Negative Body Image: 4 Ways to Cope (Support for Women in Salt Lake City, Utah)
Warm weather has a way of bringing body image to the surface. When you can’t hide under layers anymore, your body feels more visible, more exposed, and for a lot of women in Salt Lake City and across Utah, more vulnerable. The women I work with in body image therapy in Salt Lake City, Utah, often tell me that as soon as clothes get lighter and skin shows, their anxiety about their bodies ramps up. It’s not vanity. It’s not a weakness. It’s the very real discomfort of living in a world that teaches women their bodies are something to be evaluated, judged, and compared. If you find yourself wanting to shrink, hide, or feel less seen when the seasons change, there is nothing wrong with you. It makes sense that this is hard.
Why Body Image Gets Louder When Your Body Is More Visible
Body image issues are a struggle for the majority of women. It’s a sad truth, and I wish it weren’t that way, but it is. It’s hard not to struggle with body image when we live in a world that is obsessed with women’s bodies being thin, sculpted, and beautiful. I’m sure you have your own experiences personally where perhaps someone in your life made comments about your body and appearance that made you realize you should be worried about what you look like. These are challenging experiences to let go of. Much of the media that we experience is filtered images of women that don’t even look the way we think they do.
Why So Many Women Struggle With Their Bodies (And Why It Makes Sense)
We also don’t have many people out there preaching body positivity and radical acceptance of your body. It’s still an unpopular movement to think of all bodies as good bodies that don’t need to be altered or shrunk. Unfortunately, many women attempt to improve their body image by losing weight or changing their image. You may be surprised to know that body image is contingent upon your weight, the size of your jeans, or the color of your hair. Changing all of that isn’t going to make a long-term difference in how you feel about your body. There are other ways to manage body image.
Before I give you some tips on how to cope with your body image, I want to tell you that you don’t have to feel guilty or stupid because you don’t like your body. I know when we open up about how we think about our appearance, loved ones might dismiss these emotions or even make us feel bad for feeling that way. You don’t need to feel embarrassed or ashamed because this is your struggle. You are already struggling enough and don’t need to feel worse. Let’s talk about what might help you feel better.
Ways to Cope With Negative Body Image
There are ways to help you deal with body image issues and not have to think about what your body looks like all the time. Here are some suggestions on ways to cope with body image:
Reducing Mirror Checking and Body Monitoring
Be honest with yourself about how long you are spending looking at yourself in the mirror, checking your appearance, or making sure your clothes aren’t showing too much. There is no moral value in you using a mirror at all, BUT there’s a good chance that you are feeling terrible about yourself the more you body check in the mirror. It’s fine to use a mirror, but I would certainly work on decreasing how many times you check out your appearance in the mirror. Believe it or not, the act of checking yourself out over and over in the mirror increases feelings of depression and anxiety.
Curating Your Social Media to Protect Your Nervous System
Social media is great for connecting with other people and maintaining and building relationships. It opens up more opportunities to have connections regardless of physical distance. It can be a wonderful tool and support for people. It can also be a downfall. If you are following people that are body-focused regardless of their body size, people that are counting their macros or are on a “health” journey, it will likely lead to you thinking more about your body and what you eat then is probably helpful. I would urge you to pay attention to the accounts you are following and notice how you are feeling after scrolling. It’s ok to mute and unfollow anyone who makes you feel negative about yourself, and in fact, I would encourage you to do just that.
Wearing Clothes That Fit Your Body Now
This may seem to be pretty obvious but the way you dress matters. If you are constantly wearing clothes that are too big or too small, it’s going to keep you focused on your body size. You absolutely do not deserve to be or feel uncomfortable in your clothes. That may mean getting a different size of clothes. You might have unspoken rules in your head about what your size is allowed to be or you may feel anxiety about changing sizes, I want you to know it’s normal, and it’s ok. When you get the courage to do it, I would recommend getting rid of the clothes that don’t fit you anymore that have been hanging in your closet for “one day”. Take someone you trust shopping with you and let them pick the sizes for you so you don’t have to see them. Finding clothes that fit you properly is important when coping with a negative body image.
