If you have ever wondered how to improve body image, you have probably been handed an answer that sounds something like this: just change your body.
Lose a little here. Build a little there. Tone, shrink, sculpt, fix.
If only it were that simple.
Here is something I find myself saying often in sessions: poor body image is not actually about how your body looks or takes up space. It is about how you perceive it. And once you understand that, the path to feeling better starts to look completely different.
Let’s walk through it together.
What body image really is
Body image is your perception of your body. It’s the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs you hold about it. Notice that word: perception. Two people can stand in front of the same mirror and feel entirely different things, because body image lives in the mind, not in the measuring tape.
This is exactly why the usual advice misses the mark. When we treat body image as an appearance problem, we keep chasing physical changes that are never going to repair what is, at its heart, a perception problem.
Body image is an inside job.
Where poor body image comes from
If you struggle with poor body image, I want you to know you are not broken and you are certainly not alone. You did not invent this on your own! In fact, body image struggles almost always come from somewhere. Often it’s a mix of:
- Diet culture. We live in a world that treats thinness as more attractive and quietly hands out status for being smaller. Decades of research link these sociocultural pressures, particularly internalizing the thin ideal, to rising body dissatisfaction.
- Food shaming. This includes the rules and beliefs we carry inside ourselves, as well as comments from teachers, parents, friends, and the endless social media scroll. Appearance-focused social media use in particular has been associated with greater eating disorder symptoms.
- Body dysmorphia. A distressing preoccupation with perceived flaws, which so often walks alongside disordered eating.
Naming the source matters. It moves the problem out of “something is wrong with me” and into “I grew up in a culture designed to make me feel this way.”
Why “just change your body” doesn’t work
Here is the uncomfortable truth about the change-your-body approach: it tends to make body image worse, not better.
Psychologists describe part of this as self-objectification. Objectification theory, first proposed by Fredrickson and Roberts, explains how living in a culture that constantly evaluates women’s bodies teaches us to view ourselves from the outside in, valuing how the body looks over what it can actually do. That outside-in habit is linked to body shame, anxiety, depression, and disordered eating.
When body image stays in that painful place, a few patterns tend to creep in. We start to:
- base our body’s worth on other people’s opinions
- treat the body as an object to be looked at and evaluated, rather than lived in
- forget that bodies are meant to shift through puberty, pregnancy, young adulthood, and ageing, all of it completely normal
- compare and body check, constantly measuring ourselves against everyone else
- try to reshape ourselves to please other people
And the trouble with all of it? We end up resting how we feel about our bodies on other people’s opinions of how they should look.
That is always shaky ground. Because the beauty industry is built to keep moving the goalposts, setting impossible standards by design, so that we keep pouring our time, money, and energy into a system that was never going to let us feel satisfied.
How to improve body image, for real
So if changing your body is not the answer, what is? Here is where I start with clients.
1. Aim for body neutrality, not body positivity
You do not have to love your body on command. The goal of body neutrality is gentler and far more sustainable: to think about your body less, so you can get back to living your actual life.
2. See your body as an instrument, not an ornament
This idea, popularized in the book More Than a Body by Lexie and Lindsay Kite, flips the very script that self-objectification teaches us. Your body is something that carries you through your life, not an object to be evaluated. Research on positive body image consistently connects appreciating what your body can do with better overall wellbeing.
3. Practice body respect
Body respect means caring for your body simply because it is yours, regardless of how you feel about it on any given day. It can look like:
- eating regularly
- getting enough sleep
- moving in ways that feel good rather than punishing
Notice that none of these depend on liking your appearance first.
4. Interrupt comparison and body checking
Comparison is a quiet thief. When you catch yourself measuring your body against someone else’s, or checking the mirror or the waistband for reassurance, gently name what is happening and redirect. You are allowed to opt out.
5. Sit with a few honest questions
Body image work is tender, and it takes time. These three questions are a good place to begin. No pressure to fix anything. Just notice what you discover:
- Where do my beliefs about beauty and attractiveness come from?
- How does my body image influence my behaviours, like eating, movement, and self-care?
- How do I talk to myself about my body? Are my inner thoughts compassionate and supportive, or critical and judgmental?
What improving body image can actually do
The science on improving body image is genuinely encouraging! A more appreciative, neutral relationship with your body is linked to lower depression, higher self-esteem, greater flourishing, and a lower risk of disordered eating. It even supports a calmer relationship with food, because you become far less likely to manipulate your eating based on the very changeable way you feel about your body from one day to the next.
In other words, this work gives you something back. It returns the mental space that food and body worry has quietly been taking up, so you can spend it on the life you actually want to live.
Body image support in Calgary, Alberta, and BC
As a non-diet registered dietitian, I support clients across Alberta and British Columbia, with in-person sessions in Calgary and virtual care throughout both provinces. Food and body image work is some of my very favourite work to do alongside clients, and you do not have to navigate it alone.
If reading this stirred something in you, I would be honoured to be a part of your support system for what comes next.
Book a free Connection Call and we’ll talk through where you’re at and how I can support you.
Gentle encouragement that your body is an instrument, not an ornament. And after all, we’ve got life to live. 💜
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