A lot of my body image issues are caused by my mom, because not only would she always feel the need to make comments about even the smallest pimples, but she would CONSTANTLY shittalk her own body.
Example: I was visiting her two days ago and we were both chilling on the couch. Im sort of laying on my side, so my mom goes “Wow (my name), i really wish I had your great butt.”. I just kinda go “…right”, because i have never been comfortable with her unsolicited comments about my body. But she keeps going “I just have such a sad, boring butt, no one wants to see that.”. I barely respond to what shes saying because i already know whats coming. She gets off the couch, pull down her pants and grabs her buttcheeks to demonstrate “how sad her butt looks, (my name) look at how bad it looks!”. I tell her to stop, but she always keeps doing it until I look at the “ugly” body part shes trying to show me.
This has been a constant through my childhood, my mom criticizes herself, then feels the need to demonstrate how “fat, ugly and boring” she looks. It has been one of the main contributions to my lack of self confidence, as i am now terrified of looking fat. I dont think she even realizes how deeply this has affected me, as she always seems shocked and confused when I tell her I hate the way my body looks.
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My mom constantly criticizes her body and the bodies of all sorts of the women around her. Luckily, she doesn’t get undressed to prove her point. I try to redirect the conversation. Calling her out is not worth my time and aggravation. It’s been this way my whole life, my sister and I often talk about how it has shaped our own issues with our bodies. I have spent the past few years working on my own to detach my worth from my body and to challenge myself when I start comparing my body to other bodies.
I recently started therapy, and I hope to continue finding peace in my body. While it doesn’t look like the ones in magazines, or the ones my mom finds beautiful, it gets me through my life without issue every single day. It is loved by my husband, it carries me through my work day, it walks the dog, and it snuggles close offering warmth and affection to my husband and pets. I am grateful for all the it is and does.
When I was young, my mom would constantly imply that she was fat. I don’t think I ever would have thought she was fat if she hadn’t said it. I always thought she was beautiful, but she was always telling me I was prettier than she ever was. The irony is now I weigh more than she did.
I don’t want my son to think of me that way. So I try to be positive about everyone’s appearance.
But as I get older, I’m more and more aware of how awful and prevalent body shaming was when I was a teen.
Nope.
I’m always fatter than the last time I saw her, but she (about my weight and considerably shorter) is always at her perfect size.
Usually idgaf, some days I choose to fight 🤷♀️
100%. I’ve been trying to not criticize my body around my younger female relatives, and it’s shocking how often I have to stop myself.
My mum had an ED when I was small. She made me exercise with her, there were notebooks full of calorie counting everywhere and she constantly commented on her body and mine.
I ended up with an ED
Yeah. Ive met her mom so I know why.
But it saddens me. I was on a call with her last night and I said something about 5he chocolate milk I was drinking and she goes “I wish I could have chocolate milk”. Not in a passive aggressive way, in a sad way. Im like well you are grown pretty sure you can have some.
Shes in her 60s. Have the dang chocolate milk.
Yes. My mom and aunts always criticized their own bodies and would comment on my body growing up. On the surface, some of these comments (oh I hate my butt or stomach, it’s so fat, I wish it looked like yours), come across as positive or complimentary, maybe intended as a kindness even. However, it just reinforced that our worth is visible and that bodies are meant to be publicly evaluated and commented on. And that fat, imperfection, and changes in women’s bodies over time, no matter how minor, was a source of shame and regret. Now in my late 30s, I too have some serious body image issues stemming from a lifetime of hyper focusing on my body and it takes a considerable effort to not comment on the bodies publicly
No, she just comes after mine lol.
Yes my mom did the same. I think its the source of a lot of my issues, as it taught me to be self critical and hyper aware of appearance very young. I remember being quite jealous of the looks of my classmate in kindergarten, and I was only 5 years old. Pretty messed up.
I’ve never gotten better. Grew up with low confidence and not very fond of myself. I’ve been careful not to comment on my appearance in front of my kids.
