Welcome back to the Learning Curve, a monthly column in which we unpack the complicated experience of accepting your own body in a world that doesn't seem to want you to. This month, guest columnist Chloe Laws examines her habit of seeing her own body as parts to be criticized, rather than a whole to be appreciated.
On a recent resort vacation in Greece, I lay by the infinity pool watching as couples kissed in the water, kids jumped into inflatable unicorns, and a group of loud men drank pint after pint at the bar. While I sat idly, I relished the beauty of all the different bodies surrounding me and how objectively interesting they were.
A tall, slim man in his 80s had tan, loose skin that hung from his arms like silk. A woman’s cellulite made patterns like marble in the tattoo that stretched from her back down to her thighs. There were people with rock-hard bellies above tight trunks and others whose ribs poked out as they lay atop towels. There were dimpled bums shaking off the sand, hairy toes, and fully waxed torsos.
I thought about how I can always find something beautiful in a stranger to compliment and admire, but when looking at my own body in the mirror, that often feels like an impossible task. A compliment made to myself is quickly followed by a caveat: My boobs are pert, but look, there’s a stray black hair on my nipple. I like my legs and my muscly calves, but then my eyes shift to my stretch-marked stomach and I forget that temporary satisfaction. My feet are too small, my upper arms are too soft, my bum is too dimpled.
I’ll look again, searching for positives: My back is smooth, my eyes are a vibrant green, my hair is thick. Ah, but my elbow is stained red with psoriasis. My highlights are growing out. My jawline is weak. This cycle persists no matter how hard I try to break it.
The crux of my body image issues, I realized poolside, is centered on how I mentally isolate parts of my body and see them as separate entities. I criticize and compliment sections rather than looking at my body as a whole in and of itself. I see my stomach, permanently bloated by endometriosis, as if it’s a PNG cutout pasted on a white background. I understand it only for how it looks, not what it does; I don’t think of the acid and enzymes breaking down my lunch to provide me with energy. I don’t see it as connected to my upper torso, my groin, or my legs; I see it in comparison to the flat surfaces of stomachs like Bella Hadid’s. I don’t look at the men drinking beer and compare their bellies to mine. I see beauty in them, as I do in all bodies — but my own. I only compare myself to the standard, the ideal, and — crucially — other women.
This hyperanalysis has created a negative self-objectification in which my self-worth has become entangled with my self-image. The constant deconstruction of my own body makes it impossible for me to have a positive (or even neutral) body image. Why do I torture myself by doing this?
Women are not only scrutinized by society at large, but also by our internal monologues, which have digested and regurgitated critical messaging. Recent research from the National Institute of Health found that the widespread use of social media in teenagers and young adults could increase body dissatisfaction, as well as their drive for thinness, through constant comparison with others, therefore rendering them more vulnerable to eating disorders. A meta-analysis of exposure to social media and comparison culture found that when we compare ourselves to others on social media, we are more likely to feel worse (contrast) than better (assimilation); and that “social media use is associated with a contrastive response and lower body image satisfaction.”
The beauty industry has a lot to answer for in the deconstruction of women’s bodies too. Historically, it has sliced us up into “problems” that need to be “fixed” for the sake of selling products and treatments — and there’s at least one for every single feature on a woman. Trying to keep up with the pursuit of aesthetic improvement is all-consuming. I shave my armpits daily. I exfoliate and use depilatory cream on my legs weekly. I dermaplane my face monthly. I get lip filler twice a year. I have googled “buccal fat removal” and “what are hip dips” within 48 hours of writing this. It’s an exhausting charade.
We spend hours every week trying to fix problems, many of which aren’t fixable and aren’t really problems at all. At the behest of beauty marketing, we create routines full of products and treatments to maintain a version of ourselves that is nothing like our natural state. We obsess over managing facial and body features that were perfectly fine in the first place.
It would take me a lifetime to list all the ways in which women are deconstructed on social media, including new forms of AI objectification (from deepfake pornography to the very gendered bias that is present in AI systems), TikTok trends like “fox eyes” and “coquette lips” that ask you to redefine your your facial features in relentless and ever-changing ways, and the normalization of FaceTune on Instagram. Social media has taught us to zoom in, pick out our flaws, and erase them, whether digitally or with beauty products and procedures.
I used to tell myself I’d be happy if I “just did” the following: lost weight, got more lip filler, got eyelash extensions, got my body hair lasered off, had whiter teeth, smoother skin, stronger nails. I identified my real problem as a financial one: I simply do not have enough money to “fix” all of these “issues,” therefore I must work harder so that one day I can. This is a capitalist trap. There will always be a new so-called problem to solve with yourself, a new body part to name and shame, more money needed and more money spent. It is a never-ending cycle, and we need to get off this ride.
