The body image debacle
“Nope, I can’t go on the date tonight, Duffy. Canceling. Look, see these lines here on my forehead? Hideous. He’d notice those for sure. And my skin looks shitty too. I’m broken out so bad. And wrinkles? WTF? I look like I’m twenty years older than I am! Look at this girl’s face (Insta reference). She’s perfect. And I look so stupid in these jeans. Like, what made me think I could pull these off? So yeah. Not. Going.”
This young woman is 21. And this happens a lot lately. It’s epidemic.
Years ago, though issues around body image plagued a lot of our young people, they seemed far more manageable somehow than they do today. Reason would win out, at least sometimes, and perceived perfection didn’t feel requisite. Eating disorders have always been a danger, of course, but to a subset of young people. Now, most every young person is susceptible. And kids are not just judging themselves relative to their peers, but to supermodels and AI images and other entirely unattainable bodies and faces they see not just in the hallways at school, but everywhere online.
And, as one girl pointed out to me just this past week, the goal is not necessarily to look hot, or cute, or attractive. It’s just to look good enough to be seen by other people, men and women alike. The bar is whether their appearance is acceptable to be seen in public at all.
Or not. And not wins more of the time than we’d like.
And I want you to be well aware of this unpleasant reality: that kid struggling with his or her body could be nine-years-old. Or she could be twenty-four. Or anywhere in between.
This body image thing has become such a more harrowing issue so quickly that we simply cannot ignore it, at all. It requires our attention.
Unhealthy body focus
Why am I writing about body image now? This isn’t new, after all. Young people have been suffering concerns about their bodies for generations, perhaps millennia. Well, this unhealthy focus on the body has been rapidly amplifying over the past couple of decades due almost solely to the advent and takeover of social media.
Kids today have energy around their discontent with their bodies. They’re animated by their dissatisfaction and sometimes disgust with their physical presence. They’ll pop up off the therapy couch, phone in hand, to vigorously present me with what they perceive to be ideal images on Instagram or SnapChat. They’ll challenge me:
“I know you see it, Duffy. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it, ever.”
I can assure you, that defeatism is alarming, and I hear it a lot. Because of the degree of desperation our kids often experience, they consider extreme measures:
“Maybe I should get surgery, or surgeries, to correct all of these problems. Maybe then I’ll look good enough to head out there happily.”
“Maybe I’ll skip breakfast, and lunch, every day.”
“Maybe it’s okay if I feel like I’m going to pass out. Maybe that’s the win.”
More than one teenager has told me that they don’t know a single person, girl or guy, who doesn’t suffer at times from an eating disorder or, at the very least, a wildly unhealthy relationship with food. The kids I know think about what and how they eat, what they ingest, all day and all night. They vigorously count calories. They anxiously measure intake against time on a treadmill. And they can get deeply disappointed with themselves for the smallest transgression, a few too many calories off plan here or there. A cookie. For kids, none of this should read as transgression at all.
Not just girls
For most of my career and decades before, we were focused primarily on the risks of body image issues for girls. And those are still out there: anorexia or bulimia, depression, anxiety, OCD tendencies. And these risks have always carried dire potential consequences: ongoing therapy and medication regimens, psychiatric hospitalizations and, in extreme cases, a girl’s life can be at real risk.
Now, I find that boys are now struggling with body image and dysmorphia issues every bit as much as their female counterparts. And it’s tricky for boys, as they’re unsure which ideal to chase. So, I work with a fair number of young guys who are seeking an overly lightweight, waif-y look. As one 17-year-old boy put it to me recently, “I need to see less me, and more Chalamet.”
It’s funny, but he wasn’t joking.
Other guys are desperately seeking the overly pumped up, ripped, cut, creatine- and steroid-fueled Alpha look. These guys will spend countless hours in the gym, and consume enormous quantities of proteins, organic and powdered, along with some PED’s that we know, over time, can be quite damaging to their minds and bodies.
And a big part of the problem is that none of these young people ever feel as if they’ve arrived, that they’re good enough. These kids will find flaws where there are none.
Facial dysmorphia
And the dysmorphia among young people does not, unfortunately, stop at their body. I work with boys and girls both who point out features of their face they define as fatal flaws:
“Do you not see the obvious asymmetry here?”
“My nose is bent. I know you’re just being nice, Duffy, but it does NOT look fine.”
