DD bra. I used to be able to go bra-less, and count the bones in my spine. Now I'm unable to do either.

My brain is noisy - there's a litany of chatter always running through. And here's the thing: this chatter never shuts up. Never. If I'm not worrying about something, then I'm trying to anticipate what I might need to do later, the order in which I need to run errands in order to keep the kids off my back, or ruminating about unpaid bills and family feuds and the amount of money I spent at the Goodwill. There is never any silence.

Especially now that I'm in recovery. Yes, I believe I can now solidly, confidently state that I am, in fact, in recovery. I have made tremendous progress in a relatively short period of time. This morning I recalled that it was two years ago when the wheels came off, and I began the decent into relapse that eventually led me into residential treatment. There have been a couple of slips since then, but they did not become patterns of destruction, which is what matters.

But back to my brain. Restricting and purging didn't cease the chatter in my head, although it did turn the volume down, especially on the self-loathing thoughts. Because as long as I was restricting and purging, at least I could do something right. One of the many reasons that I found it so difficult to start eating was the fact that the act cranks the volume up on my eating disorder voice, and I really missed the (relative) peace that came when I was following my strictly limited diet.

I don't believe that silence ever comes to anorexics when they're eating. When a person without an active eating disorder eats, their brain is relatively quiet. When a person with an eating disorder eats, they experience increased anxiety and constant chatter. The longer an anorexic restricts their eating, the quieter the noise becomes. So, in a way, I self-medicated my anxiety with restriction.

To me, recovery doesn't mean the noise goes away. It means you just learn to manage it better. Truthfully, the noise is louder now that I've reached a healthy weight than it was when I was sick. Maintaining a healthy weight while the chatter is screaming YOU ARE A FAT PIG is by far the most frustrating thing about recovery. For all purposes, I look fine. I don't cry in restaurants anymore. The room doesn't sway when I go from sitting to standing. But there are parts of my brain that are still deeply anorexic, and the noise is worse than ever.

By and large, the chatter becomes more animated when I engage in the compare-and-despair I do against other women. This is when I'm sitting somewhere, like in Starbucks or a bench in the mall, and observe the women around me. I then decide that my legs are shorter, stomach pudgier, knees saggier than the women walking past. I do this a lot. The chatter in my head has a field day with my anthropological observations. Because I know, I believe, that I'm bigger. Not as pretty. Not as fit.

I know that women are, in general, terrible at seeing their bodies as they really are. 95% of non-eating disordered women overestimate the size of their hips by 16% and their waists by 25%, yet the same women were able to correctly estimate the width of a box. So when I heard about a site called My Body Gallery I wasn't sure what to think.

Once you enter the site, you plug in your height, weight, shirt and pant size, and body type to women with similar stats. You can also upload your image into their database anonymously. I should note that the site is still in the early stages of development, and all body types and measurement combination aren't available yet.

“In a world full of images of how we ‘should’ look it can get difficult to tell how we DO look,” the site says. “Most women have spent so many years looking at themselves in mirrors that we can no longer see what’s really there. The My Body Gallery project’s goal is to help women objectively see what we look like and come to some acceptance that we are all beautiful.”

Curious, I entered my own  measurements and found a collection of women in my range. It was interesting to see how we all carried our weight differently. Even better, it was refreshing to see ordinary women as we really are, with similarly rounded ratios that are non-existent in the fashion world. I was left with unequivocal proof that our bodies come every combination of shape and size imaginable, and we're all beautiful. As My Body Gallery points out, “the world is not a place of cookie cutters.” This site proves that I should never feel alone or insecure about my body. And gave a solid reason for the chatter in my head to shut the hell up.

Now I ask you - will you check out My Body gallery? Does your head ever get caught up in the compare and despair game? How do you bring yourself out of it? 

Do you like this post, and my other thoughts on positive body image? As long as you're here...PLEASE take a minute and vote for me in the CBS DFW Most Valuable Blogger Awards! I'm a finalist!

The weight of numbers

Four times a week I climb into my truck and make the forty minute schlep from my house in the suburbs to the big city of Dallas. Those these trips are often riddled with traffic and drivers that, for no apparent reason, leave their turn signals on, I kind of like them. I turn up my favorite car-dancing playlist and let my mind wander. Sometimes I get so lost in my thinking that I don't realize how fast I'm going until I pass a speed limit sign. This is a Problem. I will not mention how many speeding tickets I've gotten over my lifetime because the number is humiliating. (I will say this, though: Fake crying to get out of a ticket does. not. work.)

As I make the trip yesterday, I starting thinking about numbers. Numbers have dictated my life since I was little. At first, they were about the hour of my bedtime and the score I got on a test. Soon after, numbers evolved into how many friends I had, and how many people I thought didn't like me. As an adult, the amount of money in my bank account and birthdays of my children are just a few of the numbers that are important. And in the blogging world, the number of followers I have, amount of page hits I get, and number of times I'm featured hold a lot of power.

But numbers have played the biggest role when it comes to my body. There's the question of my weight: The number the scale says I am, and the number where I want to be. There's the number of calories I've eaten - broken down into number of carbs, grams of fat, and amount of sodium and sugar. Then there's the amount of miles I've logged on the treadmill, the size on my jeans, the measurement of my hips, the total amount of weight I want to lose, the pounds a week I need to drop. And so on and so on.

