Body Praising – My thoughts on how we speak about our bodies (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this series, I wrote about my experience with body shaming. Admittedly, it was one of the more difficult posts I’ve shared in this blog, not because I posted my “before” photos throughout, but rather because it forced me to deal with many of the comments made about my body over the years. Comments – often insults – I tried hard to ignore. I know that I previously said it’s best to remember the insults and forget the compliments, but I’m only human and there were times when the only way I could live with the shaming was to bury it.
Yet, sharing my experience with body shaming wasn’t the first time I resurrected those memories. Ironically, that came recently when I first started to receive praise for my body. You see, when someone praises another’s body or looks, even with the best of intentions, there’s so much more that’s unsaid that can affect how it is received. So here I will discuss the dangers of body praising.
On the outside, big changes started happening to my body between the summers of 2023 and 2024. Over the nine years prior, I had lost about 10 inches in my waist, a considerable amount, but it was gradual and I still spent most of those years shopping at Big and Tall stores (not because of my height).
Then, no sooner did I start fitting into designer labels – and taking full advantage of it when shopping – that I found myself quickly outgrowing what I just bought. Over the one-year period ending last summer, I lost eight more inches.
Suddenly, my body became a topic of conversation everywhere I went. Not because I brought it up, and certainly not because it was my choice. In fact, I would go into most situations having to brace myself for the well-intentioned praise. But there were even times when I couldn’t begin to predict it would happen. Last May, when at the Miami Grand Prix with my dad, an Uber driver who didn’t speak a word of English kept praising me for my weight loss. My dad, who speaks fluent Spanish, translated the conversation with the driver who I had no prior recollection of ever meeting, but he said he drove me a year before (and yes, I was in Miami for work a year earlier).
Surely if you regularly read this blog, you know I take pride in what I’ve accomplished, but I also hope that you see that the accomplishment is the change in lifestyle, not the size of my pants. So, it seemed a bit strange and uncomfortable, when suddenly, nearly nine years into this journey, a different type of compliment became the norm. It usually went something like, “wow, you look amazing,” or worse yet, “you are so slim!” I mentioned having to brace myself for this. Here’s why . . .
First, with each compliment, I couldn’t help but wonder what that person must have thought about my body for years when they said nothing. Whether they had any thoughts at all is not something I should assume, but having never been told anything before, it made me imagine what they had been thinking. I must not have looked “amazing” to them before, and undoubtedly, I was the opposite of “slim.” While I can only speak for myself here, I have trouble imagining that others who receive similar praise about weight loss don’t have similar reactions at least occasionally.
Second, when the compliment is all about looks, it could possibly be rewarding or encouraging the wrong behaviors. Whether shaming or praising someone’s body, it puts body image at the forefront, potentially with harmful consequences such as eating disorders. Here are just a few statistics from the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA):
28.8 million Americans (9% of the US population) will have an eating disorder in their lifetime
Every 52 minutes, someone dies because of an eating disorder
Eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness
Suicide is the leading cause of death for those diagnosed with an eating disorder
Less than 6% of people with an eating disorder are medically underweight
Fear of weight gain, feelings of guilt, thinking about dieting, and a desire for thinness are among behaviors that are predictive of an eating disorder
When we compliment (or shame) others’ bodies, we undoubtedly do so without knowing what they are going through. Both compliments and insults can lead to or feed an eating disorder in so many ways. For starters, take the last statistic above. Talking about one’s body can make one think about their body and the desire to be thin. It fosters the thoughts that promote eating disorders – and not only for the one who receives the compliment. The praise usually occurs in the presence of others without any thought of how it might be received by the company around us. We not only have to watch out for what the praise means to the one it is given, but also how it could affect anyone else in the room. The flattery of one could be a put-down of another. Also, when only praising someone’s looks, we rarely know what behaviors we are praising. Perhaps we just encouraged someone with an eating disorder to keep it up. We can almost never know this – especially when, as noted above, most people with an eating disorder are not underweight.
Finally, what happens when the compliments about looks go away? Here’s one that I’ve been dealing with most recently. For about a nine-month period last year, there was rarely a day that went by where someone didn’t comment on my weight loss. But now that I have settled into a consistent and healthy weight for the first time in my life, the praise died down. My waist hasn’t changed in the last nine months, and unless I see someone for the first time in years, I rarely get any more comments. For me, this is a relief, but one that even I was not prepared for. I got so used to bracing myself for the conversation, that I started to go places ready to deal with it, only to have it never come up. That made me wonder how others might feel in this situation. Obviously, we all receive praise in different ways, and there are undoubtedly those who are grateful for the recognition. Some even seek it. So, what are they to do when the compliments go away simply because they’ve done everything right for so long? Let’s hope it’s not to do anything different just to get the compliments back.
Having now shared my thoughts on both shaming and praising, I’ll share what triggered this series of posts. It was a simple comment from an acquaintance that I often see in passing. While I’ve mostly removed the shield that I put up to prepare for body comments, I sometimes still can’t escape them. This time, it was simply passing this person in the hallway where I warmly said hello and was greeted with, “hey, slim!” For whatever reason, on that day, in that moment, where I had let my guard down because my body and my weight were rarely ever a topic of conversation anymore, a simple greeting focused on my body set off a flood of thoughts. Yes, I wondered what he was saying about how I used to look. I also wondered what it said about my looks today. Moreover, I still have no clue how to respond to “hey slim!” “Thanks” certainly doesn’t seem right, nor does anything else. It’s just awkward.
Truth be told, I do obsess over my body. I’ve been the one observing its changes every day, and it’s something I take pride in. The alternative for me is ignoring it which I did for too long, so this obsession is a (mostly) healthy one. I shape my fitness and eating habits around trying to perfect it. But perfection is not about how it looks. It’s about what my body can do for me. Today, perfection means being able to do what I never could before – whether running, lifting, or climbing. But ten years ago, perfection was making it through my 40th birthday golf trip. There may never have been a day when my body felt more perfect than the end of that trip. Perfection is all about winning the day.
My caddie and I on the 18th green at the end of an intense week of golf for my 40th birthday.
But while a simple, well-meaning “hey, slim” made me process all that went into these posts, there’s something beautiful that came out of them. Something that reminded me how I got through it all. When discussing the shaming post with a friend, he said, “You know, I was with you when many of those pictures were taken, but they surprised me because I never thought of you like that.” No words ever felt more comforting and welcome. Many of my closest friends have often said the same. These are the people I’ve shared every part of my journey with since day one, and they are the ones that I continue to have genuine conversations with about the process. They are the ones who inspire me, and the ones I hope to inspire. And it’s having people like this in my life that are the reason I too did not see myself like that – at least as often as I otherwise would have.
Aaron