Women at war:
Me against my body “I feel like I’ve been at war – with my body and my eating habits.”
A conversation with
Jessica Johns-Green, a counselling psychologist with specialism in performance and an accredited cognitive behavioural therapist
powered by
FONDA strong.com
I am a perfectionist, never satisfied with how I perform at something. Anxiety and shame are just two of a broad range of feelings I experience every day. But that’s a pretty ordinary life (for me).
What drives me, and millions of other women, to think this way? I talked to Jessica Johns-Green, a counselling psychologist with specialism in performance and an accredited cognitive behavioural therapist, to dig deeper into the issues of body hate and disordered eating. ~ Polona Fonda, founder of FONDAstrong
Contact Jessica: jessicajohns-green@hotmail.co.uk Or through the website: jessjohnsgreen.com
Jessica Johns-Green
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1. Why so many of us struggle with body image and eating behaviours? Answer: Assumptions about what women’s roles should be and assumptions about how women’s bodies should look are intertwined. So much so that these assumptions can be seen as biological fact rather than socially constructed perceptions that explain gender differences as well as reinforce and perpetuate culturally acceptable gender roles. All that means that the expectations that women should be gentle, delicate and slender become the primary ways women are judged as normal, or not – judged as valuable, or not. Women that fall outside of these standards are often stigmatised in some way, and this can provide an enormous motivating factor for women to see their bodies as a project – something to be perfected.
However, I would add that these gender specific expectations also have an impact on men who might be expected to be big, powerful and muscular. Naturally, the media has a role to play, but it’s also important to recognise that while people can be highly influenced by media, we are not always passive receptacles for media messages. And, that the media is only a form of communication about the body ideal that already exist in society. The question is not whether the media depicts unrealistic images, but what would make these images feel so valuable that women (and men) might decide to sacrifice health, relationships and mental wellbeing to attain these standards. I find in practice with clients 3
who suffer with disordered eating (overly restrictive, over eating or a combination of both), that somewhere along the line, it has started to feel that perfecting the body means perfecting something else in life. It might create a sense of control, predictability or security when life feels out of control or frightening. It might be a way of calming emotions, like fears of rejection or failure. It might provide a rush, through exercising discipline or being overly indulgent, and a distraction from the less comfortable aspects of life. Whatever is being satisfied by the body focus, disordered eating only makes the underlying problem worse. Unfortunately, much in society and life reinforces the idea that perfecting the body makes life more perfect, and these deeply held, culturally pervasive beliefs don’t shift easily. They can be so central to our sense of self and relationships, that it seems like the natural order of life that leaner women are more successful women.
Breaking free, and gaining a healthier body image, is about drawing these underlying beliefs out and questioning them for what they are – just one way to see things.
2. Disordered eating and obsessive weight loss seem a bigger problem today than a century ago? Answer: Women’s bodies have always been objects to perfect, scrutinize and judge, but it really took on a different form with the rise of media in the 20th century and increased availability of images. People started being exposed to ‘ideal’ bodies and the mass produced message that being perfect in body will equate to happiness in other areas of life – love, success and happiness all being tied up in body shape. Body shape becomes intertwined with ideas about self control, self worth and righteous living which carry a source of culturally defined power.
In short, being a good person is often confused with looking a certain way, and this is reinforced by society.
People might be more stressed and less happy compared to 100 years ago in part because these body standards are so powerful and pervasive. You are totally right that food, especially food that provides a quick, predictable and pleasurable sensations is widely available, more than it ever was in previous generations. But I would add that in this age of social media, our lives are lived with increasingly wider awareness of how other people look and how they live. This might have the illusion of connectedness and being part of something, but is more likely to fuel feeling isolated, worthless and helpless. These are stresses that might seem small compared things that people dealt with 100 years ago, like wars, poor health and poverty. In those kinds of stresses, people just want to feel safe, have food 4
and shelter – have basic needs met. While stressors today are different, our bodies are built in the same way they always have been, and we will feel driven to satisfy uneasiness, stress and fear by finding ways to feel safe and happy. Unfortunately, this means that stresses that have no simple or easy solution – like feeling unworthy compared to others on social media or being sad about a terrorist attack – are often coped with using food. Our bodies and brains are built to seek out the nice feelings food can give when we feel bad. It’s just that in our society, this quick fix, feel good foods are far easier to get than they ever have been.
3. I feel like being a woman, my job is to self-criticize myself, to bring myself down… to never be satisfied with myself. I can see a lot of women feel that way? Answer: I know many women feel this way, too. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Historically, women have been expected to be nice, kind and overly concerned with the needs of others, and there are still people out there who share this more ‘traditional’ view of women. While this is a struggle, no one ever benefits from maintaining their role as a victim. That means taking responsibility for ourselves by being true to our feelings – saying ‘no’ and ‘yes’ when we want to, rather than when we believe we should.
gender, and although people can feel trapped in traditional sex roles, I have also seen individuals make brave choices to be more real with themselves and those around them.
