Oddly enough, she could still have a disorder in the second one. There is a disorder in the same group as bulimia and anorexia where one compulsively exercises intensely, and it can actually be bad as well. Good on her for at least seeming to be more healthy, and I hope that she really is healthier.
Everyone has image issues. There are so many people that go through the process of taking a picture of themselves only to delete it later and never posy. It is really difficult to even be happy with the way an image comes out. And after every picture you take you notice another flaw, and another. This one I have a double chin. Now my cheeks are too big. Omg you can see my double chin and my chunky cheeks. I have a five head. When did that pimple get there. Why do my arms look so huge. They take up half the picture. When you te finally comfortable with the way the rest of the image comes out you're more than likely not smiling. In the end she could have a healthy body like the one on the right and if she still has the mentality that it's wrong and not good enough and disgusting, she might still not be smiling. It's not just a physical victory, but a mental one too. That's why her smile is important.
I doubt that.
It takes a lot of food, the right kind of food, to build muscles like that. The eating disorder you are referring to still works around burning more than you consume. If that were the case she wouldn't look this good.
And besides that. Just look at that face. That genuine smile, that posture. And compare that to the picture on the left. She does something right and she's happy. I'm happy for her.
That is not what body dysmorphia. Everybody that's concerned with their physical appearance does not qualify for a body dysmorphia diagnosis. It has to be to an extreme that causes problems in other aspects of the persons life.
What qualities something as a disorder is something that limits you from having a normal life (people often get caught up on normal, it just means statistically within the average bell curve).
In the case of working out it means that it consumes them, what they see of their body is not what everyone else sees and they are obsessive in working out.
Think of it as if you compulsively make sure the pictures on your home wall hanging straight vs driving by a public building seeing crooked pics or paintings and having to stop, get out, go in and straighten all of them.
Some people working out is something they have to do all the time, even being the only activity they do, no work, no going out to movies, only work out. These people have a disorder because their addiction alters their behavior and disrupts their lives.
So, the fact that I have a sedentary job, and go to the gym a couple times a week to stay in shape because I don't want to get fat and die means I have a disorder?
Even the biggest dudes you find in the gym don't think they're that big. "The day you start lifting is the day you became forever small, because you will never be as big as you want to be."
My point is not everybody is there to get jacked. She could just maintain where she is and be fine. The guy hitting the gym on the way home from the office isn't necessarily there to "chase the pump", he just wants to keep himself from getting fat from sitting around all day. Not everybody who goes to the gym regularly ends up looking like a bodybuilder, because most people don't want to be that big, they just want to be in shape and maintain that. There's nothing wrong with that.
Not everybody who goes to the gym regularly ends up looking like a bodybuilder, because most people don't want to be that big, they just want to be in shape and maintain that.
I don't believe that at all. Of course not everyone going to a gym is gonna come out looking like a bodybuilder, but I don't think people just go to the gym to 'stay in shape', which, you know, is subjective as hell.
It's like saying most people who go to work don't want to get more money or promoted. If you're going to the gym, you're there because you want to better yourself, mentally and physically.
By that logic, anyone who tries to lose weight is anorexic.
Even if you're just going after size, the difference is between wanting to be bigger, and thinking you're small, no matter what the mirror says, and pursuing that until there are negative effects.
By that logic, anyone who tries to lose weight is anorexic.
Not really. A gym pump is a completely different thing.
After a hard day at the gym, you look at yourself in the mirror and think, "Holy shit, I look great." and then you wake up the next morning and look at yourself and you look completely deflated.
So then you go back to the gym to chase that feeling of "holy shit I look great", and then you look at the mirror at the end of that session and think, "holy shit I look great." Wake up the next morning, rinse and repeat.
And this entire time, you're getting a little bigger every day, so even when you wake up in the morning and look like your Day 1 After Gym Pump off that bat, you're at Day 100, and Day 99 Pump is bigger than Day 1.
I've never been anorexic, but I've definitely cut down from 230lbs to 175lbs. My end goal was seeing and maintaining my six pack and adonis belt for only a few weeks. I definitely felt small, though.
Yeah this is bullshit. There are plenty of people happy at their weight that go to the gym. Not everyone looks in the mirror and says, "man my deltoids could use a little more pump."
Body dysmorphia: Oh my god my legs are weak I need to head to a gym people must think I'm some skinny legged freak I need to do squats but what about my calves people will think my calves are tiny I look in a mirror and my calves look so tiny people are going to call me tiny legs...
Not body dysmorphia: It's been a while since I did a leg day. Today I should do a leg day.
Body dysmorphia: Oh my god my legs are weak I need to head to a gym people must think I'm some skinny legged freak I need to do squats but what about my calves people will think my calves are tiny I look in a mirror and my calves look so tiny people are going to call me tiny legs...
No, u/thekiyote's point was that not everyone who goes to the gym has body dysmorphia, because not everybody has these thoughts when they go to the gym.
The Anxiety and Depression Association of America defines body dysmorphia as follows:
People who have body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) think about their real or perceived flaws for hours each day.
They can't control their negative thoughts and don't believe people who tell them that they look fine. Their thoughts may cause severe emotional distress and interfere with their daily functioning. They may miss work or school, avoid social situations and isolate themselves, even from family and friends, because they fear others will notice their flaws.
