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You are here: Home / SELF LOVE & BODY IMAGE / How to survive bad body image during lockdown

How to survive bad body image during lockdown

March 24, 2020 by Molly Leave a Comment

It took just two days for the memes to start. The fat jokes nestled innocently amongst pictures of people stockpiling loo roll and singing on balconies, providing all the LOLz to a world quickly succumbing to COVID-19. For many, it seems the one thing worse than getting the virus is getting fat during quarantine.

And in between the memes and the blatant fatphobia there are a million home workouts encouraging us not to use the world crisis as an excuse to “get lazy” (i.e. put on weight) and a million other influencers offering up “immunity boosting” recipes that promise to not only protect you from catching the virus but keep your abs on point too. Diet culture disguised as wellness is nothing new, but you’d think it would give us a break while the world is on its knees.

DIET CULTURE DURING COVID-19

So if you’re struggling to feel good about your body in this current climate it’s not your fault – in fact, it’s probably kind of inevitable. And if you’re then feeling bad about feeling bad about your body when there are so many other things to feel bad about right now… well, that’s not your fault either.

It doesn’t mean you’re vain or shallow or you haven’t got better things to worry about. It just means you’re not immune to all the messages profiting from your insecurities, and you’re not immune to the physical effects of anxiety which so often show up as an “I feel fat” moment.

So much is out of our control right now, so it’s natural that you may be trying to gain some of that control back by “taking charge” of your body. Diets, intensive work-outs, regimented food schedules… these are all ways anxiety can manifest into poor body image, with diet culture conveniently appearing at just the time you’re looking for some coping strategies.

FAT IS NOT A FEELING

When you’re spiralling into this moment it might help to remember that fat is not a feeling. Identifying the emotion you’re *actually* experiencing is a great way to ground yourself in your body and gain some perspective. The Feelings Wheel designed by Dr Gloria Wilcox can help you do this…

Surviving bad body during a pandemic might seem like the least of your problems, but as we already know body image can have a huge impact on many other areas of our life – from our mental health to our physical health, to the way we engage and interact with the people around us. And this last bit – the people around us – is the bit I’m most concerned with right now.

CANCELLING DIET CULTURE AROUND KIDS

Because for the past nine months I’ve been campaigning for a change in rules around the way diet clubs and weight loss services are advertised around children, arguing that what our kids see on their way into school every day has a huge impact on how they feel about their own bodies. (Read this piece I wrote for The Unedit for more on that.)

But now so many children aren’t actually going to school the stakes at home are arguably so much higher. I don’t mean to ramp up the pressure (we’ve got enough of that already what with keeping our kids safe and well along with the home schooling and inevitable arguments over screen time and maths homework) BUT it is something to consider. Next time you have an “I feel fat” moment ask yourself what it is you’re *actually* feeling, why you’re feeling this way, and what the impact of diet culture on your kids might be if you allow it to infiltrate your home.

If you’re keen to avoid some of these diet culture traps and promote a body happy environment at home I’ve uploaded some new resources to the #FreeFromDiets website. The printable Body Happy Kids planner is packed with inspiration for confidence-boosting things you can do with your children at home during this period – and you might even get something from it too. I’ve also started a new weekly Body Happy Kids email zine you can subscribe to for more ideas and resources which might help over the next few weeks.

WHAT WE SEE AND LISTEN TO MATTERS

Now, more than ever before, use your click currency and your internet power to raise UP the accounts that make you feel good and switch OFF the accounts that make you feel bad. Mute the stuff that triggers bad body feelings and diversify your feed.

We’re not out on the street seeing a range of gorgeous different bodies every day so make sure you’re seeing some of that every day reality in your social media feed too. And not just perfectly lit, glamorously photographed bodies either – but a whole range of different people doing a whole range of different things. And not just people – but cats and dogs and all of the other cute stuff the internet has to offer! This will have a direct impact on the way you feel about your body.

While you’re there, seek out some positive, inspiring, brilliant podcasts to follow too (*cough* I hear Body Cons is very good).

THE THREE THINGS ACTIVITY

You’ve downloaded the resources, felt the feelings, listened to the podcast, cleared out your social media accounts… but still feel bad. What next? This activity might help (it’s also something you can do with your kids if you’re looking for some creative homeschooling activities!)…

  1. Write down the names of three people you love.
  2. Write down three things you love about those three people.
  3. Read your list and note how many of those things are appearance-related….

Then, if you’re feeling up to it, write down three things those very same people might put next to your name. If you love and value the people around you for who they are, this might help to hammer home that the things they love and value about you are the things that make you, you – not the shape of your body.

