How Your Mom’s Body Image Impacted Your Body Image: 5 Questions You can Ask Yourself to Learn More
By Katherine Metzelaar, MSN, RDN, CD
Your relationship with your body is complex.
So complex in fact that it’s hard to define in one succinct definition. This is because how you are in relationship with your body (your body image) is influenced by so many things. It’s impacted by systems of oppression (for example fatphobia, racism, sexism, ablism, and transphobia), trauma (inter-generational trauma too), diet culture, disability, mental illness, sickness, eating disorders/disordered eating, lived experiences, your family’s relationship with their bodies, and much more.
So where do you even begin when you’re wanting to change your body image and understand it better?
I often start with the offering to begin with getting curious about the people who raised you. This is because part of understanding your body image/your relationship to your body is understanding what your parent’s or caregiver’s relationship was like with their body as this influenced and impacted you too. So, let’s start with your mom.
I’ll share a bit of a personal experience first.
I grew up with a mom that hated her body, even up until the last months and days of her life. She avoided pictures and videos, constantly criticized her body and incessantly tried to diet away the parts of her that she felt like were unacceptable and undesirable. Unsurprisingly she was put on a diet around 10 years old, a shockingly common age for parents to put kids on diets. The roots of her own body hatred ran deep. She was picked on most of her life by her family and friends for her body size and experienced lots of medical weight stigma. And, while she desperately wanted to create and foster an environment where I didn’t experience what she did, where I could cultivate a more positive relationship to my body, I was still impacted by her unhealed relationship to her own body. Intent does not negate impact no matter how hard my mom was trying.
It’s normal to have a mom that hated or disliked her body considering the culture that we exist in. And, it’s ok if the realization that this impacted you is disappointing and complex.
We exist in a culture that holds women to unrealistic beauty and body standards that are ever-changing. This tends to lead women down a path of self-hatred, comparison, internalized weight stigma, self-objectification, and feeling like they will never be enough. So common and deeply ingrained is body hatred for women that it’s rare to meet someone who had a mom that loved or appreciated her body just as it was.
As children, having a mom (or primary caregiver) make negative comments about her body often feels scary and confusing even if it’s normalized in the household or “just what mom does.” And, consequentially, some unconscious but lasting thoughts for kids in hearing their mom criticize her body are:
“I have those parts too, so there must be something wrong with me too.”
“If she thinks that about herself, what does she think about me?”
“My body matters a lot and it is my responsibility to keep it looking the way that she says her body is supposed to look. I will be able to avoid pain, discomfort and unhappiness if I do the things that she says she wants for her body.”
“If mom works hard to shrink her body, then what happens if my body gets bigger? Will other people still love me? Will she she love me?”
“She’s unhappy and she says it’s because of her body. In order for me to be happy I need to be in a thin body or have the body parts she she says she wants.”
“She calls her body fat in a mean and degrading way. That must mean that fat is bad. That must mean my body is bad if I have fat.”
It’s important to note that this is not about blaming moms. After all they are human too existing in this culture trying to navigate the same stuff you are. Rather, this is about understanding how their relationship with their body impacted you so that you can make space for that, grieve it, and maybe one day feel compassion for your mom’s unhealed parts.
So, if you want to start getting curious about your body image and how your mom’s relationship with her body may have impacted your’s, here are 5 questions you can ask to get started:
Reflect on how you remember it feeling when you heard your mom making negative comments about her body. Were you afraid? Defensive? Confused? Sad? Disappointed?
Reflect on the hateful or harmful words that your mom used to describe her body. Are they the same words that you use to describe your body? Different?
Reflect on the body parts that your mom hated or disliked on her body. Are they the same parts that you dislike about your body?
Reflect on how it feels to know that your mom’s relationship with her body may have impacted you. What do you notice? How can you have compassion for what you understand now or are beginning to understand?
Reflect on how much it hurt you to hear your mom say mean things about herself. Do you ever remember thinking: “If she is saying that about herself and I have those same body parts, that must mean the same is true for me.” If so, how did this feel?
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