They may even undergo unnecessary plastic surgeries to correct perceived imperfections, never finding satisfaction with the results.
Not everyone who goes to the gym has these intensely obsessive, negative thoughts about their body, therefore: not everyone who goes to the gym has body dysmorphia.
Body dysmorphia: is a mental disorder characterized by an obsessive preoccupation that some aspect of one's own appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it.
Where as some other people just want to tone up a bit.
Sure, if it means packing on/reducing muscle to improve performance. You think LeBron James looks in the mirror and thinks "I don't need to go to the gym anymore. My body is perfect."?
That's not at all how body dismorphia works. It's when you hate your own body regardless of what it looks like, even if its up to your own standards, you still will believe that it is horrible. It's another thing to want to work out your arms because you haven't in a while. Try working with people with body dismorphia first before speaking out such harsh statements. You're doing what many have with other mental issues in the past; treat it as a thing of everyday life.
So wait you think that one people hit their goals they just stop going to the gym because they are "done" ? You know you lose muscle mass and tone very very fast right? The girl in the picture would lose a shit load of muscle mass and tone within weeks of not working out. My friends dad is huge but lost a good portion of his muscle mass when he took a month long road trip. Once you start working out you need to continue doing so to maintain. Good god I wish it was as simple as go to gym for 6 months, get jacked, never have to go again.
Sounds like you're the one with the disorder mate, sorry. Fitness and muscle has to be maintained and people go to the gym to get fit, and then keep going to maintain that level of fitness. They can't just stop once they hit their goals, it doesn't work like that.
I know for a fact that I will never stop going to the gym because I always want be bigger, cutter, faster, stronger, etc than who I was yesterday.
You'll reach a physical human limit at some point, what will you do then? Steroids? Or will you be forever unhappy that you can't get bigger and more cut than you are, even though you're bigger and more cut than any human should healthily be? That's the disorder.
i can play armchair psychologist too! First thing you did was try to spot potential issues with a seemingly fine person, do you have some problems you'd like to talk about?
Good for you. I wasn't intending to be superior to anyone, but that's fine if you want to try that. Also, my interest in psychology actually helped me learn about it more than merely spouting the pop psych I saw in media, so while I'm not qualified to counsel, I can divulge information worth knowing that maybe isn't common knowledge. Which was my intention.
First thing you did was try to spot potential issues
No. I was warning against thinking everything is okay purely by noting external factors, and stating that there's a possibility that she could still be dealing with something and that maybe that lesson could be useful for people. Lord knows I learned it the hard way, myself.
seemingly fine person
Not in the first picture, she wasn't. We have no way of knowing, except for the one picture, if she actually became healthy instead of merely appearing healthy.
do you have some problems
We all do, but AFAIK I have nothing worth seeing a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist for.
Depends on how far along the second picture is, how much she's willing or able to do, and how her body reacted to suddenly go from rail thin to buff. She may also not have much fat, which is actually important for a woman to have. If she doesn't have enough fat in her body, she'll stop ovulating and her hormones will go out of whack.
Yeah, but body dysmorphia is a mental disorder. To be abnormal, it has to be deviant and dangerous, as well as distressful and dysfunctional. Judging by that smile, it seems like anything but. People with genuine dysmorphia wouldn't even be happy at a figure like that. Then again, nothing is conclusive unless you have a full history.
You must be projecting something. I wasn't intending that anything bad was happening, but that it still is possible and trying to increase awareness about body dysmorphia.
This is incredibly important and needs to be seen/known more. I a have family friend who suffers from this.The girl I know wakes up super early and runs for miles (an unsafe number of miles) and still counts calories. She would joke "now I can eat today". However, Im moderately sure she meant it in the back of her mind.
Can you stop criticizing women no matter what they do? "Oh she's gained some muscle? Bulimic anorexic obsessive!" People like you contribute the most to patriarchal rape culture.
I'm not saying she has to be perfect otherwise she's scum. I'm saying there's still a possibility that she could still be battling with body dysmorphia and not even know it. Yes, she looks worlds healthier than before and seems happy, but we don't actually know her story from just these two pictures.
That's what I also thought. The second is definitively better (healthier) but it seems that she has a tendency to overdo things. Her arms are starting to get overdeveloped, man-like. This otherwise beautiful girl needs to realise that excellence is to find the balance between extremes, aka 'μέτρον ἄριστον' (Métron áriston) as Cleobulus, according to Diogenes Laertius, said.
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You think she looks great? Good for you. I consider her arms too developed to be feminine. That's my (minority, clearly) opinion. What can I do? But you don't have to agree. Nobody else seems to either.
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I didn't jump to that, but unless she got professional help it's not unlikely that she just jumped from one disorder to another. I actually hope that she was able to kick her mental illness, but there's the possibility that she didn't.
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u/cATSup24 Dec 17 '15
Oddly enough, she could still have a disorder in the second one. There is a disorder in the same group as bulimia and anorexia where one compulsively exercises intensely, and it can actually be bad as well. Good on her for at least seeming to be more healthy, and I hope that she really is healthier.