This episode focuses on body image and its effects on self-esteem, particularly for women during different life stages, such as pre- and post-pregnancy. The speaker shares personal experiences and insights from their counseling practice, emphasizing how body image can lead to disordered eating behaviors and eating disorders.
Key points include:
Distinction Between Disordered Eating and Eating Disorders: Disordered eating involves unhealthy eating patterns that may cause emotional distress, while eating disorders are clinically significant and often require medical intervention.
Impact of Life Changes: Women's bodies change significantly during pregnancy and postpartum, and societal pressure to "bounce back" can exacerbate negative body image.
Emotional Connection to Eating: Individuals may make emotional decisions regarding food, leading to a cycle of stress and disordered behaviors.
Self-Reflection and Awareness: The speaker advocates for practices that enhance body awareness and emotional health, encouraging individuals to focus on feelings rather than solely on food and body image.
Acceptance of Change: Emphasizing the importance of accepting body changes over time, the speaker suggests that surrendering to these transitions can lead to healthier self-perception.
Community Support: The message encourages seeking help and building a supportive community to navigate body image challenges together.
The overarching theme is the importance of self-acceptance and emotional well-being in the journey of body image and eating behaviors.
Stephanie Konter-O'Hara is deeply passionate about the work she does as a clinician, supervisor, business owner, podcaster, wife and mother as they all inspire her to be the best version of herself and challenge her everyday. A guiding mantra that Stephanie follows in life is the Gandhi quote of "be the change you want to see in the world", and this inspires her to keep doing things in a way that don't necessarily follow the mold but is ideally changing the world one interaction at a time. She believes her purpose is to inspire others to be the best version of themselves and empower every person to deeply know they are good enough just the way they are.
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Description text goes her11:07:17 Today I'm going to talk about body image and the journey that I have been on as well as people that I work with.
11:07:27 In my counseling practice, and how their body image has impacted.
11:07:32 Their self-esteem, their sense of fitting in as well as their journey, but both previous and post.
11:07:54 Hi, everyone. Today I'm going to talk about body image and how it impacts women that I have worked with in my practice as well as my own journey with body image. I'm going to address the difference.
11:08:10 That a woman may feel.
11:08:12 3 baby compared to post baby.
11:08:15 As well as how.
11:08:19 A person's body image may impact their eating behaviors as well as how they feel about themselves, and whether or not that impacts their ability to relate to others.
11:08:29 So oftentimes, when people are consumed with the way that their body appears aesthetically to the world, they may develop.
11:08:40 Some disorder, eating behaviors.
11:08:44 Or some.
11:08:45 Behaviors that are directly in line with a diagnosable eating disorder, and the line is a little blurry for that.
11:08:54 In the public eye. However, I want to make sure that I really clarify the difference between disordered eating behaviors compared to eating disorder.
11:09:03 So just ordered eating can appear that someone is.
11:09:10 Focused on their food, focused on their body, they may make more emotional decisions.
11:09:17 About eating rather than just eating, to.
11:09:22 Survive, or eating to nourish themselves, or eating out of joy. Sometimes.
11:09:27 Into shorter eating, or.
11:09:31 Yeah, sometimes in disordered eating, this may look like.
11:09:35 Not eating all day, and then eating all of our calories at night, and look like an episode of what's called emotional eating, or it could look like only eating.
11:09:48 During certain times, and doing like intermittent fasting or.
11:09:52 Any sort of quote unquote diet.
11:09:55 That is done oftentimes can look like.
11:10:00 Disordered eating, it usually causes some level of emotional distress. If I were to describe emotional distress to you on a scale of 0 to 10 0 be no distress at all. 10 be in the highest stress you can imagine. I would rate people who experience disordered eating level of daily distress around food at like a 3 or 4.
11:10:23 Now compared to an eating disorder, the level of distress or disturbance that someone.
11:10:29 Experiences around an eating disorder is probably on the higher end, like somewhere, it's causing major impacts on their emotional wellbeing as well as the relationships that they have with others.
11:10:43 It may require medical attention.
11:10:46 It may be a little less severe, and not require medical attention, but is a chronic everyday issue that may look like fasting or restricting food, having a lot of moral judgments around food. This food's good, this food's bad.
11:11:03 Maybe counting calories.
11:11:05 Potentially measuring themselves.
11:11:08 Being hyper, fixated on the food that they put in their body.