Often we are afraid of rejection, abandonment, judgement and criticism.
I wouldn’t really focus on men suppressing women, although that can happen. It’s just not normally useful to blame. Instead, I would ask women in this position to think about what consequences they fear if they start to assert themselves.
These are all tough, but are not insurmountable barriers to a more fulfilling, happier life.
These rules apply regardless of 5
4. People are quick to judge; whenever they see an obese person they immediately label them as lazy. But that’s not really the case? Answer: It’s very important to recognise that obese people are struggling, but the label of ‘lazy’ just clouds the issues they are facing. When I work with overweight clients, I invariably find that they have been able to stick to
incredibly rigid and restrictive diets, demonstrating a huge amount of willpower for periods of time. But this always backfires, the weight comes back (plus some), leaving the individual feeling like a failure. 6
Obese people who have been through this cycle have sometimes called themselves lazy for not sticking with the super strict diet that led to failure in the first place.
The reality of excess weight is more complex and requires more than a diet plan or an exercise program. Usually these are too strict, unrealistic and punishing to stick with forever. And that’s what we need to look for in a weight loss plan – something you can stick with for life. Starvation and hours of exercise are just not feasible in the long term and will lead to overeating because of simple hunger.
Traditional diet also encourage certain beliefs that actually create fat traps, such as the idea of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods. These kinds of all-or-nothing beliefs only make it more likely that a small nutrition blips turn into monumental diet failures because there is no degree of flexibility or problem solving skills involved in food choices.
5. Women, depression and obesity (or disordered eating): from personal experience I can tell you all three factors go together very well. Answer: Absolutely, there is a link. Which is one of the big reasons dieting doesn’t work. Other than not usually being a change that we can stick with for a lifetime, they don’t address the underlying reasons food is being used in a way that causes excess weight.
Depression is often part of bigger cycles – a cause and an effect of issues. Difficulties in life may cause a person to turn to food, but also the effects of overeating make people feel depressed.
to recognise that getting to a healthy weight means making healthy changes in all other areas of your life.
Not just nutritionally, but also socially, psychologically, and behaviourally in places like work or with families, friends and partners. These healthy changes usually also have a positive effect on mood.
It might not always be possible, or important to try to figure out which came first, but 7
6. When going through the magazines you find tips for weight loss “eat this, don’t eat that, move a lot, etc.” But weight loss is not just physical; it looks like it is more mental. Answer: Tips on how to eat can be useful, but I would agree that long term weight loss is about adjusting your approach to life.
Additionally, the idea that some food is ‘good’ and other food is ‘bad’ is unhelpful to long term weight loss.
Often education about food is useful because obesity can be related to a simple lack of knowledge about food. But there is no magic formula, and knowing about food doesn’t help us to understand the decision making processes we have when we go off the plan. It’s understanding what went wrong that will help making different, healthier choices in future. 8
The more useful perspective is understanding what drives our food choices and being self aware and compassionate enough to decide what we need, not just what we want.
Answer: Mood management and making alternative choices is part of a sustainable weight loss plan, but it’s also about developing nutritional knowledge, new habits around cooking, eating and shopping. It’s also about working towards psychological skills in problem solving, naming and communicating your needs with others, and gaining awareness into the thoughts and feelings behind your decision making.
And discovering and confronting self limiting beliefs and sabotaging food rules that lead to failure.
7. Sustainable weight loss is not about changing our nutrition, but learning how to cope with anxiety, depression, mood swings‌ ? How not to numb our feelings with food? 9
8. What are some of the most common issues you see when working with women who are looking to lose weight for good?
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Answer: One of the most common issues that might come as a surprise is the lack of supportive relationships. Clients can be surrounded by people – family and friends – but usually struggle to find ways to feel truly understood, cared for and supported. This is essential for weight loss because:
As we lose food as a form of coping with problems, we have to replace it with healthier alternatives, like good relationships. Working on effective communication, dealing with resentment and facing fears of rejection are all common issues that come up.
9. What are some of the modern eating issues you see? Like orthorexia? Or just being very restrictive with certain foods? Answer: I think I would want to clarify that problems with food, body image and eating arise like lots of other traps people get stuck in – they start as a way to feel better.
of control of my future or identity, I might not feel able to fix these problems, but I might find that I feel temporarily better when I eat really clean and get lean.
Nice feelings that come from eating certain foods help other feelings to temporarily stop. Good feelings can also come from eating clean, being disciplined, achieving changes in body composition or body weight.
