The Body Image Burden in a Weight-Obsessed World

Her fists clenched and her jaw tightened as the conversation continued. Two women at the neighboring café table were chatting loudly over coffee, oblivious to the ears around them.

“It’s crazy! Sometimes I straight-up forget to eat, and then suddenly it’s dinner, and I realize all I’ve had is my green juice and black coffee!” one woman exclaimed.

Her friend laughed, praising her. “Oh my god! That’s wild you’ve trained your body not to want anything until then. It shows—you look amazing!”

The first woman smiled. “Thanks! I think it’s just about ignoring hunger long enough. I got used to it, and now it’s my everyday.”

At that, she couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed her tote and gathered her belongings, feeling her perfect Saturday morning coffee run ruined by the ever-present “skinny talk.” I just forget to eat, she mocked in her head. All I’ve had is green juice and coffee.

“Fuck off” was what she really wanted to say. Rage bubbled inside her as she brushed past their table on her way out. Forget to eat—or suppress the hell out of the need to...oh, I don’t know...sustain your life?

She tossed her cup in the bin and headed home, urging her brain to resist the negative voice creeping in. Please, I just want to have a pleasant day, she pleaded. But the negative thoughts broke through.

She did look really good. Thin.

That’s so fucked—take it back! You don’t mean that.

Mmm, but don’t lie to yourself; yes, you do. You want to look like that. At the very least, don’t be mad at her.

The tug-of-war of thoughts flashed her back to the first time she became aware of her own body and the fact that others were too. It was the summer between 7th and 8th grade at the school swim club party—a lovely transitional time for so many.

She remembered it well, wringing out her hair while joining the back of the snack bar line. Her focus on the swirly chalkboard menu kept her from saying hello to a group of boys she knew ahead of her, and gave just enough pause to overhear her own name being spoken.

“Dude, you’ve got to get goggles on. I swear, the biggest ass in the pool, hands down. I’m surprised there’s a suit that even covers half.”

They all laughed.

She darted from the line and ran to the bathroom, stopping in front of the mirror. Through bleary eyes now welling with tears, she half-turned to look at her body, seemingly taking it all in for the first time. They were right; she was mortified. She didn’t want to be objectified; she just wanted to swim after the dive toys and race across the pool carefree with her friends. She was, after all, just a girl. Wrapping herself in her towel, she wiped her stinging eyes and walked back into the world with the weight of newfound shame draped around her.

Still fuming as she left the café, she stopped on a bench along the gravel trail, rubbing the skin at the side of her thumb and fighting the urge to pick until it bled. Are we doing this again? She took a deep, steadying breath and pinched the skin between her thumb and forefinger instead.

“It’s fine, you’re just fine,” she whispered.

Letting go of her grip, she inhaled deeply, picturing the negative words retreating back into the recesses of her brain like snow sliding into a gaping crevasse. Relax, she thought again, letting out a sigh.

Sophie would be pleased with that, she mused. Sophie was her tough yet tender therapist, who had spent the last two sessions digging into the roots of her body image shame and frustration. Going into therapy, she intended to address her self-image, but had intentionally avoided it for the first few months. All her other problems had felt like a walk in the park compared to this. Until one day, at the start of a session, it was clear it was time.

“I hate how I look,” she spilled.

“All the time, or just today?” Sophie asked.

“Basically every day.”

Sophie shifted in her seat, crossing her legs, donning that deep, attentive therapist look.

“Go on,” she urged.

“It’s never-ending. Every day when I’m getting dressed, my hands slide to the outside of my thighs to see if there’s skin to pinch or if my cellulite dimples have magically disappeared. Every outfit I try on, I take a few steps forward in the mirror to see if my hips bulge out in an unflattering way.

“It’s dumb, I know. I shouldn’t even have those thoughts; I know they’re pointless.”

“You know, you know, you know,” Sophie interjected, “yet here you are,” leaving space afterward for her to continue.

“It’s…” she paused, disheartened, eyes cast to the floor. “It just sucks because as much as I try to convince myself it doesn’t matter and that I don’t care, I actually do.”

Sophie shifted again, her smooth trousers sliding in the worn leather chair. She uncrossed her legs and leaned against the armrest for stability.

“Why is it something you care about?”

She thought about deflecting with something generic, like how it changes how people treat you or the respect you’re given, yada yada. But she thought better of it. A quick flick of her eyes up from the floor to meet Sophie’s confirmed that she was ready to see right through that answer.

“It’s my friends,” she said. “I think they care about being thin too. It feels like everyone does. It dictates so many conversations and feels like this elephant in the room all the time. But the difference is they can all make changes to be that way, and I feel…”

She bit the inside of her cheek, still looking for a way to deflect until finally—

“I feel like a failure because I can’t do it too.”

“Can’t do what?” Sophie questioned.

“Not eat—starve myself—it feels impossible for me, but that’s what my messed-up brain thinks is right. Why can’t I find the discipline? Why can I work late or exercise hard but can’t control this one part of my life that causes so much agony?”

The memory faded, and she snapped back to reality as gravel crunched loudly under the feet of fast-approaching runners. She found herself rubbing the outside of her thumb again. The memory had played through her head so vividly, and it was jarring to hear those words coming from her own mouth. 

This sucks.

She worked hard with Sophie to identify where these feelings came from and narrowed it down to the big three: fear, frustration, and shame. Fear of not being enough for her friends, frustration from not finding clothes that fell the right way on her body, and shame around having more of an appetite than others and feeling like it wasn’t deserved. 

As the runners disappeared into the trees, her brain jumped to the conversation she heard back at the cafe. Those were moments she was working to manage better. Yes, the girls comments rattled her, but she shouldn’t give them enough power to determine whether or not she gets the breakfast that day.

An idea came to her: to go back and order that sandwich as a way of standing up for herself, in a sense. She felt lousy and defeated but her homework from Soph was to find ways to get small wins and this felt like it could be one. 

She stood from the bench and reversed on the trail once more.

It was unrealistic to aim for perfection or to think she could completely silence her inner critic. For now, perhaps just refusing to let negative thoughts dictate her day would be enough. Determined to quiet her harshest critic this time, she pushed open the café door and stepped inside. No more skinny talk—today was about reclaiming her voice and her appetite in a world that had taught her to suppress both.