How To Ditch The Toxic Body Image Mindset You Were Taught Growing Up

I still remember being 14 years old and thinking I was fat. Despite being 95 pounds and fitting into size zero jeans (I’ve always been petite, so this was healthy for my adolescent frame), I was self-conscious of my stomach because it wasn’t as flat as the models' in magazines I admired. I’ll never forget pinching the skin on my stomach in a department store dressing room while trying on a bikini, convinced I wasn’t good enough.

Despite this toxic mindset, I never developed an eating disorder, but I knew plenty of girls who did, and it was prevalent at the time. Many Millennial women blame the diet culture of the 2000s (particularly the diet culture in tabloids) for how many of us had body image issues, as Michelle Konstantinovsky of Glamour writes, “For Millennials, our formative years were a perfect storm of body-shaming forces: the so-called heroin-chic fashion era that gave way to low-rise jeans and baby tees and the advent of sites like Tumblr that allowed ‘thinspo’ content to spread like wildfire.”

In 2021, writer and editor Lucy Huber went viral for tweeting, “If any Gen Z are wondering why every Millennial woman has an eating disorder it’s because in the 2000s a normal thing to say to a teenage girl was ‘when you think you feel hungry, you're actually thirsty so just drink water and you’ll be fine.’”

Now that that phase of culture – and our teenage years – are behind us, it’s easier to see how and why so many women struggle with their body image. Luckily, there are ways to unlearn these behaviors and free yourself from this toxic mindset.

1. Stop Criticizing Yourself in Front of the Mirror

It’s very easy for negative thoughts to become destructive, turn into a habit, or ruin your day, so it’s important to combat these thoughts right from the start. A lot of us criticize ourselves while looking in the mirror (think of the scene in Mean Girls where Regina, Gretchen, and Karen do this) regarding our looks, and it’s a habit we all need to break ASAP.

Though it’s normal to have things we don’t love about ourselves, giving ourselves a hard time every time we look in the mirror is counterproductive. Find two things you like about yourself for every thing you dislike, and don’t forget that we all have different body, skin, and hair types. The world would be boring if everyone looked the same, so it’s important to embrace our beautiful differences.

2. Avoid Fad Diets

Fad diets will always be a thing, but the 2000s were infamous for fad diets like the Atkins diet and the South Beach diet. Though both diets can be healthy if done correctly (which is very difficult to do), most fad diets are harmful because they're so restrictive.

Restricting yourself from certain foods might sound like a quick and easy way to lose weight, but all it really does is make you binge on unhealthy foods when you’re done. Instead of trying fad diets, make sure to eat a healthy, balanced, and sustainable diet that not only has the nutrients you need but that you also enjoy eating.

3. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

If you’ve ever spent time with a group of women, there’s a 100% chance that at least one will put themselves down in front of everyone else. Sometimes we do it without even realizing it, which is why it’s important to call out our friends when we see them do this. 

I remember putting myself down in front of a group of friends during a night out in college. I was comparing myself to a girl who was dating a guy who’d hurt me just a few weeks earlier. I was crying (alcohol may or may not have been involved) because I was stuck on how she was so much prettier than me. One of my friends kindly reminded me that although she was pretty, that didn’t make me any less beautiful. Comparison is a thief of joy, and it’s important to remind our friends of this when they compare themselves to others or talk themselves down. Sometimes we just need a reminder from others that we’re worth it.

4. Focus on Health over Weight Loss

Though it’s perfectly normal to want to lose excess weight or get into shape, it’s important to remember that health should be the goal of a weight loss journey. Instead of hyper-focusing on the number of pounds you want to lose, focus on becoming healthier.

Like Taylor Swift's widely criticized moment in her latest music video "Anti-Hero" that has now been removed, sometimes as women we step onto the scale and no matter how much weight we've lost or gained, we simply can't see past the word in our head: "fat". As women with hormones that shift throughout our 28-day cycles, our weight is bound to fluctuate no matter how much hard work we're putting in at the gym or restricting during meal time. If you find yourself obsessed with the scale and checking your progress through your weight every week (or even several times a day), it may be time to say goodbye to your scale... at least for now. Put the focus back on your overall health and the reasons why you want to lose weight in the first place.

Diet culture often takes the health aspect out of losing weight, so focusing on getting healthier will prevent you from developing unhealthy habits like restricting yourself from nutrients or binging when you break your fast. If you focus on getting healthy for the right reasons, then weight loss will inevitably follow.

Closing Thoughts

Thanks to the toxic diet culture of the 2000s, many Millennial women still struggle with body image issues. Those issues aren’t fun to deal with, but it’s possible to ditch this mindset as an adult.

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