Fitting Into the Ideal_Final
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>> Hello and welcome back.
In this lecture, we're focusing on fitting in.
Now blanket statements
don't typically support a bio-individual lens,
but I'm going to make a blanket statement here.
We all want to belong in some way.
In fact, many people consider it
a primary motivator of human behavior.
We might try to fit in
because we want to feel a sense of belonging
or connection with others.
It feels good to belong, right?
To quote Audrey Hepburn,
"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other."
What do you think?
Have you ever felt like the black sheep?
It can be lonely out there on the outskirts.
Why do you think fitting in is so important
to so many of us?
First of all, an innate need to affiliate
and form social bonds is wired into our biology.
It boosts oxytocin, otherwise known as the love hormone.
It positively impacts the cardiovascular,
neuroendocrine, and immune systems,
and it can provide stress relief by lowering cortisol.
You might also think about fitting in
as a form of social acceptance.
Maybe we think it will boost our self-esteem
because we'll be good enough to fit in
with that particular group.
Ironically, the efforts we make to fit in
might contribute to low self-esteem and self-acceptance.
For example, we might try to change ourselves
by adopting unhealthy habits
and we might develop maladaptive coping strategies
that make us feel even worse about ourselves.
This isn't because we are unintelligent
or completely clueless,
it's because we do the best that we can with what we have
and we all have urges to connect and to feel secure.
Let's use body image to explore this idea further.
Body image is a major factor in self-esteem
as self-esteem includes
how we value and respect ourselves as a whole.
Body image is also subjective.
It's how we see our physical selves
and what we feel and think about what we see.
Body image influences our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors
in wide reaching ways.
For example, you may have had clients who struggle
with both body image and emotional or disordered eating.
Trying to fit in can contribute to an unhelpful body image,
and body image can drive motivation to fit in.
Let's say that you're coaching a young woman named Tina.
Tina struggles with body image
and wants to fit in with her college roommates
who are all thin and much focused on healthy eating.
As a result, Tina starts restricting her meals
and eating only salads for lunch and dinner.
Being part of this group makes her feel good about herself.
However, Tina doesn't see any physical results
of her attempts to lose weight partly
because she's often eating
her favorite comfort foods in secret.
Why?
Well, because she's always hungry, for one,
but also to help her cope
with feeling not as good as her friends
who seem to do just fine on salads alone.
How do you think Tina's efforts to fit in
affect her self-acceptance?
Trying to be accepted by others
sometimes means not accepting our authentic selves
because we focus on changing in order to fit in.
If we struggle with body image,
we might try to change our bodies
in order to fit into a more accepted or highly valued ideal
that we can never seem to achieve.
Body image is a very sensitive topic often with deep roots,
and it can be challenging to help clients navigate.
As you help clients embrace their imperfections,
remember that you're not supposed to be perfect yourself.
It's okay to make mistakes.
Know that you are providing a valuable resource
by supporting and simply by creating a safe space
for your clients to express their emotions.
Building trust creates a strong foundation
for self-acceptance and positive change.
Take a few minutes right now
and think about how you either in the past or recently
tried to fit in with those around you
and how your behaviors related to your body image.
What habits did you adopt that didn't feel authentic?
How did you try to change yourself?
How did those changes affect your self-esteem?
Hit pause and jot a few things down.
Okay, now take a deep breath and remember,
we all want to belong.
It makes sense that we want connection, doesn't it?
The problem is that we often go to extreme lengths
in our efforts to find that connection,
and those efforts can end up working against us.
For example, trying to fit in with my middle school peers
felt like trying to fit into a box
that was not built for me.
As a result, I never really felt like I belonged
which lowered my self-esteem.
Try as I might, I never felt good enough,
which brings me to the main points of the discussion today.
Trying to fit into a one-size-fits-all ideal
can correlate with an unhelpful body image
or the belief that we aren't good enough as we are.
Our efforts to fit in are often futile,
at least in part, due to a nonexistent ideal.
And continually trying to fit into this nonexistent ideal
can further fuel an unhelpful body image
and lower self-esteem.
Quick side note.
We're going to use the term unhelpful body image
rather than negative body image.
Negative implies bad
and that doesn't really inspire non-judgment.
Unhelpful is neutral
and simply means that it doesn't help us
move toward health and happiness.
Okay, moving on.