I remember being a child and starting to cry because my mom said she was going to lose weight and I didn’t want that because her belly was so soft to lay my head on. My whole life she cycled through diets. I’d sometimes go with her to her boring Weight Watchers meetings (but sometimes they’d give the kids a little prize), she did Nutrisystem, etc. I’ve always struggled with not being underweight, even in infancy (I guess the doctors wanted to label me as “failure to thrive” for a minute there because I wasn’t hitting weight markers and for a time they thought my parents were purposefully starving me), but my sister was slightly on the heavier side for a little while, so we had weight loss and weight gain shakes in the fridge.
Now my mom is still heavy and admits her weight causes her physical pain. She can’t walk for long periods of time due to it. I’m pretty sure she has sleep apnea because I’ve heard her gasp for air when she snores at night (and sometimes she’ll snore while awake), but she refuses to get tested.
So it’s this brutal mix of fad diets and negative body talk with genuine negative health affects due to weight.
Mine would always make comments about my breasts and grab them.
On top of criticizing everything I ever wore, or did, or liked as not being feminine enough.
Yep. I remember as a kid she’d pull me into the room to excitedly show me her newest diet supplement or diet plan.
I think I was between 8 and 10 at the time. She made me watch a 20-minute infomercial on this gummy supplement that was supposed to make you lose weight.
It didn’t help that I was also overweight as a child, too, and any criticism she had towards her own body I took to heart. I was absolutely terrified to wear anything more revealing than a long sleeved tshirt and jeans in middle school.
So much of my childhood was ‘I’ll do that when I’ve dropped a dress size’, ‘I’d love to do that but I’m too fat’, ‘I can’t go to that because people will judge me’.
Guess what? That’s my internal monologue now, all the time.
Makes it particularly scary to see where she’s at now because it feels like seeing my own future. She doesn’t want to date, move house, get a new job, join a club – because she thinks people will judge her. ‘I can’t do that looking like this’.
So sad. She’s a very normal late-50s size 16. Bright blue eyes that sparkle with intelligence. Only recently got her first grey hairs. She’s funny and quick and kind.
But her life is over because she’s not a size 8.
I gained quite a lot of depression/COVID kilos, and at some point everytime I saw my parents my mum would comment on it. And she kept going even after I told her I was working on it and had already lost a little. I told her to stop, and to her credit she did.
I was then diagnosed with ADHD and my medication suppresses my appetite frequently. It did help me lose those lost extra kilos, but I was getting close to losing too much weight. I now have to work hard to eat well and maintain my weight. I am having a much worse relationship with food atm. But now my mum has done a 180 and keeps commenting that I look so good and that she’s jealous of my current body, whilst complaining about her bad her looks.
I keep telling her she has the body of a Greek Goddess and that I will count myself lucky if I look that good at her age (and I mean that). And that she shouldn’t compare her 60 year old body to my 30 year old one cause that’s not a fair comparison at all.
Not sure how I, the child, ended up being the one to teach her about having a good relationship with your body-image. But here we are 🤷🏼♀️
Yes! Not out loud in an obvious way, but she never dressed for fashion or changed her hair, and it was because she didn’t enjoy her appearance and she thought it wasn’t worth it, to have any vanity. Fat people clothes were awful then , but I was completely shocked when as a teen my friend’s mom (and my friend too) was wearing a flowy dress to the store just because it was a warm day and she enjoyed being a girl. My mom put on clothes like it was a punishment.
I do get critical of my own body, but that’s primarily because growing up my MOTHER was hyper-critical of it. “You’re eating too much” then “You’re not eating enough”. When I would lose weight and able to fit into a pair of jeans I really like, she would still get critical.
I remember when this one happened – I was home from college and had lost weight (I did kinda blow up my freshman year and weight has always been struggle). I had my bff with me so she heard the whole exchange. I tried on the pair of jeans and was excited that they fit. I was telling my mom and looks at me and says “But you still have this” (gesturing to my hips and structure like it’s something I could control). I was so deflated. These occurrences have happened most of my life. In my late twenties, my mom criticized my thighs and how big they were. Then she felt them. “Yeah, mom. I have lots of muscle there” was my answer.
