What is Body Checking?
Have you ever stood in front of a mirror and scrutinised your body? Yeah, me too - it’s called body checking. Other ways of body checking include;
Comparing your body to others on social media or in real life.
Obsess over one part of your body.
‘Pinching’ areas of your body (usually stomach, bum or legs) to find fat.
Measuring your body.
Repeatedly assessing the fit of your clothes.
Trying to feel your bones
Weighing yourself frequently.
Body checking is deeply ingrained in the health and fitness industry - comparison photos, body fat percentages and measurements are all used as a way to measure your progress when you choose to make lifestyle changes.
Weighing yourself is a perfect example of this - it can go one of two ways. Either you feel happy with the number, it confirms that you have been doing the ‘right things’ - you become so focussed on the number on the scale that you disconnect from how your body feels. On the other side, you aren’t happy with the number, it’s not what you were expecting to see and it discourages you from pursuing the ‘right things’. If the scales aren’t moving in the right direction, then why bother?
Both of these scenarios end up with you feeling disconnected from your body - it puts the focus on your body measurements instead of how your body is reacting to your food choices and movement. If you do choose to qualify a new healthy lifestyle with body checking, then you should ensure that your main focus is how any changes are making you feel - this way, you are much more likely to focus on all the wonderful benefits.
Body checking fuels our preoccupation with our shape and size. It can result in us over-analysing our bodies to the point where we become dissatisfied with ourselves. It can help reinforce any concerns we have, if we think there is a problem, often we find ways to confirm it. We focus on the perceived negatives rather than all our positive features.
We are unreliable judges of our own bodies. Studies have shown that how we feel about our bodies is heavily influenced by our mood, what we’ve eaten, how full we feel, and recent exposure to other bodies. This is why I encourage clients to say, ‘I’m having a bad body image day'.’ rather than, ‘I’m having a fat day’. Often it’s nothing to do with how you look, it’s how you feel.
In future, if you are having a bad body image day and you feel like engaging in body checking. Ask yourself these questions;
What am I looking for?
Is this helpful?
Has anything changed since the last time that I body checked?
Is this going to make me feel better?
Instead, get outside for some joyful movement, cook a delicious nutritious meal or engage in some form of self-care to show yourself that you appreciate your body as it is.