Tag: body image

Weight Bias Vs Weight-Centric Bias

In Body Dissatisfaction, Disordered Eating and Body Image

Weight Bias Vs Weight-Centric Bias: When Naming Weight Bias Gets Labeled as Bias

There’s a pattern we’ve observed lately that’s deeply troubling. It has been present in healthcare for a long time. What’s changed is how accepted it’s become, moving into “everyone knows” territory, and that shift is what makes it dangerous.

Dangerous for the person who can no longer ask for the kind of care they actually want, because their body is being treated as something that should be eradicated. Weight-inclusive care keeps getting dismissed as “biased,” while weight-centric assumptions get accepted without question.

The Double Standard in How “Bias” Gets Used

Writer and weight-inclusive health researcher Ragen Chastain has written about this dynamic directly: providers and advocates who question weight-centric norms in healthcare are often labeled biased simply for disagreeing with the dominant approach, while that dominant approach rarely receives the same scrutiny (Chastain, “Weaponizing Weight Bias,” Weight and Healthcare). She describes this playing out in peer review, in professional presentations, and in everyday conversations where an entire body of weight-inclusive practice gets waved off as inherently biased, without the same standard applied to the assumptions it’s challenging.

When “biased” becomes shorthand for “disagrees with the accepted approach,” it gets harder for people to ask for the care they actually want, and harder for providers to offer it without pushback.

What This Means If You’re Looking for Support

You are allowed to want a provider who does not center weight in every conversation about your health. Weight-inclusive care isn’t a fringe position. It’s an approach grounded in treating the whole person rather than a single number on a scale.

If you’ve been struggling to find that kind of support, or you’re navigating a relationship with food and your body shaped more by outside pressure than by what actually feels right for you, that struggle is real. It also connects to patterns we’ve written about before, including why “just eat less” doesn’t work and how body dissatisfaction shows up day to day.

Weight-Inclusive Support in Guelph

Weight-inclusive support is available. Our areas of focus include disordered eating and body image, approached without the assumption that your body is a problem to solve. If this is the kind of support you’re looking for, reach out to schedule an introductory consultation.

Common questions

Is weight-inclusive care the same as ignoring health concerns that may be associated with weight gain?

No. Weight-inclusive care still addresses health concerns; it just doesn’t treat weight itself as the measure of health or the default focus of every conversation.

How do I know if a provider practices weight-inclusive care?

It often shows up in how a provider talks about food, bodies, and goals: whether weight loss is assumed to be the objective, and if you’re asked what kind of support you actually want.

Cheryl is a Registered Psychotherapist focusing on disordered eating, body image, and weight-inclusive care.

5 Grounding Tools and Resources for Difficult Body Image Days

In Body Dissatisfaction

5 Grounding Tools and Resources for Difficult Body Image Days

Some days, body image thoughts are louder than others. A mirror, a photo, a comment from someone else, any of it can be enough to send the day sideways. A hard body image day calls for a few small, workable tools to reach for, and the knowledge that you’re not the only one reaching for them.

1. Name it before you try to fix it

Before doing anything else, try naming what’s happening: “I’m having a body image thought right now.” It sounds small, but separating the thought from a fact is often the first real step in loosening its grip.

2. Change the input

If a specific account, photo, or comparison triggered the spiral, it’s worth changing what you’re looking at before trying to think your way out of it. Muting or unfollowing an account is removing unnecessary noise, nothing more dramatic than that.

If tools like these feel like a starting point, but you’re looking for more consistent support, reaching out for a free consultation with a Guelph-based therapist is a natural next step.

3. Ground in something physical

A body image spiral often pulls attention entirely into appearance. Bringing attention back to something physical and neutral, the feeling of your feet on the floor, a few slow breaths, a short walk, can interrupt the spiral without requiring a single clear thought.

4. Reach for a book that’s already done some of the thinking

Sometimes it helps to hear someone else put language to what you’re feeling. A few resources from our full resource list:

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, one of the founding books of the non-diet approach
The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor, on radical self-acceptance and body image
More Than a Body by Lindsay and Lexie Kite, on seeing your body as an instrument, not an ornament

5. Know that support exists specifically for this

If body image thoughts are a frequent, heavy presence, that’s worth bringing to a professional. The National Eating Disorder Information Centre (NEDIC) operates a free, confidential helpline and live chat for anyone in Canada affected by disordered eating, reachable at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or through nedic.ca. A willingness to look for support is reason enough to reach out.

If you’re ready to go deeper, see what therapy for your relationship with food actually looks like.

If you’re looking for a more personal, ongoing space to work through this, that’s exactly what a first conversation with a therapist is for. Reach out to Laird Counselling Services for a free consultation to learn more about how we can help.

Common questions

How do I know if my body image struggles need professional support?

If body image thoughts show up daily, interfere with eating, exercise, or social plans, or feel impossible to interrupt on your own, that’s a reasonable signal to reach out for support.

Is this kind of work only for people with a diagnosed eating disorder?

No. Body image work is often just as helpful for everyday body dissatisfaction, comparison, or diet culture fatigue, with or without a formal diagnosis.

Where Your Body Image Struggles Actually Come From

In Disordered Eating and Body Image

Rules You Never Actually Agreed To

In my practice, I hear a version of the same sentence often. “I know it’s irrational, but I still feel like I have to…” finish that sentence with skip dessert, cover up at the pool, or apologize for taking a second helping. What follows is usually a long list of rules about food, eating, and how much space a body is allowed to take up.

Here is what I want you to notice: almost none of these rules were ever actually chosen. They were absorbed, long before anyone was old enough to question them.

Where the Rules Actually Came From

Think back far enough, and most of these rules trace to a moment that had nothing to do with you personally. A comment at the dinner table about someone else’s plate. A relative sighing at their own reflection in front of you. A magazine cover, a school hallway comparison, an offhand remark about a “good” body versus a “bad” one.

