Why Body Checking Leaves You Feeling Like Crap and 5 Steps You Can Take to Reduce It
By Katherine Metzelaar, MSN, RDN, CD
Body checking is the act of checking your body, in thought or action, to see if things are “ok.” And sometimes it’s hard to resist doing it.
Examples of body checking can look like checking yourself in the mirror, windows, and pictures; pinching or squeezing the body (fat, bone or muscle); using a weighing scale or tape measures on the body; intentionally trying on too small clothes or repeatedly assessing the fit of clothing; constantly pulling and adjusting clothes (common example being in the belly area), using other people to check your body via asking someone about your body shape/size; and checking your body in comparison to other people’s bodies.
So why do you body check?
The act of body checking is not usually rooted in something malicious, but rather it’s an attempt to feel better about yourself and is usually a hope for relief. I often describe body checking as the fleeting moment between stimulus (“omg, how does my stomach look right now!?), and action (doing the body checking behavior), where there is a hope of relief from the distress or anxious feeling you have. And while the body checking behavior is often an attempt to relieve your discomfort or anxiety, it usually leaves you feeling worse off than before you body checked with a heightened sense of anxiety around your body which can be a difficult cycle to get stuck in.
Body checking behaviors will keep you stuck in body checking without getting to the root of what's going on.
The negative emotions that you feel in life and/or about your body fuel the body checking which fuels more negative thoughts or emotions which then leads to wanting to get rid of those feelings, and then the body checking starts again. This is what I call “the body checking cycle.” It’s a cycle that is often painful and compulsive for many, but mostly unconscious. Most individuals will know that they engage in body checking behaviors once they understand how to identify them, but it’s not until they start to actively bring the body checking behaviors into their conscious awareness that they begin to realize just how often it’s happening.
Why do you want to bring body checking behaviors into your awareness?
Body checking behaviors often fuel the eating disorder, disordered eating and diet cycling as body checking is the behavioral expression of body image worries, concerns and dislikes. Despite the desire to want to feel better and the hope that body checking will relieve fears or change your emotional state, you will more often than not feel worse afterward. This leads to engaging in disordered behaviors, such as food restriction, dieting, bingeing, purging, over-exercising, and more. And similar to the binge-shame-restrict cycle, you are now stuck on the “feel bad-body check-feel worse cycle.”
So, how do you decrease or eliminate body checking? 5 Steps You Can Take Now
Decreasing the amount of times you body check in a day takes time, practice, awareness and curiosity. After years (and for some a lifetime) of body checking, expect that it’s not going to change overnight. And, if you are feeling ready to start getting curious and challenging yourself, here are 5 steps to decrease the amount and frequency of body checking behaviors:
1) Take some time to think about the purpose of your body checking behaviors. Get curious by asking yourself: what are you looking for when you engage in body checking? What are you hoping to get out of the act? How are you hoping to feel?
2) Bring the unconscious into the conscious awareness. Easier said than done, I know. You can do this by asking yourself these questions before you want to body check, during body checking, or after you have body checked:
Why do I feel like I need to body check right now?
What am I feeling before body checking, during and after? How did my feelings change?
How did this impact my thoughts and feelings?
Am I noticing more thoughts or less thoughts about changing my body shape/size after I body check?
How is this impacting the disordered eating thoughts and behaviors?
3) Do some tracking. On a piece of paper, or in the notes section of your phone, write down every time you body check. Include how you felt before, during and after, and whether or not you resisted the urge to body check.
4) Remind yourself that your brain is literally rewiring itself. At first, resisting body checking behaviors will feel super hard. This is because through repetition our brains create pathways or shortcuts to make things easier. When you are creating new pathways in the brain and resisting the well traveled and well formed pathways, your brain will not be happy. Your brain is like, “come onnnnnnn, you are making me work to do something that is new and hard and I don’t wanna!” But here’s the good news: over time resisting body checking will become easier and will dissipate because your brain will catch up and new pathways will form.
5) Limit the amount of pictures you take in succession, how many outfit changes you do back-to-back, and how many times you look in the mirror/windows (to name just a few). This may look like determining ahead of time how many pictures you will allow yourself to take, setting a timer for when you are trying on clothes in the morning or when going out, and slowly noticing and then resisting the desire to body check when you see your reflection.
With time and practice, you can decrease body checking behaviors. And while at first it will feel worse, hard and scary, overtime it will lead to a greater sense of ease in your body, less mean/anxious feelings about your body, and more acceptance and care for your current body. Be patient, curious and keep practicing.
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Curious about seeking support to reduce body checking and improve body image?
It can be really difficult to abandon body checking behaviors, as they can serve purposes of comfort and routine even if they are hindering your relationship with food and body, The caring dietitians from our Seattle, WA-based nutrition counseling practice would be honored to help you heal your relationship to your body as well as food. We offer a variety of services including support for eating disorders, body image, intuitive eating, Bulimia treatment, Anorexia treatment, and chronic dieting. We also offer a body image support group. For more information, please feel free to visit our blog, FAQ, resources page, or contact us now!