As many of you already know, a great deal of my current work specializes in providing clinical treatment to adult women struggling with eating disorders. I’ve worked with hundreds of women and logged hundreds of hours helping women work through their relationship with food and their own selves – including their self-esteem, identity and body image issues.

A couple weekends ago, my 5 year-old daughter and I were watching TV on a Saturday morning. As we channel-surfed began noticing a message pattern of the shows and commercials that were playing during this hour.

“Tone your thighs…”
“Clean your colon…”
“Sculpt your abs…”
“100 calorie snacks…”
“Eat smart…”
“Viagra…”
“Weight Watchers…”
“Buy these workout DVDs!”

Maybe we’ve desensitized and stopped noticing how much the media and our perception of the ideal body image has changed over the past decades.

(1930s – 1940s)

“If you are a normal healthy, underweight person and are ashamed of your skinny, scrawny figure, NUMAL may help you add pounds and pounds of firm, attractive flesh to your figure.”

(1940s)

It’s hard to believe they once called me SKINNY!
Thousands are quickly gaining 5 – 15 lbs. this new, easy way.
Don’t think you’re “born” to be skinny and friendless. Thousands with this new easy treatment have gained attractive pounds — in just a few weeks.

Today…

Life is different. Our views are shifting. Expectations are airbrushed yet paraded and promoted as attainable, attractive and desirable.

In 2003, Teen magazine reported that 35 percent of girls 6 to 12 years old have been on at least one diet, and that 50 to 70 percent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight. Overall research indicates that 90% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance in some way. (1)

In fact, long before a girl reaches puberty, she is beginning to explore her place and role in this world through the aid of toys. Jill Barad of Mattel (which manufactures Barbie) estimated that 99% of girls aged 3 to 10 years old own at least one Barbie doll. (2) I’m certainly not suggesting that little girls stop playing with Barbies, but I am suggesting that there is a need for parental involvement in helping sons and daughters challenge the media’s misconceptions about body types.

Watch! a CBS promotional magazine airbrushed 20 lbs off of Katie Couric’s arms, legs and waist without her knowledge until the magazine was published.

“I liked the first picture better because there’s more of me to love,” Couric, who left NBC’s Today show to start her new job at CBS next week, told the Daily News.

Bodies matter to the media. In fact, women are constantly objectified and made into selling hooks. Companies use the objectification of women to sell a brand but in turn they also sell us a body type.

In fact, in some cases faces aren’t needed…

And for other companies when faces are shown, women are positioned in strategic poses to sell a product and a sensation.

In fact, the media at times does not sell us products, logos and brands. They sell us an experience!

Advertisers know how to present a product that helps us escape reality. In many cases, this escape is being done through food!

Women are encouraged by advertisers to disconnect to their reality, discomfort and pain and escape it all through the sensuality of a simple bite.

And yet, if you take that bite and give in. Instant GUILT.

Advertisers are quick to remind women of the consequences of their “bad behaviors.”

In fact, eating some foods is simply disrespecting yourself! So there is an ongoing love/hate relationship that many people experience with food that ultimately leads them to develop careful eating habits and suffer the consequences for giving in and being “naughty.”

Over time, these influential messages sometimes end up having an impact on women who develop a distorted body image and distorted view of their real selves.

If you or someone you know struggles with food and body issues, then these agencies can provide some guidance. On the sidebars of this site, I have also included a list of book titles that I believe can be very helpful in the journey of normalization with food and body acceptance.

• National Eating Disorders Association
• Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center
• True Campaign: Identity – Beauty – Impact

Copyright © 2009. Cesar G. Gamez, MA. All Rights Reserved.

References

1. The Canadian Women’s Health Network (Body Image and the Media). http://www.cwhn.ca/node/40776

2. Barbie boots up. (Time, Nov 11 1996). http://www.time.com

Feeling feelings feels uncomfortable for a lot of people.  The truth is that many of us grew up in families that somehow taught us that our feelings and the way we express those feelings are synonymous with each other.  As a result we’ve learned to think of anger as explosive, hurt as crying, anxiety as attacks and shortness of breath and depression as staying in bed.  However, our feelings and the way those feelings are expressed are not the same.  In fact, we can experience anxiety without attacks, emotional pain without crying and anger without punching walls.

Feelings these feelings can be scary for a lot of people for a couple of reasons.  First, many of us grew up in homes where we were taught or asked to control our emotions.  Some familiar statements might be, “suck it and be a man,” “don’t get too excited,” “stop crying,” and “stop your whining!”   And yet, what we discovered along the process of doing life is that shutting off emotional pain and tears is not as simple as making oneself stop.  Over time, many of us have learned to mask and hide our truest emotions like disappointment, anger and sadness behind a “poker-face,” workaholism, intellectualization or spiritualization.  Unable to control those feelings, many people punish themselves, become guilty or just choose to escape by numbing out.

Second, people who fear feeling feelings often times grow up in homes where feelings were explosive, chaotic and uncontrollable.  Therefore, the only genuine frame of reference they have is that anger = yelling, cursing, violence or that depression = drug abuse, prescription medication addiction, emotional detachment or abandonment.

The way emotions were modeled for us as children by our parents has an influential power in dictating how likely we are to manage similar emotions as adults.

If you are willing to develop a greater level of confidence over your ability to regulate and reduce your emotions, then consider the following steps.

1. Honor your feelings. This simply means that you stop fighting your emotions and you simply accept them.

2. Attach meaning to your tears. Feelings are sometimes manifested through tears.  When they show up, ask yourself, “what are my tears trying to tell me?”

3. Learn to label your emotions. Don’t settle for non-emotionally descriptive words like “good,” “alright” and “okay.”  Instead develop an emotional vocabulary so that you are able to identify a variety of emotional experiences.

4. Learn to identify emotional intensity. When people don’t develop proper emotional awareness, they often find themselves going from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds.  Have you ever met people who are content only to turn explosive in a matter of seconds after a simple comment?  When you develop an ability to rank your emotional intensity on a scale of 0 to 10 or 0 to 100, you will be able to notice when your emotion is getting to dangerous levels.

5. Learn to self-care. Work with your therapist to develop appropriate grounding skills like setting boundaries, breathing exercises and distracting techniques that will enable you to stay safe and in control of your feelings even when they become too intense and hard to handle.

Copyright © 2009  Cesar G. Gamez, MA.  All Rights Reserved.

It’s been several weeks since I’ve uploaded a blog post.  I feel the need to give you all an update since several of you have asked me if I intend to continue blogging. The answer is “Yes” I will continue blogging; however I am uncertain about the frequency of my posts.  Since the last time I blogged there have been several changes in my life.  One of those exciting changes is that I was accepted to the Doctor of Behavioral Health program at Arizona State University!

I have officially started my Doctoral program and I have spent my days studying, researching, reading and writing – all while still balancing my other important roles as a husband, father, friend and therapist.

Blogging has always been a hobby and an extension of my work as a clinician.  I intend to keep it that way.  I am always blessed and encouraged by the personal e-mails I often get from my blog readers thanking me for answering questions or providing practical information on a variety of family and relationship topics.  I want to keep hearing from you!

Cesar G. Gamez, MA