The pervasive objectification of women in society leads us to exclude our nonphysical attributes, such as kindness, intelligence, and sense of humor, from the equation of our self-worth, explains Bryony Bamford, PsyD, founder of the London Centre for Eating Disorder and Body Image. “When women are objectified, they may internalize the message that their value is primarily determined by their physical appearance,” Dr. Bamford tells Allure. “This can lead to a diminished sense of self-worth, as they may believe that their other qualities, such as intelligence, personality, and interests, are less important. This objectification can indeed contribute to body-part-focused thinking.”
While it is more common among women, this experience of self-deconstruction isn’t universal. “It's essential to recognize that the relationship people have with their bodies varies hugely from person to person,” Dr. Bamford notes. “Not all women perceive their bodies as a collection of separate parts…. However, it is true that the fragmentation of bodies into separate 'parts' that is often driven by media and cultural ideals can encourage individuals, regardless of their gender, to perceive their body as a series of parts rather than a whole.”
Even the way I have tried to learn to love or even feel neutral about my body in the era of so-called body positivity feels like a false paradigm. Despite capitalism’s newfound (and apparently positive) approach to women’s bodies, we are still reduced to our parts. Now it’s just a matter of how much pride we have in said parts.
Beauty products, for instance, are the same as they’ve always been, and the innate messaging of their marketing is the same — but the tone has shifted. Now brands are nice about your imperfect skin; they tell you it’s normal, but if you feel self-conscious for whatever reason, here’s a cream to make your skin look more like the model’s. Body positivity in this sense is almost always presented with a sneaky sprinkling of passive-aggressive degradation. It’s a bait and switch.
This shame we feel about our self-image due to objectification leads us to seek control, explains Tasha Bailey, a psychotherapist and author of Real Talk: Lessons From Therapy on Healing & Self-Love. “We conceal and micromanage our bodies [by means] such as sucking in our stomach when taking a photograph or wearing clothes that will hide the parts we don’t want people to see,” she says. “It stands in the way of full acceptance and self-love for our body.”
Is it even possible to stop seeking that control? Is it possible to unlearn all of this noise? Dr. Bamford suggests a handful of ways to lessen one’s body-image obsession, such as reducing how often you examine your body in the mirror day-to-day and adopting self-compassion and self-acceptance. Poignantly, she advises, challenge beauty standards: “Learn how to critically evaluate the societal beauty standards that you uphold. Remember that your worth isn't solely defined by physical appearance — it is not the thing that those close to you value about you.”
Dr. Bailey echoes this advice. “You have to intentionally reclaim your body as your own,” she says. “The relationship you have with your body is the longest relationship you will ever have in your lifetime, so when you find yourself comparing or contrasting your parts, remind yourself that your body belongs to you and no one else.”
So it is imperative that we work against systemic body shaming and create space for ourselves, especially as women, to decenter body image from our value. On a practical level, Dr. Bailey suggests, do this by diversifying your perspective on bodies, which is easier than you might think. “Follow social media accounts of women and femmes with different bodies [from what] the media tends to show us and who thrive in their bodies,” she says.
Lessening social media consumption, in general, can also have positive impacts. One study found that teens and young adults who reduced their social media use by 50% for just a few weeks saw significant improvement in how they felt about both their weight and overall appearance compared with peers who maintained consistent levels of social media use.
Participating in activities that help you feel more connected to your body is another great place to start. Taking dance classes or drawing a full-body image of yourself, Dr. Bailey says, are good examples. “It would be impossible to do these things by focusing on one part of you. Your whole body needs to be invited to the party for you to be there,” she says. “It can be a lesson in helping you view your body as the entire masterpiece that it is instead of just parts.”
Back at the infinity pool in Greece, I looked down at my feet and resisted the urge to pluck a hair on my big toe. I tried to stop zooming in. Stop acting like a human magnifying glass or a metal detector for flaws. In the weeks since, I’ve started to feel a freeness in my body that I’ve not had since I was a child. I haven’t used my compact mirror to inspect my pores, I’ve danced and swam with a matter-of-factness that’s been liberating — and I’ve left my toes hairy, as nature intended.
When I do find myself circling in on body parts, there is now a small voice in the back of my head telling me to think critically, one that repeats the mantra, “You are more than your body. Your body is worthy and does not need fixing. Take a deep breath and look again.”
More from Learning Curve:
- Fine, I’ll Say It: I Hate It When Plus-Size Celebrities Lose Weight
- You Can't Gua Sha Away a Double Chin
- I Write About Body Acceptance for a Living, But I Hate My Body
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