When I look at girls, I see beauty in many different forms—unique ethnicities, abilities, personalities, and shapes and sizes. I’m sure you see divergent aesthetics in your daughter too. Girls are beautiful, but they are reluctant to believe us when we tell them. There are so many obstacles in her way when it comes to feeling beautiful: her own self-doubt, for example, and unfortunate cultural and societal messages that bombard her with images typically showing one body type and size and a single, narrow definition of physical attractiveness. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not voluptuous and curvy.
Girls learn that the body they have should be scrutinized, must be flawed, and most certainly needs to be altered. They also look outside of themselves for cultural standards around appearance. Kayla, now seventeen years old, told me she didn’t think much about her body until she was older. “I believe it was in Grade 9 when I started comparing my body to my peers and thinking I should be critical, you know, because they were doing it.”
At the same time as your teen is comparing her body to her peers, she’s also sizing herself up against the digitally altered images she sees on her social media feed. She’ll conclude that her body is not only different but wrong. She’ll struggle to find anything that she appreciates about it, and she’ll learn to talk like every other girl around her: “I am so fat!” “I ate way too much last night, so I’m not eating anything today.” Or she’ll ask others, “What do you eat every day? I’d do anything to be thin, like you!” Another girl I spoke with said, “I consciously and subconsciously compare myself to others via pictures and videos of people I see online. This can be for the worse because I will think to myself, They are so fit and healthy. How can I be like them? What do I need to change about myself to become like that?
So what about the girl who does feel beautiful? Who accepts her body? Strangely, she is often viewed as “abnormal,” or even considered a social anomaly. I asked girls what would happen if another girl approached them and declared, “I feel amazing about my body today and love my healthy, glowing skin!” They laughed, thinking I was joking. “This would never happen,” one of them told me. “Never.” Find me a girl who is body confident and you will also find a girl labelled as conceited and “into herself.”
Our competitive and comparative culture puts insane pressure on our girls. Exposure to social media; the obsession with selfies; the power and allure of crafted images that show idealized appearance standards; and myriad products that make empty promises of shinier hair, whiter teeth, and reduced cellulite—taken together, these influences are all too often overwhelming. And they leave teen girls emulating what they see and not what they feel, all the while believing that the perfect body and look can be attained through hard work, sacrifice, and sheer force of will. Girls as young as seven years old complain about frizzy hair, fat legs, and flat chests. I see girls who hide in their hoodies, slouching and turning their bodies inward in an attempt to diminish their developing breasts, and awkwardly carrying around their gangly bodies. One of my clients, Alexis, was mortified by the fact she got so tall, so quickly. Not only did she have to contend with being taller than every boy in her class, but she also had to put up with the constant annoying commentary—“You are so big!” “No kidding,” she’d tell me. What all these girls share is a deep dissatisfaction with their bodies and confusion as to why they don’t feel good. “My body is not enough,” they conclude, “so I’ll change it.” What they long for is unconditional love for themselves. What they experience, whether it is self-imposed or coming from outside influences, is rejection.
Rejection is borne of the self-critical language that so many girls are convinced is the motivator for change (an idea society as a whole has bought into). “If I am harsh on myself,” goes the rationale, “telling myself I am fat, ugly, lazy, and not beautiful enough, I will be driven to change and I will never become complacent or conceited.” It’s the perfect plan to guarantee transformation. Except, in the process, there is no self-love, self-kindness, or self-compassion. A teen girl who pushes herself to lose ten pounds so she feels better about herself may lose the weight, but she may feel awful still, and then confused as to why losing the weight didn’t result in happiness or contentment. This is not the motivation she needs. She may punish herself, perhaps depriving herself of nutrition, exercising in the extreme, or using harsh, self-deprecating criticism. Often, she’ll use the weight scale to measure her self-worth and social currency. Starving for self-love and acceptance, she may wish she were taller, thinner, and more beautiful, with clearer skin, whiter teeth, and curlier hair. Eventually she will disconnect from herself.
I had been working with Naomi for almost a year when she blurted out, “My boobs are too big.” Caught off guard by the randomness of this comment, I asked her to tell me more. Naomi explained that when she was fitted for a new bra the week prior (Mom had vetoed her sports bra preference), the lady helping her figure out the proper size told her she was “small everywhere, except in your bust.” Naomi was mortified. She decided right then and there her boobs were too big and she hated them. She asked me how she could lose weight to shrink her boobs.
I had to tread lightly for a few reasons, as you will have to as well when it comes to growing girls wanting to change their bodies. First, she will be super-sensitive when talking about these issues. Second, her body is still changing, and interrupting the natural process is not advisable. Third, and most importantly, her body is not the problem; the real problem is her perception of her body. What helped Naomi, over the course of our next four sessions, was a shift in focus: from body hating to finding ways to feel good about her whole self.
If your daughter comes to you and expresses a desire to change her body, empathize with her: “This is tough for you and I completely understand.” Then segue from talking about changing her body to changing her habits, and away from losing weight toward gaining a positive relationship with her body. Let her know that there is always something she can do to feel better about herself as she is.
ASHA
A lot of my friends are super-skinny, not that they can control it, but they always say they look anorexic or how they don’t have boobs and butts. This makes me feel so frustrated because I’d kill to have their bodies. I have never tried to change my body, but sometimes I’ll trace imaginary lines on my body and pretend to cut the fat off like a plastic surgeon.
I think I just need to not be so obsessed with what I look like. I probably need more of my own self-confidence and fewer negative thoughts. I probably need less social media too. When you look at any Instagram “model,” you notice how they are all skinny, all muscle, and so beautiful. I think girls compare themselves to other girls and then they obsess over wanting to look like so-and-so. This makes them obsess over what they look like instead of who they are as a person. I probably am the one person who has influenced my relationship with my body—I have a negative influence on my body. My mom always tells me I’m beautiful.
Body Image and the Family Dynamic
Like identity, body image is formed over time and with the feedback of others. For a teen girl, body image can be a positive, accurate, and healthy view. In this scenario, she accepts her shape, size, and body parts, wears clothes that flatter her figure, and feels relaxed and confident as she moves. But body image can also be negative, distorted, and unhealthy. In this scenario, a teen girl is dissatisfied with how she looks and fixated on the body parts she hates. She wears clothes that neither fit nor flatter her unique shape, and looks and feels uncomfortable in her own skin.
While girls worry about how they look, parents worry about how girls feel about their looks. One mom told me, “I think she has a level head on her now, but I worry with middle school that she will start to feel the pressure to look a certain way. I try to keep her focused on what she loves rather than buying into the notion that at this age you have to dress and act a specific way. We worry about her being teased because she doesn’t fit the standard mould.”
Even though cultural and media messages influence your teen girl powerfully, the messages that come from within the family are just as powerful, perhaps more so. I believe parents have an enormous opportunity to positively shape how girls