This is part 3 of 6-part series on body insecurity where I share my history with body insecurity , signs of body insecurity, effects and reasons of body insecurity and tips to get over it and also motivational quotes to inspire you to love your body
- Part 4 : 10 Ways to Overcome Body Insecurity
Body Insecurity is definitely not a new term. If you’re going to talk about some of the biggest problems of today’s society, then you definitely need to mention this one. Body insecurity is actually not a social problem. It’s like a personal problem which many are suffering from and is often influenced by the people around us and our society. Despite it’s very common, many people don’t talk about it usually. Though body insecurity is almost a regular headache for many, but still very few people feel the need of talking about this much. The effects of body insecurity can be numerous .
In this article, we’ve talked about 10 of the most common and dangerous effects of body insecurity that most of the people suffering from body image issues would experience.
So, if you’re interested, then continue reading to the end.
How Body Insecurity Affects You
1. Increased risk of health problems
When people suffer with body insecurity, they often start following an extreme diet routine and even over exercises just to be in shape. Now following a diet routine and working out regularly is never a bad thing. Even they’re crucial to have a sound body and mind.
However you should remember that extreme of something is never good. The same goes to these things. Some people follow the harshest and most dangerous diets like Tapeworm diets, Werewolf diets, and Raw paleo diets even without taking any kind of suggestion from any professional.
Some people also cut out some food groups from their daily eating routine which are crucial for their body. Even some people sometimes get too desperate for their body, that they start seeking suggestions from people around them and even sometimes takes some unknown medicines without even knowing about their side effects which sometimes creates several critical health problems that they have to face in the long run.
2. Decreased self esteem / confidence
Confidence is almost a crucial thing to survive in this competitive world. The biggest thing about self esteem is it never requires you to be completely perfect to become self confident. It just requires the strength to stand for yourself in every situation. It must be easy to feel confident right? Well, not for the people with body insecurity.
Because, their insecurity makes them feel like they’re worthless. Even only for that, whenever someone tries to bully them, instead of protesting, they accept it easily and always thinks that they’re the one responsible for this and sometimes some of them think that they deserve this because of their ugly looks.
3. Jealousy towards others
We all know how dangerous jealousy can be. People hate those who are envious of others and I guess none of us never wants to have. However some people who have body insecurity sadly suffers from this automatically.
Every person in the world is given a different kind of body body and look and there’s nothing we can do with this. However people with body insecurity doesn’t seem to accept this automatically. As a result, most often they get jealous of other people’s looks and even sometimes ending up harming them because of it.
4. Engaging in activities that are not good for you
Sometimes there used to be things that we know aren’t good for us. However we do them somehow because of the situation. In those situations, even though one part of us knows that it might end up harming us but the another part is already influenced. Those who suffer from body insecurity faces kind of the same situation.
Because of the extreme urge to look gorgeous, some of them have plastic surgeries, and others use expensive heavy makeups just to look good enough. They don’t understand the power of inner beauty. Even having plastic surgeries doesn’t always lead to a good ending.
Sometimes it also ruins your appearance. Having constant heavy makeups may also damage your skin and can ruin your natural beauty. According to Skin Kraft , “A regular heavy coating of makeup clogs pores and stops your skin from breathing. It can cause skin damages like wrinkles, fine lines, acne, blackheads, irritation etc.” So, engaging in activities that aren’t good for you is definitely an another notable effects of body insecurity.
5. Finding it difficult to appreciate yourself
Self appreciation doesn’t mean bragging about your achievements or the way you look. It’s the power of staying grateful to yourself. You might appreciate yourself because your body and mental health functions properly or maybe because of tiny achievements you have.
Self appreciation is necessary to create a smooth relationship with yourself. Even it also makes you happy and inspires you to work more to reach your goals so that you can be proud of yourself. Even when you try to appreciate yourself, it also gives you a strong whole perspective about yourself.
However, people who suffer from body insecurity cannot appreciate themselves easily. Because they just always keep focusing on one side of their life which is their appearance and blames themselves 24/7 if it doesn’t feel good to them. In this way, they naturally ignore all the other perspectives of their life. So, finding it difficult to appreciate yourself is definitely one of the biggest effects of body insecurity.
6. Increased mental health problems such as depression and anxiety
Body insecurity may affect your mental health in several ways. Firstly, when you’ve body insecurity, you may find yourself taking less care of your health. And taking less care of the actual health and engaging in activities that aren’t good for you can harm your mental health badly. Because mental health is always somehow connected to our physical health.
Secondly, one of biggest reasons of having depression or anxiety is when you suffer from constant dissatisfactions about something that takes the happiness out of your life. And body insecurity is exactly kind of the same thing.
According to NCBI , “individuals who are dissatisfied with their body image are prone to depression as there was a significant association found between body image dissatisfaction and depression. Further, studies have found that body image is associated with eating disorders and depression” So, undoubtedly depression is one of the biggest effects of body insecurity anyone can have.
7. Teasing other people based on their appearance
When someone teases an another person for something, it doesn’t always happen with the intention of hurting that person. Instead, it mostly happens when a person is highly influenced by her personal thoughts or opinions and judges someone based on that.