11:11:12 As well as the size of their body.
11:11:16 And not eating in a way that actually.
11:11:21 Provides a sense of well balanced but.
11:11:24 Usually on one.
11:11:27 Pendulum, extreme of.
11:11:29 I'm gonna eat everything that I want and have.
11:11:34 Hardly any hunger, cues.
11:11:36 A feeling satisfied to. I'm going to ignore all of my hunger cues.
11:11:42 And I'm going to not eat.
11:11:44 Now, that's a very broad description.
11:11:49 I have an eating disorder.
11:11:50 The Dsm 5 has a very specific.
11:11:54 Way of describing, in eating disorder.
11:12:44 So currently, the Dsm 5.
11:12:47 Has 5 different delineations of what is underneath the eating disorder. Category.
11:12:53 Anorexia nervosa bulimia nervosa binge, eating disorder, something called rfed, as well as other specified feeding or eating disorders.
11:13:05 Now, if you have co-occurring disorders with this anxiety, depression, or even like medical, like diabetes.
11:13:14 There's complications that could cause more issues, especially if you have a medical other more.
11:13:26 Difficult mental health disorder to work through. It kind of gets really complicated and can look very different for each person. So I also want to recognize that. But I'm just going to read.
11:13:38 What?
11:13:39 The Dsm. Would describe as.
11:14:01 Okay, the key diagnostic criteria looks like restricting of energy intake relative to requirements leading to a significantly low body weight in the context of age, sex, developmental trajectory and physical health.
11:14:17 Often they experience intense fear of gaining weight, or becoming fat or persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain, even though.
11:14:25 They're at a significantly low weight.
11:14:28 And finally, disturbance in a way in which one's bodies or shape is experience. Undue influence of body, weight, or shape.
11:14:37 On self evaluation or persistent lack of recognition of the seriousness of their current low body weight.
11:14:44 For binge, eating.
11:14:46 Disorder. It looks like.
11:14:48 According to the Dsm. Recurrent episodes of Binge. Eating, bingeing is associated with eating more rapidly than usual, eating until full.
11:14:59 And uncomfortably full, eating large amount of food when not physically hungry, eating alone because of feeling embarrassed by how much one is eating.
11:15:09 Feeling disgusted with oneself or.
11:15:14 Very guilty afterwards, and having marked distress about their bin cheating episode.
11:15:20 Bulimia often looks like recurrent episodes of binge eating that are characterized by.
11:15:25 Both of the following, in a discrete period of time, usually within 2 h period, an amount of food that is.
11:15:33 Definitively larger than what most individuals would eat in a similar period of time. Under similar circumstances, a sense or lack of control.
11:15:43 Overeating during this episode, and feeling that they cannot stop eating or control what or how much one is eating reoccurrent, inappropriate, compensatory behaviors to prevent weight, gain compensatory behaviors.
11:15:59 Can look like self-induced vomiting misuse of wax, diuretics, or other medications, fasting or excessive exercise.
11:16:09 Self evaluation is unduly influenced by body, shape, and.
11:16:14 Our fed actually stands for avoidant restrictive food, intake disorder and the Dsm eating or feeding disturbance.
11:16:23 Apparent lack of interest in eating or food avoidance based on sensory characteristics of food concern about aversion, consequences of eating associated with one or more of the following.
11:16:35 Significant weight, loss, or failure to achieve expected weight, gain, or.
11:16:40 Flat faltering growth in children.
11:16:43 Significant, nutritional deficiencies.
11:16:46 Dependent on.
11:16:48 Dependent on feeding oral.
11:16:52 Supplements.
11:16:54 Marked interference with social cycle.
11:16:57 Marked interference with social.
11:17:03 Marked interference with psychosocial functioning.
11:17:07 And finally other specified feeding disorders.
11:17:11 Is an eating disorder or feeding disturbance that causes clinically significant distress or impairment, but does not meet the full criteria of any of the disorders in this diagnostic class.
11:17:22 This might include, but is not limited to.
11:17:26 Atypical anorexia.
11:17:28 Bulimia narvosa, or Binge, eating disorder of low frequency or limited.
11:17:34 Duration, purging disorder or night eating, syndrome.
11:17:37 So that is what is clinically as an eating disorder. Most of the people that I work with in an outpatient level have what's called disordered eating.
11:17:49 Oftentimes, when someone has a eating disorder that is clinically significant, they need more medical assistance than what is appropriate for outpatient care.