HAVE A KITCHEN DISCO

Genuinely not even joking. There is a huge amount of evidence into the benefits of joyful movement, including bringing a feeling of gratitude and connection to your body, easing anxiety, tension and getting out of your head. And what’s more joyous than a kitchen disco (handy because real discos are out of the question at the moment)? I’ll be doing a kitchen disco live over on Instagram on Friday at 3pm GMT, but even if you can’t join me then just putting some music on, having a boogie around the kitchen and loosening up is a great way to come back to your body in a positive way.

I’ll be sharing lots of resources, ideas and inspiration over the next few weeks for ways to feel good in your mind and body during this unsettled period, and ways you can help your kids feel good too. In the meantime, check out the resources page of the #FreeFromDiets website, listen to Body Cons, and follow me on Instagram for almost-daily nuggets of body love.

FURTHER RESOURCES:

Be Real campaign

Dove Self Esteem project

Beat Eating Disorder charity

Center for Change

Filed Under: SELF LOVE & BODY IMAGE Tagged With: body image, coronavirus, coronavirus and diet culture, COVID-19, diet culture

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Hello and welcome! I'm Molly Forbes - podcaster, presenter and blogger with a passion for positivity, confidence and body image chat. Regularly writing and vlogging about empowering female issues from a motherhood angle, I also cover lifestyle and fashion topics for like-minded mums who want to rediscover themselves after having children. Thanks for stopping by! Read More…

