BODY IMAGE
Body image refers to our
beliefs and feelings about
how our bodies look and
function.
Body image is not inborn, but learned.
A negative body image often leads to
Body Image Disorders.
Body Image Disorders
• Eating Disorders
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
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Anorexia
Bulimia
Compulsive Eating
Overeating
• Self-Injury/Mutilation Disorder
• Exercise Addiction
Our body image is
influenced by our
family, our friends,
the media, and
society in general.
It's heavily influenced by
what we think we should
look like in order to be
attractive, and how we
think our bodies should
"perform."
The most common Body Image
Disorders are eating disorders.
1 in 5 girls struggle with
eating disorders
1 in 10 boys struggle
with eating disorders
Adam Rickett suffered from Bulimia as a school kid.
Princess Diana suffered from
Bulimia. She helped women
worldwide face their own
eating disorders when she
publicly discussed her own.
Carnie Wilson, of Wilson Philips,
suffered from Overeating.
Wilson underwent
surgery to cure her
disorder and prevent
her death.
Although she has a
new body image, she
still battles her eating
disorder daily, and
uses her experiences
to help other eating
disorder sufferers.
Billy Bob Thornton is a
Bulimia survivor.
Angelina Jolie is a selfmutilation survivor.
WASTING AWAY:
WHITNEY HOUSTON'S
FRAIL APPEARANCE
STUNS CROWD
Daniel Johns
has openly
talked about
his battle with
Anorexia, and
wrote a song
about his
experience
called,
Ana's Song
for Silverchair's
CD, Neon.
Elisa Donovan
is a recovering
anorexic.
“My eating disorders are
Ketosis and Overeating…
To believe that Anorexia
and Bulimia are the only
eating disorders is foolish
and untrue.”
Stacey Handler…Granddaughter of Ruth Handler,
the creator of the Barbie doll. Stacey was also the
inspiration behind the Stacie doll.
“Barbie is in fact just a
doll, created by one
woman and then
endorsed time and
time again by a society
that has spent billions
and billions of dollars
trying to become the
“Plastic
surgery,
diets
perfection
she radiates.”
and self-starvation are
just a few of the many
ways women have
attempted to have that
perfect body.”
---Stacey Handler
“Another way the media
obscures public concepts of
weight is by touching up
photographs of celebrities…
Magazines don’t represent
the true person…They’re
presenting a created image.”
--Natalie Portman, actress
Before
Jamie Lee Curtis
After
“Seventeen, the most widely read magazine among
teenage girls in the United States, claims to
"encourage independence" and help each reader
"become this wonderful person that she dreams
she will be.”
--Kimberly Philips, How Seventeen Undermines Young Women
“…But far from encouraging
independence, Seventeen only
reinforces the cultural expectations
that an adolescent woman should be
more concerned with her appearance,
her relations with other people, and
her ability to win approval from men
than with her own ideas or her
expectations for herself.”
-- Kimberly Philips, How Seventeen Undermines Young Women
Even athletes suffer
from negative body
image.
They often turn to steroids and
growth-hormone drugs to achieve
an ideal body and performance
perfection for their sport.
In the last
decade, as many
as 80
professional
cyclists died
from the reckless
abuse
of the
performanceenhancing drug
EPO.
A former WWF champion
and a wrestler who had what
at one time was known as
"the perfect body."
Superstar Billy Graham
(Wayne Coleman)
Graham is now a cripple from
the after effects of steroid
abuse and said,
"Steroids have destroyed
lives in wrestling. I'm just
one example.“ (1993)
About 7 million women and 1 million men
have eating disorders due to poor body image.
In a recent survey,
75% of women and
54% of men
reported that they
are unhappy with
their physical
appearance.
They are afraid of becoming fat.
Many children,
under the age
of 10, are
becoming
obsessed
with dieting
and their
bodies.
Our body image is not a
true reflection of who we actually are.
As Orthodox Christians,
we must realize that we each
were created in the
image of Christ.
“So God created man in His own image;
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.”
GENESIS 1:27
What is more beautiful than to be with Christ? What is more
desirable than his divine glory? Nothing is sweeter than that light
which illumines the entire order of men and angels. Nothing is
more beloved than that life (of God) in which we all live and move
and have our being. There is nothing sweeter than the ever-living
beauty, nothing more pleasant than the unceasing gladness. There is
nothing more desirable than eternal joy and blessedness, about
which no word can suffice to explain or thoughts to comprehend it
sublimity and infinity. For how indeed can one speak about what is
essentially and inexpressibly beauty?
St. Makarios
“...The LORD does not look at the things man
looks at. Man looks at the outward
appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
1 Samuel 16:7