11:18:00 So those that clients generally get referred to a higher level of care until they're able to stabilize some of their behaviors and resume outpatient care.
11:18:09 But it outpatient care.
11:18:13 And the people that I work with.
11:18:15 There's usually still a relatively high.
11:18:18 Distress that they're eating behaviors, and the way their body causes them.
11:18:24 And generally what I like to do with clients is start having them create what's called a dialectical behavior card. So a dialectical behavior card.
11:18:35 Is helpful because it.
11:18:38 Redirects the brain from focusing on what they're eating and their calories, and when their body looks to.
11:18:46 How they're feeling and what behaviors they wanna change.
11:18:50 The fixation. The eating disorders and disordered eating cause can be distressing and distracting to daily life.
11:18:58 So having the client, or having people transition to focusing on their feelings.
11:19:05 As well as their behaviors, can be a great way.
11:19:08 To rewire some of the thinking patterns.
11:19:13 So on a dialectical behavior card. I usually do a modified one with my clients. Since I provide dialectical behavior rather than the full dialectical behavior that usually is again best suited for a higher level care than outpatient treatment.
11:19:31 So on the behavior card.
11:19:35 I usually have the client out 5 emotions that they want to experience, either more of or less of. I usually encourage them to write down 3 feelings they want to feel more of because.
11:19:48 Generally speaking, most people who have mental health concerns are often focused on their negative motions.
11:19:53 So, having them try to shift their focus to focus on the positives.
11:19:59 And or the positive emotions.
11:20:01 Hopefully again, can help rewire the brain. So I usually address with the client.
11:20:07 Okay. What feelings are you feeling? What feelings do you want to experience.
11:20:13 And then we create.
11:20:15 A scale that works specifically for them. Of, okay, what's a 0 of this emotion? And what is a 10 of experiencing this emotion? And then every day I want you to assess.
11:20:26 In the morning, midday, and at night.
11:20:29 Whether or not you're experiencing that emotion and the intensity of it. And then, on the other side.
11:20:35 Focus on behaviors. So 3 behaviors.
11:20:39 That you want to do more of, and 2 behaviors that you want to do less of.
11:20:44 And then what was the urge of doing? The behavior.
11:20:48 Did you really find yourself to.
11:20:54 Measure out your food. Did you find yourself really compelled to go for a walk.
11:21:00 Like, how can you rate what the urges? Usually I do this on a scale of 0 to 5.
11:21:06 5. My urge was really high 0. I had no urge at all.
11:21:10 And then to journal about the experience of doing the behavior or not doing the behavior.
11:21:16 That way again, the client, shifting their hopefully their mental focus away from.
11:21:23 The fixation on food and body.
11:21:26 The amount of distress that this causes. People can interfere with the relationships, interfere with jobs.
11:21:33 Potentially become so consuming that it's.
11:21:37 A relationship within itself.
11:21:39 So a relationship with food, a relationship with.
11:21:44 The amount of food, or the types of food, or whatever that a person.
11:21:49 Consumes or doesn't consume the amount of moral judgment that oftentimes is aligned with food like this, food is good, this food is bad.
11:21:57 This food will make me feel.
11:21:59 Ugly. This food will make me feel skinny.
11:22:03 Like, whatever the relationship they have with a certain food, try to identify that, and then bring the person closer and closer to neutrality.
11:22:13 Because food in itself.
11:22:17 Is nutrients is sustenance is a thing they don't have inherent.
11:22:25 Good or bad.
11:22:27 In the food itself. It's the way that we view the food that impacts the way that we feel about it. But if food itself.
11:22:35 Like, let's say.
11:22:39 An entire lunch compared to a snack has the same moral value to you. Then, whether you have a snack or a whole meal.
11:22:50 Won't matter to you as much emotionally. The only thing that would matter is the hunger cues and the satiation cues that are attached.
11:22:59 To the volume of food that you eat and your level of fullness. Oftentimes people with just disordered eating.
11:23:08 Have learned to ignore their body cues, have learned to ignore the way that they're they physically feel.
11:23:16 So getting them back in touch with that is really important.
11:23:21 Because if you're not listening to your body, and you're only listening to your thoughts.
11:23:26 Usually the more distress that you're you're creating for yourself.
11:23:30 Because you're not aligned or in tune with yourself. If you're just ignoring the major aspect of your.
