Can you relate to any of the following body bashing behaviors?
- Feeling "too fat" as you try on your race day outfit.
- Seeing an image of a certain part of your body makes you feel "disgusting."
- Doubting your race day abilities because your stomach is "too big."
- Weighing yourself on the bathroom scale and feeling immediate distress over your weight.
If you can identify with any of the body, you are likely struggling with poor body image and this can sabotage your race day performance.
In each of the above scenarios is an athlete who believes one of two things: That looking differently will improve athletic success or a current look is the reason for lack of athletic success.
Despite putting in the training and being physically prepared for an event, actual acceptance of one-self can be a major athletic limiter. Inside, you have internalized feelings of being inadequate because of poor body image. Poor body image can wreak havoc on performance, physical health and mental well-being. There are great consequences to trying to conform to rigid societal ideals of what your body should look like as an athlete.
Underfueling, fasted workouts, a low carb diet, eliminating certain foods groups and ignoring body hunger cues are some of the many unhealthy dieting and disordered eating strategies that athletes turn to when trying to achieve a specific body type ideal. Sadly, many of the above strategies are unhealthy (for the body and mind), yet encouraged by coaches, nutrition experts and the media as a means to an end to gain the competitive edge to achieve a desired "race weight."
Through the rise of social media and prejudgment statements from coaches/nutrition experts, the pressure to change how you look is almost inevitable. But that doesn't make it acceptable. Comparing your body to the body of another athlete can make you feel inadequate, unprepared and doubtful of your abilities. It's not uncommon to size-up your competition based on a body image.
Pressure around body type can be detrimental to health (physical and mental), confidence and most of all, love of sport. It's not uncommon for an athlete to slip down the road of dieting, disordered eating and body image obsession only to reduce athletic longevity (and potential) in the sport that was once fun, enjoyable and health promoting.
The way your body looks and the way your body moves/performance are not necessarily correlated. How you think your body should look to perform well may not match what your body really needs to look like to perform well.
To escape the immense pressure of achieving body image perfection, body positivity is critical. What you think about your body matters. Without it, confidence and self-esteem are destroyed. How can you believe in your physical abilities if you don't appreciate your physical qualities?
Thankfully, you have power to change your body image.
Body image has little to do with your actual body size but instead, it's related to your thoughts, beliefs, feelings and perceptions. Remember - feelings are not facts.
In order to stop reinforcing your beliefs about your body, you need to stop the behaviors that are sabotaging your self-worth.
- Stop the weigh-in. A number on a bathroom scale should not dominate your thoughts. More so, it's hard not to obsess over that morning number once its imprinted in your mind.
- Stop picking apart your body. There's nothing wrong with looking at yourself in the mirror. But micro-examining each part of your body, looking for imperfections and perceived faults is not constructive. Body checking does not allow you to see your body as a whole.
- Stop comparing. It's natural to compare yourself to others but it's detrimental to your mental health to constantly feel inferior, inadequate or envious of others. There's no winning at comparisons. It only destroys self-worth and prevents you from appreciating your individual strengths and attributes.
- Stop the "fat chat." It's easy to bash your body in our image-obsessed culture. Thanks to the media and diet industry, we are surrounded by unachievable images and unkind messages about how ew should look. Basically, we have been taught to dislike our bodies and if we achieve the image were are sold, we will be happy, loved and successful.
It's not easy to overcome negative body image in a culture that's obsessed with body image. But you can disagree with the cultural messages about achieving the "perfect" athletic body image in the same way you would disagree with animal cruelty, racism or discrimination. Say no to the methods and behaviors of trying to achieve an unrealistic body type and stop the pre-race body bashing behaviors.