Practice gratitude for your body
I tell all of my clients who are struggling with their body image that my goal is not to get them to love every part of their bodies. My goal is to get you to have respect and gratitude for your body. I want you to be able to move to a place of acceptance of what your body is rather than trying to get your approval of it. I don’t expect you to hold any body-love rallies, but I want you to think about your appearance much less than you are now. One of the tools to do this is finding things you are grateful for about your body. As they say, “Your body is an instrument, not an ornament”. Focusing less on what it looks like and more so on what allows you to do can help you feel more positively about your body.
When Coping Isn’t Enough: How Body Image Therapy in Salt Lake City Can Help
Using coping skills might not cure your bad body image, so don’t beat yourself up if you still struggle at times. These are tools to help you cope with how you feel about your body and to work towards having a more positive relationship with yourself. Therapy is a critical tool in helping you really dig in and rewrite the story of what you tell yourself about your body. Therapy is also an important step in healing from the past messages you’ve been given about yourself and your body. It’s important to address the underlying issues that have contributed to an emphasis on your body and help you develop a healthier view of yourself.
Trauma, comments made by others, and early childhood experiences contribute to developing a negative view of your body. It might seem like something you should be able to shake off, but our brains aren’t wired that way. Many women feel embarrassed that they care about something as “stupid” as what their body looks like. They have shared that they’ve tried to talk about it with other people and it has been minimized or they have been reassured that they look good, an dthere’s nothing wrong with their bodies. They begin to wonder if something is wrong with them because the words of their loved ones fall flat. The truth is nobody is going to be able to persuade your or convince you with words that your body is ok. The most important part of healing is you learn to accept yourself and your body for what it is.
Body image therapy is not just learning coping skills, but it’s actually learning to find healing from the comments people have made about your body that have been painful. Body image therapy is learning to respect your body and treat it with kindness. It doesn’t mean you’re always going to be stoked to look in the mirror or you’re going to love what you look like. The most important thing you can learn is how to show gratitude and kindness regardless of how you feel about your appearance. The overall goal is to feel better about yourself, which you can expect to focus on in therapy.
Working With a Body Image Therapist Online in Salt Lake City, Utah
You don’t have to keep fighting your body or feeling at war with how you look. If your thoughts about your body take up too much space, if shame or comparison feels constant, or if past comments and experiences still echo in your mind, body image therapy in Salt Lake City, Utah, through online therapy can help.
I provide trauma-informed, compassionate therapy for women who are tired of hating their bodies but don’t feel ready for forced “self-love.” Therapy is a place to untangle the beliefs you learned about your worth, safety, and appearance and to begin building a kinder relationship with your body.
If you’re curious whether this work might be right for you, I invite you to schedule a free 15-minute consultation. You can ask questions, get a feel for my approach, and see if it feels like a good fit.
Other Mental Health Services Provided by Maple Canyon Therapy
Body image therapy isn’t the only service I provide at Maple Canyon Therapy. Other mental health services provided by Maple Canyon Therapy Services include anxiety treatment, EMDR and Trauma Therapy, Eating Disorder Therapy, birth trauma therapy, and binge eating disorder treatment in Utah.
All services are available through online therapy in Utah. This means if you are located in St. George, Cedar City, Logan, or Heber City, I can still help you.
About the Author
Ashlee Hunt, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of Maple Canyon Therapy, an online therapy practice serving women in Salt Lake City, Utah, and across the state via telehealth. She specializes in working with high-functioning, sensitive, people-pleasing women who struggle with body image, their relationship with food, anxiety, and the lasting impact of painful comments, expectations, and early experiences.
Ashlee has advanced training in trauma-informed therapy and has worked with women navigating eating disorders and body image distress since her graduate training. Her approach is compassionate, relational, and focused on helping women understand why they feel the way they do and not just how to cope, but how to heal the deeper stories they carry about their worth, their bodies, and their right to take up space.
At Maple Canyon Therapy, Ashlee offers body image therapy in Salt Lake City, Utah, through secure online counseling, creating a space where women can feel understood, supported, and gently guided toward a more peaceful relationship with themselves.