Over Evaluation of Shape & Weight
Goal
To be able to evaluate your shape and weight in a healthy manner
Over Evaluating Shape & Weight
At the heart of most eating disorders is a tendency to over evaluate shape and weight. Judging self-worth largely, or even exclusively, in terms of shape and weight and the ability to control them is problematic. Success in the area of shape and weight is elusive. Basing self-evaluation on appearance cannot be done since there is no objective index of success in this area. There will always be lots of people who seem more attractive (i.e., successful) than you. Additionally, shape and weight are only controllable to a limited extent, and then only in the short-term. Another problem with judging yourself in this way is that it may lead you to engage in behaviors that are unhelpful and may even do harm, such as making yourself sick.
The things that you do or that happen as a result of your concerns about shape are themselves likely to maintain your concerns about shape. Repeatedly checking your body, for example, will intensify your unhappiness with your shape. Similarly, avoiding seeing your body will result in your fears and concerns persisting unchallenged. These consequences of your concerns are likely maintaining your unhappiness about your appearance and need to be addressed in order to stop the vicious cycle. In order to address them, you must first gain awareness into your behaviors. You can also increase the number and importance of other domains for self-evaluation. This will serve to diminish the relative importance being placed on shape and weight.
Body Checking Exercise Part I (Barlow, p. 604)
Instructions: The purpose of part I and part II of this exercise is to help you become more aware of why you engage in body checking behaviors. Catch yourself checking your body. Record the situation and answer the questions in the table.
Situation: _______________________________________________________
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What am I trying to find out? | |
| Do I need to find this out just now? | |
| Can I find this out in this way? | |
| Might there be adverse effects from checking myself in this way? | |
| Is there a better alternative? |
Body Checking Exercise Part II (Barlow, p. 605)
Instructions: Catch yourself comparing someone else’s body with your own. Record the situation and answer the questions in the table.
Situation: _______________________________________________________
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who is the subject of your comparison? | |
| How did you select that person? | |
| Is that person representative of people your age and gender, or are they a select and atypical subgroup? | |
| What body parts are the focus of the comparison and how are they being evaluated? |
New Domains Exercise
Instructions: The goal of this exercise is to identify new activities that could be engaged in on an ongoing basis. Ideally these activities will involve interacting with other people. If you have difficulty coming up with ideas, think about activities or interests that you have had in the past. Your “new” activity may be something you have not done in a while or something similar to an activity you enjoyed in the past. List at least three ideas on the lines provided. Choose one of the activities, and write a goal for yourself that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (SMART). Use the questions below to help ensure that your goal can readily be achieved.
Activities:
1. ______________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________
Specific: What exactly will you accomplish?
Measurable: How will you know when you have reached this goal?
Achievable: Is achieving this goal realistic with effort and commitment? Do you have the necessary resources to achieve this goal? If not, how will you get them?
Relevant: Why is this goal significant to your life?
Timely: When will this goal be achieved?
Goal: ______________________________________________
Next Step
If body checking is a concern for you, you can take the body checking exercise a step further by strategically choosing who you compare yourself with. Instead of selecting thin people, select every third person of your age and gender that you encounter. You will likely discover that people’s bodies vary a great deal and that attractiveness is not directly related to thinness.
If body avoidance is a concern for you, you may need to get used to the sight and feel of your body. Try dressing and undressing in a well-lit room, wear clothes that fit you rather than baggy clothes, and participate in activities that involve a degree of body exposure, such as swimming.
If you frequently feel fat, use self-monitoring to identify when you have intense feelings of fatness and ask yourself during those occurrences what you are really feeling right then. The feeling of fatness is often triggered by something other than weight. Self-monitoring can lead to self-awareness about an underlying trigger that may need to be addressed.
