Your body image isn’t the problem. It’s the clue.

This morning, I listened to a podcast from the Butterfly Foundation called It’s not about the body: the hidden story behind your body image.

If you’ve struggled with an eating disorder or body image issues, I’d recommend giving it a listen.

Not because it’ll fix anything overnight, but because it reframes the whole question in a way that actually makes sense. Or at least it did for me.

The big idea is this: negative body image isn’t the root problem. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s your brain doing its best to protect you from something harder. They actually suggest asking, “What is my body image protecting me from?”

My brain exploded.

I’ve lived with an eating disorder and body image issues

I recently posted about the progress I’ve made with my weight loss, thanks to taking a GLP-1, Mounjaro.

What I haven’t gone into a lot of detail on this blog (I wrote about it on my former blog), is how I developed an eating disorder.

When my son was born, I put myself under an enormous amount of pressure. The kind that comes from a very specific fear of “don’t fuck this up”.

I wanted to give him the best possible life. I didn’t want him to go through the things I’d gone through. Feeling isolated. Ostracised. Some harder stuff with my siblings that I don’t need to get into here.

So I carried all of that internally, and instead of dealing with it, began eating, and became highly anxious.

And somewhere in there, the sugar became a thing. The dopamine hit, the rush, the brief emotional high when I was stressed.

It wasn’t about the food.

It was never about the food.

It was about having something that gave me a way to breathe when everything else felt like it was forcing my head underwater.

That’s the part nobody really talks about. The eating disorder wasn’t the problem. It was the answer I’d found to a different problem. A pretty terrible answer, as it turns out, but my brain thought it was helping.

The podcast puts it clearly – your body becomes a container for all the stuff you haven’t had the chance, or the safety, to process. So all of that energy goes into this, instead of going into the actual thing underneath.

So when I was deep in it, telling myself to “just eat normally” or “just be kinder to yourself” didn’t work. Because those thoughts weren’t the thing, they were the shield. Logic doesn’t break down those shields.

The “Knowing vs Doing” Problem

This is the part I found resonated the most.

Most of us know the things we’re supposed to feel, or say.

Looks don’t define me. My worth isn’t my weight. I should love my body. Blah, blah, blah.

We know all of it.

And yet… it doesn’t help.

The podcast explains why – because body image stuff isn’t actually a thought problem. It’s an emotional and experiential one. You can’t override it with better information because it’s not coming from the part of your brain that processes information. It’s coming from somewhere deeper.

That’s not a personal failure.

What’s actually helped me

I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’ve got it all sorted. I haven’t.

But I’m sure as heck making some progress.

I could have started Mounjaro and continued to eat my way to oblivion. It would have been harder, but as I said above, logic has no place here. If you want to eat, you’ll find a way.

But no, I’ve put in the actual, deliberate work into my mental health.

I’ve been working on my anxiety and building better habits.

What ended up helping was carving out time in the mornings for myself. I needed space for things that felt creative, that were pretty to look at, that gave me a small sense of achievement. Doodling. Planning.

Every morning, I spend 15-20 minutes putting a sticker into my planner, drawing some pictures, and making things feel pretty. It means I know what’s happening that day, and I feel more in control, right from the word go.

The anxiety hasn’t disappeared. I still have to work on my mental spiral, the negative self-talk,

But I’ve got more room to breathe now.

So anyway, I’ll link the episode below. I’m not an expert in any of this, just someone who heard a podcast that just really resonated.

Butterfly Foundation Podcast — It’s not about the body

If any of this sounds familiar, let me know. Sometimes it just helps to know someone else gets it.