11:23:36 Being, which is how you physically feel.
11:23:40 I oftentimes like to encourage people to do practices that will increase their body awareness.
11:23:48 So whether that's.
11:23:50 How does it feel to be.
11:23:53 Washing your hands? Do you smell the soap? Would your hands feel like.
11:23:58 Potentially like, how does it feel when you brush your hair? What is the experience that you're noticing when you're brushing your hair.
11:24:05 I usually like to focus on parts of the.
11:24:10 Physical experience that someone might have is most likely not tied.
11:24:15 To the way.
11:24:17 That they feel about their body so oftentimes, or feet or hair.
11:24:22 Potentially if their ears like something that's, generally speaking, most people don't feel self conscious about. And I usually try to explore what that might be because some people are self conscious about their ears or their feet, or etc, so trying to find something that is as benign as possible and focus on how that part feels. And then slowly integrating.
11:24:45 Other parts of their body, so they can.
11:24:49 Recognize that their body actually isn't made of parts. It's an entire.
11:24:54 Thing an entire like piece of themselves that they need to treat holistically and see as holistically, because the more that we segment.
11:25:04 Our body up into pieces or into parts the further away from feeling integrated with our entire selves.
11:25:11 That a person can experience or person can feel.
11:25:17 So our bodies often change. So I'm gonna transition.
11:25:21 Away from talking about specific eating and eating disorders into.
11:25:27 Most people's experience with their body is that it changes throughout their entire life.
11:25:33 From birth.
11:25:34 To adolescents, 2. In our twenties, 50 60 s. etc. Our body is always changing.
11:25:42 And oftentimes people develop disordered eating in their teens and twenties.
11:25:48 Because this is the 1st time that their body is going through any sort of.
11:25:55 Dramatic change. And so this.
11:25:58 Dramatic change. Often triggers like a hyper. Awareness.
11:26:02 Or a hyper fixation on the ways that the body's changing.
11:26:07 And disordered eating or eating disorders are often an attempt to keep the body looking in a specific way. It also can be a result, of course, of other traumatic events.
11:26:18 That I'm not gonna go into here because that could be an entire episode in itself.
11:26:22 But.
11:26:25 Accepting that our bodies are going through transitions and surrendering to the changes.
11:26:32 And acknowledging that it's okay. To not have control of every single thing is a huge part of the transformation.
11:26:40 That people.
11:26:42 Would benefit going through that struggle with body, dysmorphia, or body image.
11:26:47 So the way that your body looks at 10 isn't supposed to be the way that your body looks at 15.
11:26:52 The way that your body looks at 15, the way that your body looks at 21.
11:26:57 And so on, and so forth.
11:26:59 So figuring out how to.
11:27:02 Surrender to that change and surrender, to.
11:27:06 Aging can be really helpful. And recognizing that everyone is going through this, it's not just you and your body.
11:27:15 It's also.
11:27:18 Every boy, every girl, every binary.
11:27:22 Non-binary.
11:27:25 Every non binary person.
11:27:28 Every person is going through changes and transitions in their body, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. It's happening every day.
11:27:39 So allowing yourself to just be grateful for the experience. And if you can't get to a place of being grateful again, acceptance, neutrality, surrendering to the experience that things are gonna change.
11:27:51 Your body goes through a huge transition.
11:27:55 As women. When you have a child.
11:27:58 So what your body looked.
11:28:00 Pre baby. Once your body looks baby very different. And there's this whole.
11:28:06 Mythologies, I feel like, exists.
11:28:09 Around. Oh, you have to like Bounce back. You have to get your body back after.
11:28:15 Baby. I don't know.
11:28:17 How this came about, or who decided that that was going to be a message that we pump out to women.
11:28:23 Like it's candy, but.
11:28:25 Your body is forever changed. You grew another human being.
11:28:32 In your body.
11:28:35 And your body grew whole. Extraordin.
11:28:38 In order to support the growth of an entire extra human.
11:28:42 And your ligaments and your tendons stretched.
11:28:47 And your hips widened and your breasts enlarged, and everything about your body changed.
11:28:56 The idea that after birth.
11:28:59 That you're supposed to somehow look the way you did.
11:29:03 Exactly the way you did. Pre baby.
11:29:07 Yeah, it's it's just not gonna happen.