Now watching her through dementia and how she has almost no muscle whatsoever has me determined to keep lifting weights 3x a week, walking and any other exercise I can squeeze in so I can stay healthy. And yes, I’m in my 50s now. And I didn’t allow her to do that with my girls and I never did with them. I encouraged a more healthy, balanced lifestyle over just losing weight. And giving them pros and cons of what could happen when it gets packed on. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. This has been cathartic. ❤
Yes. It’s a no-win situation. In her world, there is always some aspect of our physical bodies to be ashamed of. It used to be centered around weight/appearance, but now it’s mostly signs of age.
Honestly, it overwhelmed me to the point of apathy. I exercise and eat right, but I have almost zero self-consciousness about my appearance.
After my daughter was a few years old, I had a talk with my Mom about the constant stream of negativity and criticism. To her credit, she quit, cold turkey.
My mom is in her 70’s and is still outside gardening regularly, goes on hikes, and stays active. I’m so proud of her and encouraged that I can be healthy and active into my 70’s too. But at least once each time I see her she will compare her body to mine (late 30’s) or point out the skin on her arms not being tone or her pouch on an otherwise petite frame. She’s been on some crazy diets in her life and it’s clear that she struggles with her body and self perception.
It’s only been the last year or so that I was finally able to recognize that this is the woman who raised me and thus instilled the basis for my own relationships with food / body / self.
Yes, and it makes me very sad. My mom is 67 and beautiful, and my dad genuinely thinks she is the most beautiful woman in the world (it’s quite endearing). She has never made a negative comment about my body or my appearance, but she constantly talks down to herself in front of me. The last few years it has escalated to asking what I weigh (I am not thin, 5’2″ and 135 lbs) and wondering aloud why she couldn’t look like that if she just lost ten pounds (to weigh the same as me). For what it’s worth, I look a LOT like my mom and people automatically can tell I’m her daughter.
I have a fucked up relationship with my own body because of how clearly she has always hated hers. Some of my earliest memories are of her taking long walks with her friends and them all being on Weight Watchers and eating next to nothing. I myself did WW in college and lost weight before calculating the calories I was eating and realizing I was starving myself. That was a wake up call for me.
I now have a medical condition that has caused significant weight gain and loss a few times (20% change in my weight) and have realized that it’s just not worth it to try to actively control it. We are more than our bodies. Sorry this got long, but please just know that you are not alone.
My mother could never criticize herself- that’s why she had me. I look more like my dad which is basically the opposite of her looks- I just have my mom’s coloring.
She’s pointed out throughout the years: “you have a butt for men, I have a good 80’s Levi butt”, “I have a strong Norwegian nose, you have barbarian nose”, “you have duck lips, I have Diana’s lips”, “I have the perfect 3 triangle legs, you have fatty thighs”
I have totally gotten a complex from my mom. My mom’s features are perfect and high class, my features are for whores and low class.
I would say that your mom flashing her butt at you and forcing you to look was WAY over the top and inappropriate.
However, yes. My mom talks often about how she’s on a new diet, doesn’t want to eat lunch, and so on. I had to give her a stern talking to about how she was going on and on about her body, her diet, calories, etc. in front of my little sister (age 10 or so at the time.)
My sister had made a comment about calories/her weight and later on I sat our mom down and told her she needs to stop criticizing her body, etc. in front of my sister because children copy their parents and my sister could easily develop body image issues or even an eating disorder, and no 10yo child should be worried about dieting.
If she’s worried about my sister being in a high percentile for weight then she needs to lead by example- don’t even talk about weight, just make sure my sister has healthy food and snacks available, and try to get her into taking walks and playing sports or other outdoor or active hobbies/interests.
