Dealing With Negative Comments About Your Body

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My opinion on negative comments, in a nutshell. (Image courtesy of someecards.com)

In the last few weeks, I’ve had several clients and readers ask me about dealing with negative comments about their bodies.

Ugh. This stuff makes me so angry.

So I want to address negative comments head on and give you some tools for dealing with them, because, frankly, I’ve had enough of this crap.

A Little Context
I don’t really follow non-plus-sized fashion very much, so until this week I had never heard of the swimsuit model Kate Upton (I actually had her confused with the awesome Nancy Upton, but I digress.) Lately, Kate Upton has been torn apart by bloggers for being too fat, having “huge” thighs, etc.

I bring this up only to demonstrate that nowadays, everyone’s body (especially non-male bodies) are apparently up for debate, scrutiny and derision. No one is immune from it, not even swimsuit models.

Of course, there is still a difference between being a straight size swimsuit model and being a size 12 or 22 or 32 (and the degree of comments you get at those different sizes), and the war on obesity rhetoric isn’t helping. Fueling societal scapegoating of fatness with rhetoric about fat causing rising health care costs and pushing the idea that fat people are just a bunch of soda swilling, cheeto eating, lazypants (while thin people mostly hike and eat homemade granola from biodegradable rucksacks) makes commenting on someone’s fatness into a sort of public health message.

Why am I sharing all of that with you? Because I think sometimes you need a reminder that negative comments about your body aren’t even really about your body, they’re about society and our society’s wrongheaded and impossibly narrow definition of a “good” body. Your body didn’t do anything wrong. What’s fucked up about your body is not your body at all, but that your body has to live in a society that thinks it has a right to say fucked up things about your body.

Click to tweet: “Don’t change your body to get respect from society. Instead, let’s change society to respect our bodies.”

At the same time, I realize that societal change is often glacially slow and reminding you that society is messed up may help you at some times and not others. So I want to share some more tips with you on dealing with negative comments in certain circumstances.

Some Tips For Dealing With Negative Comments

On The Street Harassment
This is some awful shit. If you have to deal with street harassment on any kind of regular basis, I am so sorry.

I don’t have a lot of personal experience with this, and I’m not sure why. It may be that I developed a serious “don’t fuck with me” look in my teens that has served me all of these years, or it may just be luck. I have no idea.

But here are some things to remember:

  • Your Reaction In The Moment Is Perfect — Whether you slam the harasser with a witty retort, silently keep moving, and/or report it to the police, your reaction is perfect. You don’t have to do anything, you don’t even have to respond. It’s not your job to fix the situation or deal with it or whatever. The harasser is wrong and you’re right and that’s that.
  • Your Reaction Afterward Is Perfect — A client recently shared with me that she was walking with her friends and a man pointed to her and said something rude about her fatness. She acted like she didn’t care at the time but when she got home she was really upset and cried about it. Part of the reason why she cried was that she was mad at herself for getting upset about it. I think it’s really important in these situations to let yourself feel your feelings. You have the right to feel however you feel about someone commenting on your body. The reality is that there is an ebb and flow to all of our lives. Sometimes, you may feel really great about yourself and your body and a nasty comment rolls right off your back like nothing. And maybe on another day you’re feeling a little more insecure and the negative comment really hurts. That’s the reality of life, and there is nothing wrong with feeling the way you feel.

Comments From People You Know

This stuff is seriously problematic. I think we’ve all had people in our lives (family members, friends, work colleagues) who think it’s completely fine to comment on our bodies and how we look.

Unsolicited commentary on your body is not okay, and the people in your life need to be reminded of that. However, it can be EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to get people who are used to giving you negative comments to stop. (I also realize that in some cases it can be literally unsafe to do so, so it’s important to seek out professional assistance with this if you’re in that situation.)

Keep in mind, again, that your response to receiving negative comments, whether you talk back or don’t, cry or don’t, etc. is perfect. You don’t have to respond or do anything you don’t want to do.

However, if you’re looking for a way to change the dynamic with people in your life who make negative comments about your body, please consider actively setting boundaries with them. This can be a little tricky, so I recommend checking out this post on boundary setting for some in depth help with it.