When we don't feel good enough as we are,
we might try to fit into something better,
and like Tina, feel like failures
because we cannot make ourselves fit.
It's kind of like being stuck in an unhelpful stress cycle,
isn't it?
This is because when it comes to health,
eating habits, and physical appearance,
there's no one-size-fits-all
and there is no best way across the board,
rather, the ideal is like a mirage.
The more we walk toward it,
the further out of reach it moves and the worse we feel.
Try as we might, we never seem to reach that ideal
that we want so much to achieve.
We try one diet and give up after two days.
We try another diet and feel terrible.
We try a third diet
and reward our efforts with a huge slab of cheesecake
and then berate ourselves
for failing to reach that perfect number on the scale.
We're going to explore body image further
through the lens of a nonexistent ideal.
As always, take these ideas with a grain of salt.
There are many ways to think about this material.
We are opening the conversation,
but we want to inspire you to think for yourself
and shape the conversation based on your own experiences.
Because this course is about emotional eating,
it will be helpful to think about
how this material relates to that.
Okay, the nonexistent ideal.
This is the idea that we can never achieve the ideal
because there is, in fact, no one ideal to begin with.
It's one-size-fits-none.
Remember the Greek myth of Sisyphus.
The Gods decided that futile labor served
as the worst punishment for Sisyphus.
So for all eternity, he was forced to push a boulder uphill
only to have it roll back down again.
In other words, he couldn't win
because there was no end goal.
When it comes to body image,
trying to achieve an ideal is similarly infuriating.
What do we mean when we say there is no ideal?
You can think about it in two ways.
The ideal is not fixed.
Consider how much the ideal body type for women
has shifted in the past century.
Within even a single decade,
we went from Marilyn Monroe to Twiggy.
These days "fit" is often touted as the ideal.
Or as the saying goes, "Strong is the new skinny."
This it at least promotes exercise,
but again, the range of ideal remains small.
Get strong but not beefy.
Aim for long and lean not bulky.
Build washboard abs and muscular curves.
The yogi is vegan
while the bodybuilder is a protein eating machine.
Will these still be the healthy ideals in a few decades?
Who knows?
The point is it's hard to achieve an ideal
that constantly changes.
The ideal is one-size-fits-none.
Cultural body type ideals
often force both men and women into boxes
that an extremely low percentage of the population
naturally fits into.
And that promotes unhealthy relationships with food.
For example, less than 5% of the population
can achieve the current media's female ideal of thinness.
The media tends to portray
a very limited range of attractiveness.
However, our bodies change throughout our lives
because, well, that happens as we age.
We have imperfections because we are not airbrushed.
We probably don't have chiseled abs
unless one, we have the genetic code for it,
and two, we value it enough to make it a priority,
which might mean sacrificing other primary foods.
In short, it's hard to achieve an ideal
because we are all different in so many ways.
Let's recap.
Body image is subjective,
and it's a major factor in self-esteem.
An unhelpful body image
can drive motivation to fit in with others
and, as a result, can influence thoughts,
emotions, and behaviors, including emotional eating.
And trying to fit in is often futile
due to a constantly changing, unrealistic,
and one-size-fits-none ideal.
It's another cycle that you can help shed light on
when working with clients.
Trying to fit into a one-size-fits-all ideal
can stem from negative body image and low self-esteem
or the belief that we aren't good enough,
and it can further fuel an unhelpful body image
and lower self-esteem
when we can't achieve the ideal we're trying to fit into.
Okay, time to try applying this material yourself.
We've included an exercise handout
called Self-Image Reflection.
Spend about 10 to 15 minutes with this exercise.
It's not meant as a diagnostic tool
but as an opportunity to explore your own body image,
which will inform your work
as an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach.
As you know, body image is a very sensitive subject.
Working with clients who struggle with it
requires using non-judgmental language
and empathetic support
and being able to practice non-judgment
and self-awareness yourself.
After you go through the exercise,
spend 5 to 10 minutes reflecting on the material.
How does body image affect your daily life?
Share with your course mates in the Facebook group.
We're all here to motivate, inspire, and support each other.
And believe me, we all struggle with body image sometimes.
Recognizing how it impacts our daily lives
can not only help us move
toward greater health and happiness,
it can also help our clients too.
That's all for now.
I'll see you again soon.