If your friend has lost weight recently, you might want to tell her how great she looks. Maybe you also say you wish you had her body or self-control or ask her how she did it. Perhaps you have received such “compliment” in the past.
These comments are well-intentioned, but can have unintended negative consequences.
“In this case, we are unwittingly exacerbating or affirming the thin ideal that our society tends to emphasize and idolize,” said Alvin Tran, an assistant professor of public health at the University of New Haven, Connecticut, who researches eating disorders and body image.
“We need to be very cautious when we approach conversations about someone’s physical appearance, especially their weight.”
This is especially important when talking to people with eating disorders or severe body image issues, as these observations can make your situation worse.
Praise about someone’s weight loss or slimmer body perpetuates society’s ingrained diet culture, Tran said, and the idea that thinness is a good thing.
“We tend to operate (as if) we can somehow look at people and, based on their body size, determine if they’re healthy,” said Tamara Pryor, senior researcher and director of research at ED Care, a health center. treatment for eating disorders.
“We have people in large bodies who are in a state of malnutrition, as well as extremely small-sized people who are malnourished and people who are standard-sized but still severely compromised by an eating disorder. People cannot look at them and say that.”
But if you’re pleased or impressed with someone’s appearance, shouldn’t you praise them? What is and is not good to say? THE CNN asked Pryor and Joann Hende’lman, clinical director of the National Alliance for Eating Disorders, for advice.
CNN: Why is praising someone else’s weight loss or thinness more problematic?
Tamara Pryor: It’s intrusive. Whose job is it to judge, particularly by expressing it verbally? We can look at people and make judgments, but we need to keep that to ourselves. I come from the second wave of the feminist movement, where it was “my body, my rules”. That’s still the case.
CNN: How might people on the receiving end feel?
prior: If someone said to me, “Oh my God, you look great. You lost weight”, I found myself thinking: “What did you think of me before? Was I not acceptable?” I could imagine the pressure the receiver would feel to keep the weight off or lose more weight in order to receive more praise or be accepted. They might think, “What about me and the essence of who I am as a human being?” There are significant physical consequences and psychological consequences that are perpetuated.
Joann Hendelman: If you don’t get that compliment, then it becomes, “There’s something wrong with me. I’m not good enough.”
CNN: What should people consider when they want to compliment someone’s thinner appearance?
prior: Any questions about appearance tend to be a trigger, and are more triggers for people with eating disorders because they have a very heightened sensitivity to how they are being judged based on their body shape and size.
My patient and her mother went to a clothing store. She is extremely short and anorexic, and had just started treatment. As she was in the dressing room, her mother gasped, because when she saw her daughter trying on clothes, she realized how extreme the weight loss was. The receptionist enters, who hears her mother say, “Oh honey, I’m sorry. She had no idea that her weight had dropped so much. I am so grateful that you are in treatment now.”
The clerk said, “Are you kidding? I would die to be that thin. How did you do it?” So the patient has this mixed and conflicting response: she can feel her mother’s very real concern, but on the other hand, she’s being praised.
Hendelman: I met and worked with people who had cancer or another reason their bodies were small. For them, praise is very uncomfortable because they know they have this horrible disease, and yet people praise them for this weight loss they would give anything not to have.
CNN: What can people say instead?
prior: Find ways to get involved that don’t include comments about their bodies.
If someone needed to lose weight for health reasons, praising them for their tenacity in achieving that goal is not the best. Because then it’s like, “Oh man, what if I fail or gain some weight back?” That seems like a lot of pressure. Instead, if someone mentions recent weight loss, ask them how they feel about the weight they lost or what drove them to do so, rather than making a judgment on their own.
Hendelman: Compliment them on what they’re wearing or say something like “Your eyes are so bright today” — that sort of thing. If a friend is still too attached to being thin to get compliments, and I say how fantastic that is, I am supporting their focus on body size and doing them a disservice.
CNN: How can people stop perceiving weight loss or thinness as ideal and inherently good?
prior: Think about what it means to be healthy and what your body can do for you – like getting the nutrients you need or gaining strength.
Hendelman: If we could all accept that our bodies carry us from this position to the next, and that it’s not about what our bodies look like, but what’s inside — it’s amazing how much our bodies can give us back.
It is important to accept who we are and our uniqueness. We have to accept our genetics. The more we accept our bodies, the healthier we are likely to be. Believe that our bodies know best.
Source: CNN Brasil
