Have you ever had a phase where you obsessively think about how you look? Constantly checking yourself in the mirror just to highlight the ‘flaw’ in your body and criticize yourself for it? You may even avoid mirrors altogether. If this sounds like you right now, you are not alone! In fact, many people share this condition with you, I amongst them.
Body dysmorphia is one of those topics that intrigues me. Lets look into some of the potential causes of body dysmorphia for both men and women.
Did You Know?
It’s a common assumption that women are more likely to encounter body dysmorphic disorder than men. This may be because they are more open in highlighting their issues and the media often portray them as such. However, in reality, this is not the case. Men are just as likely to suffer from body dysmorphic symptoms as women are. But they’re just more unlikely to share their insecurities as compared to their female counterparts. This could be due to the stereotype of masculinity.
Men and Body Dysmorphia
Most men have been exposed to a large muscular physique at some point in their lives. Whenever they go to the movies, they are unfortunate enough to witness girls drool over muscular or good looking actors. This is an aspiration for the same body builds in hopes that they achieve the same attraction.
While in the gym culture, they may be further exposed to other males who may have suffered from body dysmorphia but were yet to receive their desire for compliments from their surroundings. Hence, to cope with their low self-esteem, they would criticize other “smaller” build males in the gym. Which results in the “smaller” build males feeling worse about their body and may proceed to take substances to enhance their rate of muscle building not knowing that the abuse of these substances has a toxic effect on the cardiovascular system and increase the risk of many cardiovascular diseases.
In other words, although some males look ‘healthy’ with their muscular six-pack, they are not necessarily healthy by definition. This is a state of complete mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (World Health Organization).
In addition to that, males are also most likely to feel concerned about their genitals as opposed to females. I think this is again linked to the culture and the type of media the males are exposed to. A large portion of men is exposed to pornographic images. This may have distorted their view of the average genital size of men within their culture leading them to believe there are on the smaller end and therefore is less ‘masculine.’
Females and Body Dysmorphia
Unlike males, females tend to not worry about how big their muscles are. But they are often more concerned about their weight overall. The source is likely similar to that of men with most ‘ideal’ girl physique being that of a slim K-Pop idol body such as Jisoo from BlackPink or IU (full name Lee Ji-Eun) and with social media being so prevalent and influential in our day to day lives, having a more attractive appearance has become more important amongst women as ever before.
Most girls desire to have abs or have slimmer hips and a larger buttock which leads them to severely restrict their caloric intake and consistently feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the size of their buttocks and hips.
This may lead to most girls having some degree of eating disorder. This is which they are not allowing themselves to eat certain food and having an impression that high caloric food is ‘bad.’ Unfortunately, taken to the extreme end, these girls may get their dream, slim physique but at the cost of the metabolic and hormonal health. They are more likely to have inconsistent period timings, headaches, cold sweats, insomnia, and many other biological symptoms. More on that here.
Current Advice on Body Dysmorphic Disorder
If the concern about your body image is starting to impact your daily life, try to speak to a licensed counselor regarding these issues. Your counselor is likely to include some form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help you better manage these issues.
However, if you are concerned about it but have yet to have a detrimental effect on your day-to-day life, it’s always OK to read about it! For example, males need to understand that movie star bodies and Instagram bodies are likely not achievable for them. But they can still have an amazing body if they continue to resistance train. Better yet, they can shift their goals away from how they look towards how strong are they? How are they feeling day-to-day?
For females, I recommend looking towards girls that have had a similar experience to you and how they overcome it. Find influencers who are more focused on health that still have a healthy-looking body, like Stephanie Buttermore or Sohee Lee. They all have great information for females to stay fit and healthy without fixating on body image.
Gentle Reminder From Me to You
Body dysmorphia creates insecurity. However, we as humans all have flaws. As we age, we may start noticing them more and more and feel the urge to correct them, like an itch that needs to be scratched. However, if we can learn to accept it as it is and acknowledge that the ‘flaw’ we have does not have to define us or our happiness. We are one step closer to being healthier than we have ever been before.
Love yourself more.