I also made sure to sprinkle a few positive comments about our body type into conversations after that while talking with my mom in front of my sister- about how strong we are, our good proportions, about how our ancestors were able to survive hard times because of how efficient we are at processing food and storing energy. Over time, my sister stopped making comments about her weight, and while she’s gluten intolerant and so has to be extra considerate of what food she eats, she doesn’t seem to have body image issues except general teenage insecurity.
(For context, my mom’s side is somewhat stocky, and we tend to lean towards overweight, but not obese. Fairly “strong like bull,” even the women- most of the men are tall, but most of the women are slightly shorter than average, and we basically all have a wider bone structure and are slightly more muscular by default, with evenly distributed subcutaneous fat. No typical ballerina figures in my family lol)
Not as much as she used to (like the 90s and early 2000s). She still talks about other people’s bodies though, but again not as much as she used to. She’s pretty good about not talking about my body anymore as I’ve spoken to her about how harmful it can be to me. Took her some time but she has learned to tone it all down over the years.
I credit her to my disordered eating for most of my life. I was a kid in the 90s and I remember her both hating her body and other women’s bodies. I remember my mom telling me so many times that so and so celebrity was a gold digger. She thank god is not like this now.
But she was unhappy and linked her unhappiness to her weight so I was told that if I wanted to be happy as an adult, I needed to be thin. Well, I was undiagnosed at the time with Autism so yes I took that literally. I remember complaining about my weight in elementary school. As an adult I suffered a lot with disordered eating. I am 5’10” and when I dropped to 125 lbs. for the first time I got so many compliments. did not help.
Now she tells me I am too thin. I am.
This is where it gets dumb – In the last few years my health has gotten worse I have been diagnosed with a few things include Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. So basically I get allergic reactions constantly because the mast cells that release histamine is overactive. I cannot eat anything but vegetables and meat. I am severely underweight. 120 lbs. I have a new GI I am seeing in September and I hope she can help me.
So I ended up thin, just like my mom wanted.
I’ve never heard my mom comment on her body on any way, except having a bump on her lower belly (which she and her sisters have named “familyname belly” that they and all their daughters have (a very normal little bump above mons veneris that like every woman has). And later on life how I gave her varicose veins, but that’s ribbing, mostly.
So no, not really. Their dresses, behaviour or whatever else, YES.
E: typos
Yeah I spent my entire childhood on some kind of diet fad or other because that’s what she was into at the time. I remember rice cakes being a common snack in my house, and she likes to tell the story of convincing toddler me that cottage cheese was ice cream. 😭 Let me tell you, attending weight watchers as a child definitely contributed to my body dysmorphia and eating disorders. 👍
It didn’t help that I was “blessed” with big boobs developing at an early age. Sure, now I understand that she hated my flirty denim skirt with suspenders because it emphasized my very adult figure at 12-13 years old. And that’s also (mostly) why she encouraged me to wear my shirts untucked. But then it just made me feel self-conscious and fat.
Y’all, I have gone back to look at my cute self as a Jr. High cheerleader. I was. Not. Fat.
I don’t blame her though. Her mother did the same. And when she was growing up, she was constantly judged on her appearance and her weight. She’s in her 70’s and still so self-conscious about her size it makes me want to cry every time she mentions it.
I try so hard to keep that toxic thinking out of my daughter’s head. I know I haven’t been entirely successful but I am entirely open with her about how shitty it is to think that way about yourself.
At least we are becoming better mothers with each generation. She’ll be freaking amazing when it’s her turn.
No but she shit talks mine and says if I don’t do this or that then this or that will happen lol
I’ve got a 4 year old daughter and it takes so much mental energy to only ever say positive things / nothing at all about my body in front of her, but I’m only conscious of it because I read about how important it is to self image before having kids. Let’s break the cycle!
She does and it’s so annoying: “I would love to wear dresses but my legs are to big.” – “Well, I wear dresses and my legs are bisher than yours.” – “But you have bigger boobs, so you can wear dresses.” She always tries to find something bad about herself. But recently I found that my father also comments her body in a bad way, telling her she gained weight or how much she eats (after her physical demanding job). Mind you she is super thin and fit and he has a belly, but he likes to bully people and feel superior. All the women in my family also always comment on how I look. When I gained weight during Covid, it was the most important topic for month. Everytime I visit someone will comment on my weight or recently my acne. Even compliments are like this: “This dress is good, it makes you look thinner.”
