HuffPost: How Your Body Image Affects Your Daughter's Self-Esteem
By Dr. Margaret Rutherford / Clinical Psychologist, Mental Health / Midlife Blogger
Sometimes a post just hits a nerve.
Anne Parris' recent offering on Midlife Boulevard was that for me. It was about another Dove commercial. Highlighting the unintentional messages about body image that mothers give daughters. It's pretty shocking. Please. If you haven't seen the commercial, you need to.
It's called "Legacy".
The subject?
Moms talking about what they liked and disliked about their bodies.
Stating with assurance that they had only taught their daughters
positive messages about their own. The daughters, interviewed
separately, were asked the same questions. The result? The daughters
mirrored their mothers' criticism of her body. Almost exactly.
The
mothers' surprise and sadness was palpable. What they had honestly
tried to prevent, they were creating in their daughters.
Self-consciousness and even self-loathing.
I read it slowly.
Appreciated Anne's frank words. Thought I would tuck away the message.
Maybe ask my son if I had affected him somehow.
Instead, the video stuck with me. I mentioned it to patients, struggling with their own image.
What I got from my mom was just wrong.
"Ladies never eat everything on their plate". I left more bites of food than I like to think about.
"You have never looked better!", she once exclaimed. I was 21. I weighed 101 pounds, 25 pounds less that I weigh now. Had had double pneumonia. Twice.
"You really need to do something about yourself". My mother had sat me down. Expressed what would pass for condemnation. I had gained 12 pounds after being married for 1 year.
I promise, sadly enough, that I gave my parents lots of reasons to confront me.
This was the only time in my life she did so.
What effect did all this have?
Full-blown anorexia in college. Not allowing friends to visit before I got married because I had gained 3 pounds since I had seen them. Seeking diet pills in my later 20s that left me so hyped up, I felt like I was practically flying.
Starving before trips home. Knowing my body would be quietly assessed. Always putting on a false front.
Acting like none of this got to me.
My mom was caught in the same trapped thinking she taught me. Without a doubt, she did not mean to hurt me. She wanted me to feel attractive. Have wonderful self-esteem. Catch a man.
It's just sad.
After she died, many people said, "Your mother was so beautiful. Always so well-dressed".
If she just could have valued herself.
Read more: www.huffingtonpost.com