Layer on top of that years of comparison, diet culture, and the pressure to look a certain way as a partner, an employee, a parent, or a student, and the rulebook gets thick fast. Organizations like NEDIC have documented for years how much of this messaging is absorbed long before anyone consciously chooses it.

Repeated enough times, moments like that build an internal rulebook, one that treats your body as something to monitor, correct, and constantly compare against everyone else’s.

The Accumulated Cost of Following Inherited Rules

Living by rules you never agreed to takes a toll that rarely gets named directly. It looks like:

Checking your reflection in every window you pass, almost without noticing you’re doing it.
Turning down an invitation because of what you’d have to wear.
Narrating your own meal in your head before anyone else even asks what you’re having.
Going somewhere else in your mind during dinner with someone you love, because part of you is still tracking what you ate an hour ago.

That last one is worth sitting with. These rules do not just cost you peace with your own body, they cost you presence with the people in front of you. A relationship needs your attention to grow, and it is hard to be fully in a conversation, a date, or a family dinner when part of you never clocks out of evaluating yourself.

You Are Allowed to Question the Rules

Here is the part of this work I find genuinely hopeful: if a rule was absorbed rather than chosen, it can also be examined, questioned, and in many cases, set down entirely.

That does not happen through willpower or a new set of stricter rules. It happens by tracing where a belief came from, asking honestly whether it was ever actually true, and questioning if it still applies presently.

Body Image Therapy in Guelph and Online Across Ontario

If you have spent years following rules about your body that were never really yours to begin with, you do not have to keep carrying them alone. If this connects to a harder relationship with food as well, my Disordered Eating page covers that in more depth. Reach out to schedule a gentle, no pressure consultation.

Book a no fee consultation

Navigating Body Image Grief

In Disordered Eating and Body Image

We are told a beautiful, seductive lie by the wellness industry: that if we just try hard enough, eat clean enough, and think positively enough, we can bypass the messy reality of having an actual, physical body.

We are sold a fantasy of a future body. one that is permanently energetic, perfectly proportioned, and impervious to aging, stress, or change. We treat this future, idealized version of ourselves not just as a goal, but as the real starting point of our lives: “When I lose the weight…” “When I tone up…” “When I finally fix this…”

But what happens when we realize that the pursuit of it is costing us our sanity, our presence, and our relationships today?

If you are exhausted from fighting your own reflection, you are not failing at self-care. You might actually be experiencing something much deeper: body image grief.

We cannot inhabit a home we are constantly trying to demolish. Healing begins not when we force ourselves to love what we see in the mirror, but when we allow ourselves to mourn the fantasy body we were promised, so we can finally show up for the one we actually live in.”

Understanding Body Image Grief

Grief is a word we usually reserve for the loss of a loved one, a career, or a dream. But grief is also the natural human response to letting go of an expectation. When you decide to step off the relentless treadmill of dieting, intense exercise regimens, or hyper-vigilance, there is a profound sense of relief, but there is also a quiet, unexpected wave of sorrow.

To heal your relationship with your body, you must first grieve. You have to mourn:

The Fantasy of the “Perfect” Body: Acknowledging that the idealized, airbrushed version of you that society demands may never exist, and that keeping it on a pedestal is keeping you from living.
The Time and Energy Lost: Feeling the weight of the years, months, and hours spent counting calories, staring critically at changing reflections, and missing out on memories because you felt too uncomfortable in your skin to participate.
The Illusion of Safety: Recognizing that a smaller or more muscular body is not a shield against life’s difficulties, rejection, or vulnerability.

Grief is not a sign that you are moving backward. It is the precise gateway to moving forward. When we allow ourselves to mourn the body we thought we “should” have, we free up the immense energy required to tend to the body we actually do have.

Moving From Comparison to Somatic Connection

Our culture teaches us to view our bodies from the outside in. We look at ourselves through an external camera lens, constantly evaluating, judging, and comparing. This is a cognitive trap. You cannot think your way into loving your body if your primary relationship with it is analytical and critical.

To change how you feel about your body, you have to change how you inhabit it. This shift from external critique to internal awareness is called somatic connection. It is the practice of feeling your body from the inside out:

Shift from “How do I look?” to “How do I feel?”: When you sit down at your desk or walk into a room, take a breath. Feel the support of the chair underneath you. Notice the rise and fall of your chest. Feel the solid earth beneath your feet.
Find Movement for Pleasure, Not Punishment: Move your body because it feels good to stretch, to breathe, or to sweat—not to pay a physical fine for what you ate the night before.
Acknowledge Your Body’s Daily Labors: Your body is constantly working to keep you alive. It pumps blood, digests food, heals cuts, and takes in oxygen without you ever having to ask. It is an ally, not an adversary.

Therapy for Body Image and Self-Acceptance

True body acceptance is not about looking in the mirror and forcing yourself to repeat positive affirmations you don’t believe. It is about a quiet cessation of hostilities. It is the relief of declaring a truce with your own physical form.

At our clinic, we recognize that body image struggles are never just about skin, muscle, or bone. They are deeply tied to our need for safety, belonging, and worth. We provide a compassionate, trauma-informed space to help you untangle your self-worth from societal standards.

We work with you to process the underlying grief, quiet the loud voice of comparison, and build a gentle, somatic connection to yourself. You do not have to wait until your body changes to start living your life. You are allowed to take up space, feel peace, and find belonging exactly as you are today.

If you are ready to stop waiting for a future version of yourself to start living, we are here to support you.

Reach out to schedule a gentle, supportive consultation with us today.

Book a no fee consultation

Cheryl is a Registered Psychotherapist focusing on body image, binge eating, and emotional healing.