A friend of mine recently talked to me about an experience he had after smoking marijuana — after getting high enough, he objectively looked at himself in a mirror and saw his face, his body and his total being. Because he wasn’t imposing his own subjective self-perception on his body, it was as if he was seeing himself for the first time from the perspective of a stranger. He then started to worry how that stranger might unfairly judge him on the basis of his appearance with no knowledge of his personality. He said this feeling made him feel strange, almost sad.
I didn’t think anything of it at first. But strip the story down to its core and forget that it was drug-induced, and there is something to gain from it. There are people who struggle with these same thoughts every second of every day and who go to unfortunate lengths to meet societal standards of beauty, body and appearance. And most commonly, they must live with the effects of self-criticism and and debilitating eating disorders.
We meet different kinds of people and have such varied experiences at a fast pace at UC Berkeley that it’s almost inevitable that the way we perceive ourselves comes into question at one point or another during our four years here. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as that self-exploration can lead to inner peace. But when self-criticism becomes so deep that it points us in a completely different and much darker direction, there is a real cause for worry. Intense self-criticism results in negative body image, which stems from a dissatisfaction with physical appearance but sustains the dark emotions that come along with those perceptions.
Left untreated, these feelings can fester and build up to an overwhelming urge to dramatically alter physical appearance. One manifestation of this is eating disorders, which cripple 25 percent of college students who try to control their weight through behaviors similar to bulimia nervosa, according to a Renfrew Center evaluation. Eating disorders aren’t the sole indicators of body image issues — 91 percent of college students have used dieting as a means of weight control. Why have we made it so difficult for people struggling with their body image to reach out and get support for the effects of constant societal and internal pressures?
Appearance has dramatically taken precedence over health, and with that shift comes negative body perception. Body Peace, a UC Berkeley student organization dedicated to promoting positive body image, provides tips to prevent appearance from being the primary motivator for physical change. Become aware of what your body and mind can do every single day. Start thinking about what you can achieve with the time and energy you would have used to spend focusing on self-perceived imperfections. Challenge yourself to think of 10 positive things about yourself that are completely unrelated to your appearance. Then keep adding to the list until you can accept yourself.
If you at least try to strive for wellness, things will fall into place. Dieting or exercising more often, for example, shouldn’t be done with the intention of being able to fit into new shorts or looking less “fat” but rather with the intention of becoming healthier. When we lose sight of what actually matters — our well-being — we start to focus only on the societal factors that try to influence us to change ourselves, and that has disastrous consequences.
Harsh external stimuli in the form of media and pop culture have persuaded us to accept flawed notions of gender, sex and relationships that end up getting projected onto our real lives and enhance negative body image. We need to stifle the influence of TV, movies and advertisements that slowly brainwashes us into accepting stereotypes — that the most attractive women are perfect, thin and of a certain skin tone, or that men need to be muscular to convey dominance. Instead of accepting these unrealistic and one-size-fits-all definitions of beauty and character, we need to develop our own notions of beauty by shutting out external noise and focusing on realistic expectations for ourselves that will actually make us happy.
There’s one overarching solution at the root of positive body image — being comfortable with your body and with yourself. Appearance doesn’t dictate your value and self-worth, and that value is worth finding and cherishing. As long as you’re comfortable with your body regardless of its appearance, you’ll maintain a sense of self-worth and be healthy — mentally, socially and physically — no matter what you do.
The accepting atmosphere here at UC Berkeley is conducive to shattering the barriers that block you from being comfortable with yourself. John Lennon says it best: “We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.”
Shahin Firouzbakht writes a Thursday column on health issues affecting student life.
Contact Shahin Firouzbakht at [email protected].