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YOUTUBE

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Hello. How are you? . I’ve noticed something th Hello. How are you? 
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I’ve noticed something this lockdown that feels different to first time... the sense of people being more disconnected than ever, more divided, more isolated. 
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Maybe it’s because we’re all on our last nerve now - the loss, sacrifice and stress is amplified that bit more. 
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And we’re so deep in it, often confined in our thoughts at home, our only connection with the outside world via a screen, that it becomes harder to appreciate our differences in circumstances. 
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We forget that we are all just humans muddling through a global pandemic, trying to come out of it alive, with our minds intact and hopefully our jobs too. 
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We’re angry, sad, frustrated, scared. And in the absence of those regular social connections we need a place to direct those feelings. The social media platforms and comments sections on news sites have never been so busy. 
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Except it’s not just faceless people on the internet that we’re upset with anymore. It’s our neighbours, family and friends. 
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Dr Vivek Murthy wrote about the importance of social connections and community in his book Together, pointing out that loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. 
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We are sociable creatures. We need community not just to thrive but to survive. 
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So check in with your friends today. Maybe even send them a voice note. Don’t assume you know how they’re doing based on their latest Facebook post. We need to get through this together, not apart ❤️
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[Image description: Molly is looking at the camera, smiling in a tired, resigned sort of way. She’s outside and is wearing a fantastic hat that her husband says looks like a tea cosy.]
✨Art from @emilycoxhead gorgeous book You Are In ✨Art from @emilycoxhead gorgeous book You Are Incredible Just As You Are✨
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A reminder that loving every bit of ourselves isn’t just about embracing all the parts on the outside, but also about accepting - and maybe even celebrating - the bits on the inside too. 
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I’ll go first: I am a worrier and have a tendency to think deeply on things. If we’ve ever had a disagreement - be it an exchange on Twitter in 2018 or a row in the playground in 1992 you bet I’ve stored that away in my brain ready to ruminate on in the depths of a night when I can’t sleep. 
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But in the spirit of loving every bit of ourselves I say that rather than looking at these parts of ourselves as “flaws”, we choose instead to view them with loving kindness and a heavy dose of self-compassion. 
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I worry because I am sensitive, and I care. This sometimes means I’m more vulnerable to allowing others’ opinions of me have too much power... but it also means I feel remorse when I make mistakes and try my very best to learn from them. 
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And this also means I work hard in everything I do because I genuinely care about doing a good job. Meanwhile, my tendency to think deeply on stuff means I’m able to see the nuance in things and appreciate other perspectives, because as I grasp for an answer I often find two things can be true at the same time. 
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These are not traits I would view as “pathetic” or “needy” or “indecisive” in my kids and I would never tell them to “just get over it”, so I’m trying to remember this for myself too.
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Tell me, what parts of the inner you are you working on learning to love? 
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[Image description: A double page spread from Emily Coxhead’s book You Are Incredible. It’s a yellow page with a red heart and white writing which reads “Here’s to loving every bit of you.”]
Let’s talk joyful movement and.... PRIVILEGE! A Let’s talk joyful movement and.... PRIVILEGE! A nice juicy subject for a Thursday evening 😅
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I absolutely love to see the narrative shift (albeit ever so slightly) to the intrinsic benefits of movement. The focus on intuitive movement and moving our bodies for how it makes us FEEL over how it makes us LOOK brings me huge happiness. 
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BUT... even when we take movement away from a diet culture context, I still think there’s often a lack of acknowledgment of the many barriers preventing people engaging in movement in the first place (hot tip: it’s not “just cos they’re lazy” 🙄). 
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When it comes to my own family - here are some of the privileges we live with which make movement easier for us: 
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✨ We live in an area with access to lots of safe green spaces to play and walk.
✨ We can afford to pay for a gym membership, and extra curricular activities for the kids like gymnastics, Street Dance and swimming.
✨ We have access to the technology needed to take part in online classes over lockdown.
✨ We are non-disabled so experience no physical access issues preventing us from joining in with these activities. 
✨ Our work schedule allows us to get out together during daylight hours. 
✨ None of us lives with a mental health condition which might make getting outside / engaging in movement really hard or even impossible.
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Kids access to movement is not equal so if we really care about encouraging more children to move then, as a nation, we need to level the playing field (pun intended). 
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Some accounts which often discuss movement and privilege: @thephitcoach @amysnellingpt @theaishanash ❤️
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[Image description: Molly and her two daughters standing on top of a hill smiling, with their arms in the air.]
It’s pretty well accepted that certain “fad di It’s pretty well accepted that certain “fad diets” are not the one. But if our definition of diet culture stops there, and we fail to see how diet culture IS fatphobic in its very nature - and that it absolutely depends on a collective cultural fear and vilification of fatness then we’ll never get anywhere with tearing it down.
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Dressing up fatphobia as “health concern”, or “tough love” or “helping people” is just a fluffy way of saying you don’t acknowledge the huge complexity around health, or the many factors that impact weight, or the research showing the harmful (and unhealthy) impact of weight stigma, or the evidence into the long term effectiveness of diets and intentional weight loss. 
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And essentially, those who assert that health only looks one way, and that people have a moral responsibility to prove their health via the shape of their body and not be a “drain on society”, are saying that only people with their version of a “healthy body” are worthy of respect, equality, dignity.
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Children pick up on these messages and learn from an early age that “fat = bad”, and to see some bodies as better, and more deserving of love and respect than others. This could be why we’re seeing a rising number of pre-teens with eating disorders and mental health issues associated with poor body image. 
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Yes we need to lose the fad diets. But we also need to lose the deeper prejudices and anti-fat biases that make them profitable in the first place, otherwise they’ll just continue to show up in different ways, coming in ever more aggressive and insidious ways for our kids.
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(Image description: A yellow slide with multicolour shapes and a screenshot of a tweet overlaid which reads “FYI you can’t be simultaneously anti-diet culture and pro fatphobia. (And yes, fatphobia includes continuously asking “But what about health?” and not listening to the answer...)
You might have missed this in the news over Christ You might have missed this in the news over Christmas. It didn’t get nearly the same amount of coverage as all the diet-related features that are everywhere right now. It was hidden away behind the before and after “amazing weight loss” stories, celeb diet plans and “o*esity causes covid” headlines. But that doesn’t make it any less shocking or heartbreaking. 
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I believe there’s a link between the rise in children being diagnosed with eating disorders and the rise in children suffering poor body image. These issues are fallout from a culture that idolises thinness, vilifies fatness and continually promotes one, narrow, over-simplified version of health. 
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Diet culture is coming increasingly aggressively for children, and the pandemic with the huge mental health toll it’s taken has not helped one bit. We already knew the number of pre-teens diagnosed with anorexia in the last decade had doubled, and it seems the figures are rising even higher. We need change. Fast. 
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Check out the Body Happy Kids resources, workshops and Masterclass and the #FreeFromDiets campaign in my bio, if you want to help change the culture our kids are growing up in. They deserve better.
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[Image description: a section from a news article about rising numbers of children suffering with eating disorders. Full text can be found in Alt Text.]
I’ve been looking a lot at old photos lately. Th I’ve been looking a lot at old photos lately. This pic is from summer 2018, when I could hug my mum and travel abroad on holiday. If I close my eyes I can almost feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, smell the salty sea air and hear the laughter of other families playing on the beach. Holding on to these memories and the hope that the hugs, sunshine and bikinis will come again one day. In the meantime it’s video calls, trackie bottoms and WhatsApp. ❄️☀️ 
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[Image description: Molly and her mum standing on a beach in France, in 2018. They are both wearing brightly coloured bikinis, hugging and smiling. It’s a hot sunny day and the sky is blue.]
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