HMN 2024: Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Building Better Body Image for All

The Wicked Queen in Disney’s classic film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs looked to her magic mirror to be reassured that she was the fairest in all the kingdom. The queen’s vanity is revealed to cover over underlying insecurity; she is eventually so outraged when the mirror tells her that Snow White is more beautiful that a poisoning plan is concocted. The queen used the mirror in such misguided ways that they set her on a path of doom.

While Snow White is only a fairy tale, the reflection obsession is very much a reality in the modern world. Negative body image is an issue for so many individuals, and it has many negative consequences for mood, thoughts, and overall functioning.

Most people looking in a mirror do not approach it with the same conceit as did the Wicked Queen. Still, the tendency to compare and to react to a perceived shortcoming is, sadly, common for many—and the resulting outrage is often taken out on themselves.

Mirrors provide a visual reflection, but our interpretation of the visual image is much more significant. Mirrors do not take disposition, context, and situational factors into account. This is why we can wear the same outfit on two consecutive days but have completely different visual interpretations of ourselves in the outfit, depending on whether we have had a good or terrible day. How we are feeling and thinking affects how we see the world and ourselves. Learning to unpack the distress often projected onto the body can be pivotal.

When someone is struggling with body image, there is generally more benefit in changing the image than in changing the body. We need skillpower more than willpower. Below are several metaphors deployed to show how we can let mirrors be functional decor and can attend instead to improving body image more effectually.

Reframe the Purpose of the Mirror: The Can Opener

Mirrors often lead people to criticize, ruminate, and overfocus on parts of the body that we dislike or want to reject. Using the mirror to overanalyze for hours or attempt to confirm some internal negative bias is not only harmful but also ends up being a gross misuse of this household accessory.

Such misuse is analogous to using a can opener as a hammer. The best use of a can opener is to open cans. Let’s use mirrors to check on whether an outfit matches, hair is sticking up, or there is a smudge on our shirt—and then move on with life activities.

Awareness of Cultural Standards: Emptying Our Bladders

When we get caught up in the drive for thinness, diet mindset or constant body “shoulding,” we are upholding cultural messages that ultimately lead to dissatisfaction. We have been socialized in ways that suggest all bodies should be slender, creating a bias that has been difficult to shift.

Imagine if we lived in a world where we had strict ideas about the amount of urine considered ideal during voiding. What if social media, headlines, Hollywood actors, and billboards flaunted people who peed less frequently as better people?

In this silly imaginary scenario, we might logically know that urine levels are naturally variable and affected by many factors. Yet creating a standard for comparison could set us up for using bladder-emptying quantities as a measure of appeal and worthiness. Similarly, setting ideals of body size and shape results in grave limitations. Let’s aim instead to allow the body to settle at individualized set-point weights, accept normative body aging standards, and tolerate body diversity.

Body Acceptance: Shoes on Sale

The size and shape of our body is determined by a number of complex factors, many of which we don’t control, including genetics and part of the world we inhabit. Trying to change our bodies in unrealistic ways would be like buying shoes we love that are the wrong size in hopes that perhaps we might be able to fit into them one day. We may be sad that the stunning size 7 shoes are on sale and would match a specific outfit perfectly, yet striving to fit into them when we know that we actually wear size 9 will just lead to disappointment. Body shapes are more predetermined than most people realize, and this knowledge requires setting realistic expectations about taking care of the body we have rather than continually endeavoring to change it.

Body Respect: Encouraging Teachers

Some individuals believe that criticism will lead to behavior changes, such as exercising or eating differently. However, body shaming creates more humiliation, increased distress, and less compassionate body care in the long run.

Being able to say “I appreciate how my body was strong enough to keep up with my busy work day” is going to be more encouraging than “I’m fat and lazy.” Think back about teachers who motivated you to perform your best; most people thrived with teachers who were kind, encouraging, and compassionate. Bathing ourselves in body loathing messages is harmful. When we are kinder to our body, we tend to take better care of it.

Body Appreciation: Training a Dog

Some body-image struggles reflect individuals setting up conditions under which they might like or respect their bodies: “I will feel good about myself as soon as X changes on my body.” Such conditional and provisional thinking can create more misery in the long run.

Someone training a dog to do a new trick would hopefully love that pet whether they learned that new command or not. If we withdrew all love because the dog couldn’t learn that trick, we would be considered cruel and unloving pet owners. Some dogs eventually learn the trick, some may not. However, our feeding and caring for the dog hopefully remains consistent no matter the dog’s repertoire. We can still love their cute floppy ears or incessantly wagging tail. Let’s keep finding and focusing on what we appreciate about ourselves.

Inside-Out Focus: Turn the Sweatshirt Inside Out

When we are overfocused on the externals of our body, we are ultimately focused on things that end up being more superficial and short-lived. When we are judging our bodies only externally, we also often end up overlooking the many functions of our amazing bodies internally.

Our innsides are working around the clock to keep our organs functioning and to help us think, work, and interact in ways that we demand.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to take care of and feel good about your body, but often the key is turning inside out. Asking ourselves questions about energy levels, hunger-satiety signals, pain, discomfort, and moods provides valuable insights into our true needs. Tuning out diet-culture noise takes effort and intentionality, and it starts with a focus on body function over form.

Prevention: Vaccines Over Ambulances

Body image negativity and it consequences will likely not improve until we get at the root of the difficulty. Beliefs about one’s body, including culturally influenced idealizations of shape and size, are developed in multifactorial ways, and the unlearning and reframing of the beliefs is similarly multifaceted. Continuing to uphold unrealistic standards of beauty, spreading fat phobia, and overfocusing on externals keep mirror obsessiveness alive.

Reducing outside-in body and weight-as-worth focus will protect us and future generations. Rather than having to call the metaphorical ambulance for heightened anxiety, mood distress, disordered eating, or self-harming behaviors that come from critical external body focus, let’s strive to provide more psychological inoculation by managing life more fully and wholeheartedly without the negative mirror bias.