Note: A variation of this article was published in Jewish Echo Magazine in the column Ask the Therapist

Question: Dear Mindy,

I try to lose weight and regardless of how many times people tell me I look good, I still feel fat. How do I change my perspective about myself instead of staring at the mirror and crying?

Answer:

It seems to me that you want me to wave a magic wand and produce some kind of answer out of thin air. You tell me nothing about your eating history, your present age, gender, or doctor's view of your health. I have no idea who these people are that tell you that you look good when you look in the mirror and see a fat person. Maybe these people are friends who lie to you or are sick of hearing you qvetch and do nothing about it anyway. Maybe it's your parents who think you are perfect at any weight, even if you are obese. Or maybe these people are really your friends and family who see the truth, and don't understand why you cannot see what is obvious to them—that you are healthy, normal looking individual who has a distorted view of herself.

So with no information, purely based on the these two short sentences, I will use deductive reasoning based on years of social work practice to understand your question and address it appropriately.

Yes, I will assume you are a woman, an adult woman who has definitely struggled with weight over the years. Your wording of the question is a dead giveaway, although a man may have similar concerns.

Whether we look at the religious Jewish culture, or the greater society around us, we are a culture obsessed with weight. It's a problem, no doubt about it. Especially since we are a culture, both in our small religious world, and in the greater society, that is also obsessed with food.

I once read an article that dismayed me with a shocking statement that opined that our generation will be the first in a hundred years to raise children who will live shorter lives than their parents because of how we feed them!

So, yes, in all probability you were a chubby child, and in all probability, you also did not want to be chubby and fought against it with numerous attempts to lose weight that only spiraled into relapses and more weight gain, and new attempts to diet.

I will also assume that the people around you who tell you that you look good are probably telling the truth. And I will tell you why I think so. Most people are concerned with weight, and not only because of how obesity looks aesthetically, but also because overweight is very unhealthy. A colleague of mine, who is a Physician's Assistant working in a very busy pediatric office, once told me very simply that today, along with smoking and car accidents, obesity ranks very high as the cause of health complications and subsequent deaths. And most people, while not being aware of the high statistics of health hazards due to overweight are definitely aware of its risks. So if a friend or spouse or daughter or sister is truly overweight, that concern will manifest itself promptly in response to a true qvetching about one's weight.

If you would say to a friend or spouse or parent, “I am so fat and need to lose weight,” most likely, if you truly are overweight, the response will be a diplomatic, “You look good but yes, if you lose weight you will look and feel better.”

Our society does not lie to overweight people and say, “Nah, you look fine the way you are.” Because society does not tolerate overweight. And that's not a compliment. As a society we are extremely intolerant of overweight people and we judge them all the time in how we notice them eating in a pizza store, in how we manufacture buses and cars with narrow seats, with how we judge them when they crowd up the aisle in a grocery store.

We revere stick thin models who look severely malnourished; in sharp contrast to a few decades ago when models were easily two to four sizes larger than they are now.

I remember reading a book about the Kennedy family, written by a lower class girl who snagged a Kennedy because of her looks. She describes herself, in a book written sometime in the 60's, as a beautiful, full size twelve.

Imagine a size twelve beauty today! She would be considered way overweight.

So it's important, before you continue staring at yourself and bemoaning your looks, to first check in with your doctor if you weight is within healthy norms.

And if it is, then what you are left with is your struggle with societal norms, which are often not normal at all!

I can't magically help undo the negative view you have of yourself. Possibly it's a result of our crazy, unrealistic society that worships unhealthy thinness. It can be a result of unhealthy attitudes of your parents, friends, or extended family. It can be a result of low self esteem due to myriad factors, of which only one is your weight. Your negative self image, if you are not overweight but simply not the thin touted by society, can be a result of various factors, not all necessarily related to weight.

So there is no magical way to undo your self image without introspection. Your history holds the key to your unhappiness with yourself. Crying in front of the mirror that tells you that your are fat contrary to what others in our environment see, is a message that you need to think and develop awareness of how you came to be looking into the mirror and crying to begin with.

You did not mention if you have children or at what stage of life you are. I can tell you this: parent's attitudes filter down to children. Unhealthy relationships to food and to oneself is passed down from mother to daughter. It may have been what has caused your unhealthy view of yourself, and it may be what is happening to your own daughter. It may have been that you were a healthy child with healthy baby fat and societal or parental expectations of thinness backfired on you. It may be that you always straddled the line between healthy and unhealthy weight gain and had poor eating habits. You did not mention anything, so I am merely speculating what could have caused such a poor self image to warrant such extreme reactions to your appearance that others do not support.

It's important you change this attitude, because you will inevitably pass on your insecurities about yourself, and your relationship to food to your children.

It doesn't matter what you see in the mirror. It matters what you see in yourself.

So here is what you can do to change your attitude:

Get a doctor's view of your health and weight.

Use self introspection or therapy to understand how you developed a negative self image.

Do things that build confidence and self esteem.

Self esteem does not happen by talking about it. It happens by building it with action. Do things you are good at. Surround yourself with positive people and activities. Buy clothing that fit now and not ones you want to fit into eventually. Don't look at size, but at style.

Accept your natural body shape.

Become the person you want your children to be as well.

Confident, happy, accepting, tolerant of others and self.

That's the magic.

My book, Therapy, Shmerapy, can be found in bookstores or online