Robert P. Sprafkin, PhD, senior psychologist at Syracuse VA Medical Center, says, “With society’s values, which emphasize thinness and perfectionist fitness, one finds plenty of encouragement and justification for going to whatever extremes necessary to achieve these goals. We don’t find these patterns of behavior in cultures that have different ideals of beauty.”
Then we have bodybuilding competitions.
Recently, more and more people have decided to enter bodybuilding or bikini competitions. They claim it to be a culmination of all their hard work. They see it as a tangible moment of their increased self-esteem and improved self worth and health.
I see it very differently.
When you compete, you're being judged based off of your body, which is exactly what people who promote body love and acceptance have strived to stay away from and struggled against. Many of the competitors claim to have the epitome of health, yet to achieve a typical competitors body, the fat percentage is LESS than someone who is diagnosed anorexic. It's not healthy; it's a different form of body dysmorphia, it’s called Orthorexia. It’s an obsession with food that one considers to be healthy. I was grabbing lunch with a friend who is preparing for a competition. He literally weighed out the amount of carbs he was eating on a scale to make sure he was within his limitations. Yet the moment he finished the competition, he gorged himself by eating an entire pizza and gained ten pounds in a week. How is that physically healthy?
Not only can it lead to physical health problems, but also it can cause mental health issues such as the concepts I listed before. As a competitor, you're seeking validation of your progress based off of the opinions of others, whereas it should really come intrinsically. You're changing your body to fit the expectations of a typical competitor; I question how that is any different from someone being influenced by today's media or society, such as a Victoria’s Secret ad, to change their body to be skinnier or prettier? Many competitors are a product of fake tanning and heavy make up. They're measuring success and worth by how they look yet preaching self-love and acceptance.
When I read articles about how people’s body transformations made them feel more confident, I am glad they finally have that, but I don’t want to love me because I have the body I want. I want to love me because I'm great and my body's a result of that but I'd love me regardless. When I have a daughter I want her to love herself because of her brain and passion, not because of her body and she spent a lot of time squatting. When we’re 70 and old, your body won't give you the satisfaction it used to and when you look back at your life, do you really want to be spending it in a gym? Because what type of gravestone would say, “No one knew how to restrict carbs like she could”?