Yeah. My mom has always been very critical of her body and describes normal aspects in really negative language, like “bat wings,” “cankles,” “turkey neck,” “howdy doody lines” etc. As I was growing up she always negatively remarked on other women’s bodies too. If it wasn’t a negative remark about my body, it was a compliment about how men were staring at me (male gaze-positive).
Cut to now. Our relationship is…kind of estranged because I find that if I spend any amount of time talking to her or hanging out with her, I start to do the same. But if I hold her at a distance and keep her on an information diet, my mental health is a lot better, and I have a more positive view of my body…which is becoming more important to me as I am aging.
I haven’t seen her in several years and I’ve lost a fair bit of weight since we last spent time together. I didn’t tell her I was losing weight, but my sibling recently mentioned it to her and so now when she texts me it’s usually body-related and I just don’t respond to those.
Are you me? That is exactly something my mother did all the time growing up. Does your mom also talk about how “Rubanesque” your body is?
Oh damn, she does… things just clicked for me.
My mom is tiny. 5’3″ and never more than 110 lbs. I have my dad’s build – 5’8″ and broad. My mom constantly called herself fat, would comment on what she ate, what I ate, talk about how she had put on a few lbs and needed to drop them. She would criticize my dad’s weight and nitpick what everyone weighed. When I hit 35 and after 2 kids I put on weight, I’m on 3 medications that cause weight gain and I look like everyone on my dad’s side of the family. Genes are strong.
I will never be small enough for my mom. I grew up hearing that 110 lbs is too big, that you shouldn’t have any folds or rolls. I am 40 and my size is a constant mental health fight. I am active, healthy, and strong. But I’m fat. And I’ll never be good enough.
One word. Therapy. This is definitely a lot of projection. As it’s also messing with your own body image “afraid of being fat” and maybe critical of your own body to the point that it can affect how you feel about yourself. And maybe in the long stretch your own mental health. If you’re of the age where you see your mother often or live with her I highly recommend finding a therapist or psychiatrist that can professionally guide you through this. I’ve had my fair share of therapy and can only wish I had counseling in my later high school years.
Just a suggestion. Even my parents have their own sessions here and there. And our relationship has improved a bit.
I grew up constantly hearing that I was the spitting image of my mother and constantly hearing my mother complain about how awful her body was. So a very young me surmised that my body must be awful as well. I’m now in my early 50s now and still struggling to like my body.
Constantly. She shaped my food noise to be so negative, and she is still doing it. She is currently on the most calorie restricted nonsense diet. I was finally successful at losing enough weight to be in the “normal“ BMI category in the past five years after being “overweight” my entire adult life and it is killing her. I am not going to share my methods anymore… Mostly because one of them includes GLP-1s because I have struggled with extremely bad PCOS my whole life and this is the first thing I have ever found to work. I am also eating very healthy and exercising, but she doesn’t want to hear any of that. If I ever told her I was using a GLP-1 medication, I would never hear the end of it.
She was such a pain to go on a trip with for a few days this summer because she couldn’t eat anything. She doesn’t listen when you try to give her advice about making sure she’s eating enough fat… She doesn’t believe you should eat fat at all. She’s a very stereotypical product of the 80s/90s non-fat diet bullcrap.
She is now in her 70s and trying to recover from knee replacement. I guarantee she has not told the doctors or PT that she is probably eating about 700 cal a day.
She also wears clothing that is at least a size or two too large for her. I realized once I lost some weight that I was doing that as well. I’ve never liked things to fit me very tightly, but I look at photographs from before I lost weight and I wasn’t wearing the right size at all.
Yes, at least up until I stopped speaking to her, and probably kept going after that. She called herself a feminist but has a really weird sexual-jealousy thing going on towards other women, including body-shaming.