A person who is insecure about her body and always cares about it a lot, makes appearance often a priority for them. Most of them invest so much efforts behind it like it’s the only thing in the universe that matters. As a result, they often end up teasing an another person when they don’t seem attractive to those insecure people.
8. Continuing a legacy of body insecurity to future generations
It’s not a new thing for humans that we’re often influenced by other people around us. Even family is the only community that influences the most part of our life. Though it’s told that our boyhood shapes our future, but the main thing that shapes our future is the perspective we build then about our life.
Now you may think – how is it connected with the effects of body insecurity? Well, it is.
A person who is body insecure is most likely to have a family too. Even they may also have some younger members in their family like teenagers and children. Now if they will find any of their closer people being obsessed about their body, then you can already guess that being serious about appearance isn’t also going to be something abnormal for them. They will also most likely become obsessed with the perfect look when they will grow up. Because that’s exactly what they have been taught and that’s beauty is everything.
9. Avoiding social situations often
When people avoid social situations often, it doesn’t always happen just because they’re shy. It’s called social anxiety which greatly relates to having body insecurity. People who suffer from body insecurity feel mostly shameful about their appearance. As a result, instead of being present at social situations and having fun with other people, they choose to hide themselves.
They always used to think that people are going to laugh at them. Which increases the social anxiety within them more. According to NCBI , “Body image anxiety is widely present among the rural adolescents, and it is an important factor in the development of social phobia. Female and overweight adolescents tend to develop body image anxiety and subsequently social phobia”
10. Losing the power to feel your body
Body-mind connections is a deep thing to understand. When there’s a problem happening in your health or mind, you get to know or can guess it automatically because of that connection. However, people who have extreme body insecurity have already lost that feeling.
Because, a person suffering from body insecurity is mostly unhappy with how they look. They often feel the need of changing their body shape. Even people who suffer from extreme body insecurity like who are never happy with their look goes through several facial procedures and surgeries in their lifetime which makes them lose the power to feel their body almost completely.
My final thoughts : You may already guess the reason behind writing this article. However, sharing awareness isn't the only reason behind we've made this post. The main reason behind of sharing these effects is to remind you of the importance to love your body again. Loving your body is crucial. While you're suffering from body insecurity, you can be the one taking the first step. Accept that you've only one body which is completely yours. You're not responsible by any means for the way you look or you're shaped in. If there is someone bullying you, then be the defender of yourself.
That’s all for today’s article. Don’t forget to leave a comment about your thoughts regarding this post.
Question for you: Is there any other dangerous effects of body insecurity are being that you know about or have experienced previously but we’ve forgotten to list them here ? If yes, then what are they?
Let me know the answer in the comment below!
Finally, if you liked this article, then don’t forget to share it with others who can find it useful or interesting too. Your one share will make my day!
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Continue on to Part 4 : 10 Simple Ways To Overcome Body Insecurity, where I shared some awesome and simple tips that worked for me to overcome body insecurities and also worked for most of the people who ever tried them.
This is part 3 of 6-part series on body insecurity where I share my history with body insecurity , signs of body insecurity, effects and reasons of body insecurity and tips to get over it and also motivational quotes to inspire you to love your body
- Part 4 : 10 Ways to Overcome Body Insecurity
Part 6 : 50 Body Positivity Quotes To Inspire You To Love Your Body
I love your article! Definitely have body insecurity because my incurable illness affects my physical appearance. I already saved some inspirational quotes from your list.
Body insecurity such a interesting topic to learn .Thanks for sharing with us.
A fantastic post outlining the majority of issues that come along with insecurity. Not to mention how long it takes to start to heal from it. I’ve been trying to recover and boost my confidence for years, and yet I still struggle.
These are important to know. Some people may not take it seriously, but body insecurity requires immediate attention to address it.
Yyyeeaaahhhhh….your own health is severely impacted. You can barely live your life as you’re worried about what others think of you!
I can relate to some of these. I’m sure many of us have insecurities and struggle with these things. It is good to keep these things in check.
One thing I can say for myself, is that while my body insecurity affects me daily, I will not tease someone about their body because I don’t want them to feel what I do.
Not looking forward to going through this with my daughter as she grows but got some good information from your article thanks!
body insecurity is very real and indeed can lead to very low self-esteem. I remember in high school, I was so small that I decided not to go to prom because I felt nothing looked pretty on my stick figure.
I am so glad that I did not grow up in the timeframe… I grew up in the 80’s and we did not have all of the social media to give us these issues. I so feel for anyone that has this issue and my own daughter is hard on herself some times. She is beautiful!
We all have body insecurities, however, when we let ourselves be eaten by those insecurities then we will experience other health issues, especially our mental health. I know that it isn’t easy to learn to be confident with our flaws, but at least try and try harder. Never give up.
It’s good to know and aware about the body insecurity. Thanks for sharing these info!
It sure took me a long road full of baby steps in overcoming my body insecurities, I wish I read this years ago. This will be helpful for a lot of your readers.