11:29:11 You're you might have stretch marks. Your, you know, stomach in your muscle tissue could look different. Your testosterone estrogen levels are probably different. So things are also changing on your body that are related to that like.
11:29:27 It's just.
11:29:31 On!
11:29:36 It's just not reasonable to consider that your body is going to look the same.
11:29:41 Or it's not reasonable to imagine that things are just gonna snap right back, or ever snap back, or ever be the way that they were before. So again, this kind of goes back to my message about accepting the transitions and accepting that your body is going to change.
11:29:59 Now you might be getting feedback from other people about your body along the way. It could be positive it could be negative.
11:30:07 It's best to remember that people are oftentimes giving us feedback or comments based on their own beliefs about themselves.
11:30:16 And they're projecting onto us about how they feel about their own self when they give us feedback.
11:30:21 So, noting that.
11:30:24 And reminding yourself like, Okay, just because this person said a positive thing.
11:30:28 Like. Sure I can accept that, and I can listen to it, and, like I still have my own thought.
11:30:34 Lots and beliefs about myself or same on the other side. If someone says something negative. Okay, I hear that.
11:30:41 Like. Gonna see those words. I'm gonna acknowledge that they came into my purview. Acknowledge how they made me feel.
11:30:49 How they made my body feel what kind of thoughts and other narratives came up.
11:30:54 And I'm gonna come back to how I feel about my body, about how I feel, about my transitioning and my changing of my body.
11:31:04 So I just think it's really important to.
11:31:07 Acknowledge that your body will be talked about, or will be.
11:31:15 Noticed by other people, and that's oftentimes what triggers.
11:31:20 Disordered eating is the fear of what other people might think or say, or.
11:31:24 Whatnot, and to remember that even if someone does say something or think something, it's often.
11:31:32 Related to how they feel about themselves.
11:31:35 Because if they didn't judge themselves or didn't have ideas about.
11:31:41 Their own bodies. They probably wouldn't.
11:31:45 Even mention yours, so.
11:31:49 Feeling whole and complete in your own body, will allow you to just notice.
11:31:55 Assess responds.
11:31:58 And then come back to yourself.
11:32:01 And then come back to how you feel about your experience.
11:32:04 Of being a mom, or about your body changing.
11:32:08 Etc.
11:32:11 So overall. I think.
11:32:14 The biggest thing that I want to say about body, image and disorder, eating and changing.
11:32:21 And transitioning of the body over experiences, whether it's birth.
11:32:27 Or whether it's puberty, or what have you that happens in life?
11:32:33 Is just to be in a place of.
11:32:38 Allowing there to be change.
11:32:39 Accepting that there's going to be change.
11:32:42 Accepting that you cannot control every single thing that happens.
11:32:47 To your body.
11:32:49 And letting go of the idea that you can really control.
11:32:53 Anything.
11:32:55 Except for the way that you respond.
11:32:58 To something. Expect for the way that you cope with something.
11:33:04 And acknowledging that those are the limits of what's in your control can be really helpful.
11:33:10 I would love to continue this conversation.
11:33:12 With people who are listening. So if you have.
11:33:16 Thoughts or ideas, or you wanna potentially.
11:33:21 Pose a question that maybe didn't get answered, or maybe I began to answer it, but didn't fully answer it. I would love for you to.
11:33:31 Message me, because the amount of.
11:33:34 Comments and feedback that I got about my body during pregnancy and postpartum.
11:33:40 And even now, after 13 months of having my baby.
11:33:44 You know, you just get feedback from people you don't know how to respond to it all the time. So if that's you, or if you're going through puberty, or if you're going.
11:33:55 Through any sort of transition that impacts the way that you feel about your body, or you're experiencing disordered eating or an eating disorder. I really encourage you.
11:34:05 To seek help, feel free to email me questions. And I can hopefully help provide you resources for you to get the help that you might need or get.
11:34:14 Services that would be beneficial to you.
11:34:17 But remember, my overall message of this podcast is, you don't have to do this alone.
11:34:23 Let's build a community. Let's be a community member and support other people.
11:34:29 In their journey to.
11:34:32 Redefine who they are, redefine, how they feel about themselves, and come to a place of allowing transformation.
11:34:41 And surrendering to the constant changes that happen in life.
11:34:45 Alright. Well, I hope you all have a great week. And yeah, I hope you keep tuning in, because.
11:34:51 I'm really enjoying this experience.
11:34:55 Connecting with you all each week.