What is Body Checking? Here’s How This Sneaky Habit Controls Your Body Image + Life

Do you ever read something that rings so true for you that it sends a chill down your spine? I recently heard the term “body checking” in a YouTube video and it sent me down a rabbit hole of research. What is body checking? Healthline defines body checking as “the habit of excessively seeking information about your body’s weight, shape, size, or appearance.” Sound familiar?

Reading that definition made my heart sink. Because once upon a time, that was me. I remember a time when every morning, as soon as I woke up, I would squeeze the fat on my tummy. Yup, it’s still there. I had a full length mirror on the back of my door, and I would lift my shirt to look at my belly from every angle. I’d suck in, stick it out, try to work out if it had changed at all since yesterday. In those days, I couldn’t pass by a scale without weighing myself. I checked the appearance of my body on every reflective surface I passed. I was compulsively body checking, and I had it bad.

Disclaimer: I am not a health professional and any information presented here comes from research and my own personal experiences. If you need help with disordered eating or obsessive behaviors, please reach out to your doctor or therapist.

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What Is Body Checking?

Body checking is an obsession with checking the appearance, size, shape, or weight of your body. Besides tracking changes, it can also manifest in comparing your body to others or looking for ways to measure your beauty or attractiveness. Body checking could look like:

• Excessively weighing yourself
• Squeezing or pinching body fat
• Measuring body parts
• Looking for reassurance from others about your appearance
• Taking frequent progress pictures
• Comparing your body to other bodies
• Fixating on your appearance in the mirror

The phrase body checking doesn’t refer to casual glances in the mirror or occasional progress pics. When body checking becomes obsessive, gets in the way of your life, or harms your body image, it becomes a real problem.

Body checking is commonly found in people with eating disorders. But some studies suggest that the cycle of body checking may be one of the root causes behind disordered eating patterns and unhealthy relationships with food. Why are so many of us body checking, and how can we curb this obsession?

Recommended post: A Letter to My Body

Why Do We Body Check?

Body checking is a response to anxiety about our bodies. We believe that checking our bodies will make us feel better about our insecurities – in reality, it normally just makes us feel worse.

I think that the age of social media has also made us more obsessed with comparison. Our feeds are flooded with thousands of images of other bodies to compare ourselves too. I have also noticed a huge trend on Tik Tok where users try to measure their attractiveness (think of all those videos of people crying while checking the symmetrically of their face or using filters to stretch their face to their “ideal” beauty standard). I can’t help but wonder if being surrounded by constant body checking and comparison has made this problem even worse for our generation.
Salem Tovar has a really great in-depth video on how Tik Tok makes users insecure which you can find here.

Recommended post: These 3 Instagram Struggles Are Destroying Your Self Esteem + How to Overcome Them

How Does Body Checking Impact Our Body Image?

For some people, body checking might provide a temporary sense of relief from body anxiety. But any momentary reassurance is quickly replaced by increased anxiety, fear, and a desire to check our bodies again. If you’re on a journey of self-love, recovering from an eating disorder, or breaking free from your poor body image, body checking is a way that your insecure voice can live on in the back of your mind. And, like any obsessive behavior, excessive body checking can interfere with your ability to live a happy and healthy life.

How Can We Stop Or Reduce Our Body Checking?

Some of the changes I’ve made on my self-love journey have helped me decrease my body checking behaviors. Here are a few of the tips that have helped me, and other body checkers, overcome our addiction to body check.

1. Cut down on your social media usage, or create a more body-positive feed

Social media is a huge cause of the rampant comparison in our society. If your social media feed is a negative place, any time you spend scrolling will only deepen your insecurity and increase your desire to body check.

I have a rule when scrolling on my feed – if I see content that makes me feel bad about myself, I’m going to unfollow that account. Instead, I make a point of following accounts that uplift and inspire me to work on my own relationship with my body. Some accounts I recommend – thebirdspapaya, ownitbabe, and alexlight_ldn. I also share lots of body love content on my page if you’d like to come be my Insta friend!

2. Learn to embrace body neutrality

Body neutrality: a mindset in which the appearance of your body is the least important thing about you. You celebrate your body for what it does without focusing on positive or negative feelings about its appearance.

I know you have heard me talk about body neutrality before. But I can’t express how helpful neutrality was in my quest to find body love. My body checking has decreased dramatically since I adopted a body neutral mindset. Caring less about the size, weight, and shape of my body meant I felt less compulsion to reassure myself that my body looked worthy. I know now that it doesn’t need to “look worthy”. It just is.

Recommended Post: Here’s How Body Neutrality Can Give You the Self-Love Breakthrough You Need

3. Start to notice and identify your checking behaviors

For most of my life, I had no idea what body checking was. I thought that my preoccupation with weighing, measuring, and examining myself was normal. Now that I know how toxic and damaging it can be, it’s easier to notice when I fall back into my old checking habits.

Start to take note of what body checking looks like to you, and what feelings and situations cause you to want to body check. The simple act of acknowledging your behavior can help you start getting it under control.

4. Develop alternate coping mechanisms to use when you get the urge to body check

Quitting an obsession cold turkey is a lot to ask of yourself. Instead, create a list of healthy alternatives you can use to distract yourself with when the urge to obsessively weigh or measure your body becomes overwhelming. Here are some of my favourite suggestions:

1. Use distractions like calling a friend, listening to music, or creating a craft.
2. Try a guided meditation, like this one for self love from the incredible Yoga With Adriene.
3. Write or repeat some body love affirmations.

5. Consider reaching out to a therapist for some professional help

There’s a terrible stigma that counseling is only for people who are in crisis or are dealing with serious problems. No matter how much or little your body checking or poor self-esteem impacts your life, you could still benefit from talking to a professional who can help you overcome your struggles with body image. Therapy can benefit all of us in some way.

I personally use BetterHelp, which has been especially convenient during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have an amazing therapist and being able to connect with her from the comfort of my own home has helped me be even more open and vulnerable with her. If you’re interested in starting your own online counseling journey, click here.

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What does body checking look like for you? Do you think it plays a negative role in your life and body image? Let me know in a comment below!

Wishing you a 2021 with less body checking and more body positivity and love. We’ve got this!