How to Deal With Body Comments

We’ve all been there, I’m sure. Someone makes a comment about your body and regardless of the comment, whether it was a seemingly positive comment or a negative comment, you feel suddenly on display.

Have you been there?

It’s like a spotlight is all of a sudden right overhead, examining your body. You want to peel out of your own skin. And your day was going so well until now, right?

Ah, I so know what this is like. And I wish there were a way to never hear or experience body comments.

When I was in high school, someone made a comment about part of my body that I was self-conscious about already and that comment has stuck with me ever since. I’m sure you can think right off the bat about comments people have made in your past that have made you feel uncomfortable.

Negative body comments are never fun to deal with. But one thing I’ve found helpful is to look deeper.

Look deeper than the comment on the surface.

Oftentimes, body comments said by other people come from their own insecurity.

People tend to speak their own insecurities on others because they, themselves, are struggling in their own body. Negative body comments never come from a person who is secure and confident in their body. They just don’t. Someone who is secure in their own body has no perceived need to speak badly and point out the flaws of others. So, where is that negative comment coming from? In the moment, can you recognize that what they are saying is coming from their own insecurities, and really doesn’t have to do with you.

All of a sudden, when it’s not about you, you can let the comment float over you without it causing as much damage. You can choose to disregard it. You don’t have to take it as truth.

So what about even positive body comments, or those comments that seem positive? Someone says, “you look great...did you lose weight?”.

Same thing… these comments can seem like they come from a good place and they probably do. Comments about our bodies seem to be just another normal complement, right? But they can still feel uncomfortable and can still be harmful to our body image. Think about it, if someone says, “you look great...did you lose weight?” all of a sudden you feel the pressure to keep the weight off.

The person who gave the “compliment” probably has no idea that what they just said affected you this way. Again, this is just how people compliment others in our weight-focused, body-focused world. Something you can do in these moments is almost train them, indirectly, to give non-body-focused compliments. How this looks is you can respond with a non-body-focused compliment and there you go… all of a sudden they get a little message that says “body comments aren’t important to me… I prefer these types of comments and compliments.”

So we’ve talked about negative and positive body comments that other people say and what to do with them. What about our own negative body comments.

We are often our worst critics, speaking the most hurtful words to ourselves, right? Our inner dialogue is some of the most powerful influences on our own body image. So changing that dialogue can make such a huge impact on our body image.

Thinking about today, even, what has your inner dialogue been about your body? What were the comments you said to yourself in the bathroom when you first woke up? When you put on clothes? How did those comments impact the start of your day? What you ate for breakfast? How you ate breakfast? How you feel even now?

Changing our thoughts can be the most challenging when it comes to dealing with body comments. With other people, we can do things to separate ourselves from their comments either by physically walking away or avoiding negative people, we can psychologically separate ourselves better from others. But with ourselves, we are always there right?

The best place to start to change your thoughts is through recognizing and acknowledging our negative thoughts. Often we just allow these thoughts to happen to us and passively accept them without challenging them. Changing our thoughts starts with recognizing them, acknowledging that they are negative and unhelpful, that we don’t want them there, and then re-writing those thoughts.

So, what this looks like is say you put on a pair of pants and they fit differently and feel uncomfortable. Suddenly, a negative thought comes up and you hear that inner dialogue say something like, “you’re so fat” in a derogatory and shaming way. You hear that thought and recognize that it is negative, unhelpful and shaming. And in that moment before the downward spiral of negative thinking, you flip the script and think or say something positive that resonates with you. Something like, “this is my body, she is beautiful”. And even to add on our previous episode all about respecting your body...you could add here a question asking yourself how can I respect her (my body) right now? Maybe that’s choosing something different to wear, something that feels more comfortable and fits your body right now.

How will knowing how to deal with negative comments impact your body image?

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P.S. For more support in this area, be sure to check out The Nourish Lab for self-paced growth on all things body image and intuitive eating, coaching, and a supportive community. There you’ll find my course, “Enough”, all about body image and self-worth! I can’t wait to see you inside!