On The Internet
DO NOT BOTHER. If someone says stuff about you on your blog, facebook page, whatever, do not engage. Delete their comments. Block their IP addresses. This is one instance where you have a lot of control, so don’t waste any of your precious energy on them. Seriously.

A Final Note
I don’t think there’s any way to make yourself completely immune from negative comments. Words hurt, you’re human, and it’s natural to feel shame, embarrassment, anger, etc. when someone makes negative comments about your body.

However, one of the best things you can do to soften the impact is to strengthen your self esteem and body image. When you know in your heart of hearts that you are fabulous other people’s opinions of you will matter less. That’s one of the many reasons why I do the work I do!

I hope this helps the next time you have to deal with negative comments. Let me know how it goes in the comments section below!

The better you feel about your body, the less affected you’ll be by negative comments. Get great body love tips and more when you subscribe:

P.S. I think I may do a companion piece on dealing with positive or supposedly positive comments about your body, because that can be really complicated too. If that’s something you’d like to read about, let me know in the comments!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. If you’re in or near NYC this August, don’t miss her LIVE workshop: Rounded Letters: A Body Image Workshop For Women Who Love To Write. Check it out here.


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50 thoughts on “Dealing With Negative Comments About Your Body”

  1. Excellent post (as usual)!

    I think that emphasizing how we each handle our respones differently is the part that I appreciated most.

    I’ve always been the person who has that Whoopie Goldberg response about 28 minutes AFTER an event. It was a great response; it was devastatingly clever and it killed me that I didn’t have it available at the moment. The added pressure of NOT having responded made the original wound just that much deeper and raw.

    What I’d like to add is that, part of the reason these moments are so complicated is because they are a form of violence and not everyone understand this. These events are as harmful and destructive as physical forms of violence and they are harder to manage both socially and psychologically. It’s ok to be rattled and invaded and upset – you were just accosted.

    If a person feels conflicted about their being injured by negative, unsolicited statements regarding their body, I hope that they keep in mind that they have experienced a form of assault and give themselves permission to feel and act accordingly.

  2. I just love the little e-card at the top of the page. That kind of sums up the way I feel some days about what other people think of me!

  8. Yup! negative comments from people I know are the ones who hurt me most (other comments I don’t waste my energy on).

    Thr number one commenter in my life is my mom, and that hurts. A lot. I believe she has been, at least part of our shared life together, a toxic parent.

    Today, I am able to tell her to stop. No, I’m not worried by my weight – she is. I do not obsess – she does. I feel great, she worries and nags and comments and offers ” help” to start a diet. But, no I’m not interested in dieting either.

    The only thing I do want, and that is entirely up to me, is lead a healthier lifestyle, move my beloved body more, so I feel even better. That’s all.

    Yesterday, I had a fight with my SO, who is much fatter than me, but who, as a lot of men out there do, believe himself to be much thinner than he is. For the first time, he made a nasty comment about my eating habits. That hurt, a lot. Right now, I’m even considering to end the relationship altogether, for this and other reasons.

    Fuck off, you commenters, deal with your own life before you mess with mine!

    -BM

  9. Hey There- I’d love to read something about what to do when people comment on what you are eating. It’s something that is really hard for me and can throw me off. It doesn’t matter if the person comments that im eating enough, too much, too little, healthy, not healthy, etc it all bothers me. I try to redirect conversation or intercept it in some way but it always has an effect on me and how willing I am to eat later in the day or the next day. working on it. Yesterday I got an icecream and someone said “wow those smalls are huge” I said “yeah its perfect” with a big smile, but I know ill have a really hard time not being mad at myself for eating an entire small next time/if I ever wanted to order a bigger size i know id feel shame. wish i didn’t though cuz ice cream is great.

  10. I dont know if you’ll read this or not, but I just want to say thank you! Every since i read your post on everyday feminism.com, I will be adding this website to my list of empowering websites. You have really helped me out! Your strength is beautiful, and you have become one of my rolemodels.

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