There are literally countless TikTok videos that show our kids where their faces might be flawed, and many of them suggest some product, injection, or surgical intervention that might mitigate their ugliness. And ugly is the word an awful lot of young people use to describe themselves.
Convinced that they need such intervention to have any kind of happy life, some of our kids begin to hyper-focus on these interventions, begging their parents to support some product or invasive procedure financially. “Please Mom, if you just do this one thing for me, I’ll be happy, I promise!” And most of us look at our kids and wonder, quite sincerely, what in the world they’re talking about. When we say they look perfect to us, I think we typically mean it.
But it’s important to note that’s not what they see.
The impact
The broad effect of these concerns are quickly exacting a massive toll on the mental health of our kids. They spend an inordinate amount of time, and I mean a lot of time, judging their bodies and their faces, every aspect of their appearance. They examine themselves in bathroom mirrors for hours on end. They will take countless selfies, trying desperately to gain a bead on how they look, which they have great difficulty gauging, and whether that look is satisfactory. Which they usually determine it is not.
And I’ve found that the vast majority of them have trained themselves to be vigilant for flaws almost exclusively. Rarely, and I mean extremely rarely, do I hear a young person tell me about a feature of their face or body that they like, that they feel is even remotely acceptable. And even if they can point something out (“My eyes are alright, I guess”), it is nearly always outweighed by the dislikes.
Eating disorders and OCD too often show up in the wake of these concerns. And the inevitable results are also, of course, some rather deep depression and anxiety. We all know body and facial image issues are far from innocuous. They’re toxic.
You’ve probably also heard, in the wake of a number of confirming studies, that young people are not dating the way they used to, in the numbers we’re accustomed to seeing. Part of this drop in intimate connection is a direct artifact of the facial and body dysmorphia our young people are suffering. Our kids are missing that precious practice effect that informs future relationships, and may have them tapping out altogether for fear of feeling unattractive, not good enough to date, to enjoy a relationship, to get married one day. The potential implications are truly harrowing.
What we can do
As a parent or other caring adult, you may well feel you have few options to move the needle here in any positive direction. I’ve coached countless parents on this issue, and they tell me that, no matter how often they tell their child how beautiful or handsome they are, how they are so much more than the way they look, how beauty takes many forms, and so on, the further away they feel. These parents know they aren’t being heard, and often feel entirely dismissed as clueless on the topic.
Our inclination, of course, is to attempt to talk our kids out of feeling as if their faces and bodies aren’t good enough. But I suspect we all know, through direct experience or common sense, that any attempts in this arena will prove futile.
Instead, listen.
This is SO difficult. But it’s what your child needs here more than anything else. He or she needs to feel heard. You don’t have to agree with them, and you undoubtedly won’t. You can feel free to point out that you, of course, think they’re beautiful and perfect exactly as they are. But for this harsh topic that envelops so many of them, provide your child with a soft, gentle, go-to place to fall. Be a sounding board for them. Be a person they can go to with their fears and concerns. Acknowledge the way they feel, and that it must absolutely suck to feel that way.
This is mighty parenting, but it makes a difference. If they can leave their anxieties around their appearance with you, you’ll find they can move forward.
And finally, be very aware of what you’re modeling for your kids. What do you say about your own appearance, your body, your face, your weight? You may unwittingly be demonstrating what not good enough looks and feels like in what you say out loud, or under your breath. So, be kind and gentle with yourself in this regard. Maybe even highlight, out loud, something you like about the way you look. Demonstrate for your kids that it’s ok to feel good about your body, your face, your look.
Years ago, I was a guest on a radio show, and we were talking about body positivity, and how to bring that out in other people. Another guest worked at a clothing and lingerie shop here in Chicago, quite deliberately serving people of all shapes and sizes. And the host asked her how she evokes a positive body image in her customers:
“Oh, that’s easy. Everybody, and I mean every body, absolutely rocks. Everyone is straight-up gorgeous if they feel it, if they own it. You don’t have to be tiny, or large, or what someone else is telling you is perfect or right. We all have the it factor as we are right now.”
That blew me away. I refer to it all the time. Now you can too.
I suspect we have a pretty narrow window before this body and facial image issue becomes the headline of the day for our kids. Let’s see if we can’t stem the tide before it’s too late.