My number on the scale has been the key determiner of my mood for years. Weight gain sends me into a spiral of shame, guilt, negative body image and embarrassment. And the discovery last week that my bra size was larger than I thought sent me into a tailspin of depression and anxiety I'm still struggling to overcome. I suspect I'm not the only one who has dealt with this. So why do we allow a number to influence our lives? 


"I will be/get/do ___ once I love___ pounds."
"If only I weighed less, my life would be perfect."
"I'm up a pound today. I shouldn't even bother leaving the house."
"I've gained weight. I'm a worthless fat cow."

The world keeps shoving numbers down our throats, like in The Devil Wears Prada, when Anne Hathaway’s character Andy says, “So none of the girls here eat anything?” and Nigel (played by Stanley Tucci) says, “Not since 2 became the new 4 and 0 became the new 2.” And then Andy says, “I’m a 6,” and Nigel chokes on his  salad. Like a size 6 is totally behemoth or something. Pick up any woman's magazine and the covers scream "Twenty Days To A Sexier You!" and "Flatten Your Belly In 8 Days" or "Get Flatter Abs In 4 Weeks!" It's enough to make any woman obsess about numbers.

It's incredibly challenging to avoid letting a number determine your self-worth. But granting power to an arbitrary number says absolutely nothing about who you are. It doesn't take into account your talents, your gifts, your individuality, and the ways in which you bring beauty into the world. It pays no attention to your hobbies, sense of style, likes and dislikes, sensitivities, ways you enrich your relationships, and your intelligence. A wise therapist I once saw told me that our bodies are merely vessels that transport who we really are. And we're thinkers, givers, movers and dreamers. No number could possibly encapsulate that.

I have taken the bold step and gotten rid of my scale. Doing so was a tremendous turning point in my recovery from anorexia. It felt liberating and kind of scary and like the most courageous thing I've ever done. Sometimes I miss it, but most of the time I don't. Because without that number clouding my vision, I'm able to see who I really am. And I'm proud of what I see.

Do you think you could ever break up with your scale? Do numbers dominate your life? How often do you weigh yourself? Does the number on your scale have any power on your mood?

Breaking up with my mirror

In July 2009, while promoting his film Public Enemies, Johnny Depp confessed that he hates looking in mirrors. Speaking after the film's European premiere in London's Leicester Square, Depp said: "If I could avoid a mirror when I brush my teeth in the morning, I would."

I live in a house with a large mirrored wall in my formal dining room. My children are drawn to this mirror, posing dramatically in front of it, contorting themselves into impossible poses and examining their muscles, stomachs and twig-like biceps. I walk past this mirror and feel an overwhelming urge to examine my feet, the tuft of dust drifting across the floor, even the ceiling towering above. Anything except my own reflection.

There's a certain skill I possess for averting my eyes when confronted by a mirrored or otherwise reflective surface. While most people would stop, transfixed, and examine their reflection, I scurry past. I only look when I absolutely have to, such as when I'm getting my hair cut. And when I see myself, I'm not exactly pleasant to my body. Ugh, I think. When will I get rid of these rolls, this cellulite, those post-pregnancy stretch marks? Is that a double chin I see? I really should do something about this hair. And oh my GOD, is that a pimple forming on my chin???? GOOD LORD, I'M A FREAK. Then later, when I'm emptying the dishwasher or driving or folding the laundry I'll continue to give myself a hard time about what I saw - sometimes for hours or even days.

As a child, I spent hours in my mother's room, watching as she dressed for work, weekends, and evenings out with her friends. I also observed as she applied her makeup, silently stalking much like a lion planning a kill. She twisted and turned, examining herself from every angle, critically appraising her figure. Sucking in cheeks. Jutting out hips. Arching her neck. Bending and kneeling and analyzing. Look at this, she'd hiss, pointing to an imperceptible flaw. I used to be skinny, she'd lament. I wore a size zero wedding gown, and now I'm fat. Fat. Fat. I'd perch on the corner of her bed, or bathroom cabinet, and silently observe her examination.

The message I got during those scathing moments with my mom was this: The mirror determines your worth. The mirror tells you the truth, defines your mood, and lets you know if you're acceptable or not. Research shows that 80% of American women check out - and disapprove of - their reflections minutes after waking. On any given day, 45% say they are dieting. Scarier yet, a 1992 study found that 46% of girls 9 to 11 say they are "sometimes" or "very often" on a diet, and experts agree that the numbers have probably increased since then.

Among women over 18 looking at themselves in the mirror, research indicates that at least 80% are unhappy with what they see. Many will not even be seeing an accurate reflection. Most of us have heard that anorexics see themselves as larger than they really are, but some recent research indicates that this kind of distorted body-image is by no means confined to those suffering from eating disorders – in some studies up to 80% of women over-estimated their size. Increasing numbers of normal, attractive women, with no weight problems or clinical psychological disorders, look at themselves in the mirror and see ugliness and fat.

Sometime in the last two years, I told myself to stop falling into my reflection in the mirror. I could not have an innocent relationship with it. I could not trust it to give me an accurate reading of my appearance. I did not know how to objectively glance at myself and not turn such an activity into a emotional collapse. SoI rely on my waist-high bathroom mirror when doing my makeup and choosing my clothes. I don't analyze my outfit photos. Indeed, the only times I am forced to examine how I look is when I scroll through this blog.

Now I ask you: What's your relationship with your mirror? Are you comfortable with what you see? How often would you estimate you examine your reflection each day?