My food related behaviour doesn’t solve the problem, and might even cloud my ability to focus on solutions if food becomes the all consuming priority in day-to-day experience. But feeling guilt is never helpful in solving a problem. Instead, it’s much more useful to recognise that if food behaviour is out of control, it started as a way to feel better. Then the focus can shift onto the things that made that food behaviour necessary in the first place.
The trap is set when the behaviour doesn’t address the thing that’s making the bad feeling in the first place. So if I feel stuck in a job or relationship, for example, or out 11
10. How would you define a healthy “food attitude” and a healthy body image? Answer: Healthy attitudes about food and body might be slightly different depending on the individual, but overall healthy attitudes are ones that don’t inspire or require destructive, dysfunctional behaviours to maintain long term. Healthy attitudes allow a person to enjoy their body and take part in enjoyable experiences in life, rather than feel restrictive or limiting in some way.
Healthy body image is about appreciating your body and healthy food attitudes are about caring for the body. For women, achieving these is often about getting beyond outside messages about what a body should or shouldn’t be and learning to be accepting of what their body and what it’s capable of doing. You asked earlier about the media and society, so I think it’s useful to state that although
there are loads of messages out there, we have a choice about which ones to pay attention to and which ones to disregard. It sometimes boils down to increased awareness of the effects certain messages in media, society or from others has on us, and then deciding whether these are worth including in our lives.
We each have a responsibility to manage how we feel, so if a certain magazine or social media post makes me feel ugly, fat or useless, I have to decide how worthwhile it is for me to keep including these things in my daily experience.
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While we don’t have total control, we can certainly decide to not indulge in messages that trigger unhealthy body image or negativity about ourselves.
11. Treating depression with sports (sport activity) only, without medicine… is it possible? What’s your professional opinion on that? Answer: Being active certainly helps with mood. It gives a boost of feel good hormones, a sort of glow after exercise that can help people to feel calmer, happier and more energy.
sion requires a holistic approach that includes a better range of self care behaviours, such as playing sport or exercising.
I would want to qualify all of this by saying that there is nothing wrong with medication, and for some people, medication is an essential part of managing mood and getting through depression. Yet, medication alone doesn’t resolve depression. Depres13
12. How does sport or any kind of physical activity affect our mood or the brain?
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Answer: Sport can fulfil a really good role here in that not only do we get a nice boost of feel-good hormones, but it also helps build a range of mental attitudes and social behaviours that protect against depression.
Through sport we can feel more confidence, both in our abilities and our bodies. We learn about how to cope with mistakes and failures in realistic and useful ways. We develop resilience, physically and psychologically. Sport offers more opportunities to connect with people and form supportive relationships. And even the mildest of workouts provides a distraction, which is sometimes needed to survive a distressing mood.
Answer: Acknowledging and accepting that these emotions are going to always be around somewhere is already a great start. For those that aren’t there yet, I recommend working on tolerating and surviving worry, fear and shame – rather than making them go away. Accepting them, describing them, going through them are more useful ways to cope and lead to more resilience in terms of your ability to get cope with problems. It’s a good thing to bear in mind that accepting an emotion or situation is not the same thing as approving. You can hate what it feels like, and still practice surviving it well, with behaviours that are effective and healthy. If you think back over the times when things got worse, I would bet that you’ll notice that you were struggling against pain – fighting rather than accepting – which probably led to you doing things that made the feelings worse. It’s about beginning to recognise those self sabotaging struggles and deciding what you can do differently in those lowest moments.
If nothing else, just delay. No matter how bad it is, every emotion eventually changes.
13. What I have learnt… feelings like anxiety or worrying, or fear and shame, will always be present. The best thing you can do is to learn how to cope with them?
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14. As you said, change can happen. What’s your message for women going through hardship right now? Answer: Find some kind of support. It doesn’t have to be therapy, but everyone needs someone to help and understand. If your life is pretty depleted of supportive people, look online.
close yourself off from potential solutions. Even if there have been a lot of disappointments and dead ends, remaining open minded and hopeful will allow you to look for things that could help.
It can feel frustrating when you have felt unsupported or hit dead ends, but I’d encourage people to remember that they are a valuable person and that their life matters. Help isn’t always right there in front of us, but if we get hunting, we will find it. There are support groups, helplines, forums which can provide understanding and advice. The other bit of advice is don’t 16
You need to love yourself and be yourself one hundred percent before you can actually love someone else. ~ Christina Perri
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The article was first published on www.fondastrong.com
Contact Jessica:
jessicajohns-green@hotmail.co.uk www.jessjohnsgreen.com
Contact Polona: polona@fondastrong.com www.fondastrong.com
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