It’s just bizarre, I’m deeply grateful that I never really cared enough about bodies to pay attention to my size/shape or anyone else’s.
I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that.
My mother did not criticize her own body or mine ever, and it’s something I’ve really come to appreciate as an adult. It did not prevent me from developing a messed up relationship with my own body like most people in our culture, but the fact that none of the voices in my head contributing to that were my mother’s is a good thing.
I have tried very hard to do the same for my daughter. I don’t comment on my own or her body except in the context of talking about new physical skills and strengths. I know that I can’t protect her from all the forces that tell us we are existing wrong no matter what, but I refuse to contribute to them.
My mom passed recently. She was a beautiful lady, but she hated how she looked, would often not allow pictures, and put herself down a lot.
My sister is also a beautiful lady. She looks a lot like my mom. And the damage of being told she looked just like our mom + mom hating how she looked… it’s hard.
I wish my mom could have made the connection. I think she would have apologized if she had. I’m glad I stopped asking if I could take pictures of her and just started taking them without letting her know. (sorry, not sorry mom)
My mum very regularly used to tell me how ugly she was. At the same time, I would have people gasp and tell me how much I looked like my mum. She was “like my twin” or I was “her double”.
I have no concept of my level of attractiveness and am having a little crisis of looks as I near the age I remember my mum being when she was “ugly”. I’ve spent my adult life avoiding looking like her (change my hair colour, make sure I stay slim). And now I tell my daughter how much she looks like me, and how beautiful I am because she IS beautiful and she DOES look like me. Which messes with my head!
Nah, she skipped straight to criticizing my body instead. Apparently she was bullied for being fat as a child, so to make sure other children never bullied me she did it herself. I can’t imagine where that eating disorder came from…
She is currently visiting my city and until she arrived this week I hadn’t seen her in 10 years–you can maybe start to guess at some of the reasons why not–and I was really, really afraid about what she’d have to say about my body, which is currently the largest it’s ever been. Fortunately she’s been on her best behavior; I guess she doesn’t want another decade of no contact.
I’m sorry she’s putting out that cultural shaming. I hope you can let that shit go
All the time. And then she started getting plastic surgery, and it didn’t stop. When I was a kid she used to purge with the bathroom door open after eating so that my sisters and I could hear. I checked out of seeing her when I was 17 and haven’t spoken to her in years now.
Yeah, my mom is one of those women who have severely augmented her face and body in the pursuit of some sort of aesthetic perfection. (Money + body dysmorphia)
Now at 56, her face looks fucked up, but she achieved the body shape she wanted. Just in time to get early onset dementia, so she doesn’t recognize herself in the mirror anymore.
My mom died when I was young and while I wish I still had her, I also know that I probably got spared some crippling insecurities because I have learned as I grew that she had huge body image issues. Comments from aunts and my dad have told me she talked negatively about herself a lot and was subject to a lot of emotional abuse growing up.
I complain about my body sometimes but it’s usually when it does something annoying or needs maintenance rather than about how it looks and that’s been a very conscious effort to give my daughter a positive self voice when it comes to her body. (Which i cautiously say has worked so far)
When I do have to discuss something bad about it (we both have very severe KP) i try to keep my tone really matter of fact and like “oh this is just something we gotta deal with cuz genetics are silly” rather than any value judgements about appearance and I try to point out the upsides of KP like strong nails and thick hair.
Yes, my mom frequently compared herself to me in an unfavorable way. She also commented unfavorably on some parts of my body, but overall seemed to take a lot of vicarious enjoyment of having a kid with a fairly conventionally attractive body. She’s now having a hard time accepting my transition because I grew up accepting being her little dress-up doll and now I wear masculine clothes and don’t show off the figure she apparently attached a lot of her own identity to (???)
Your mom pulls down her pants to show you her bare ass? There are more issues here than just body image.
My mom does it in a very off handed way. She won’t buy certain dresses because she thinks they show off her belly pooch too much, despite being on the small size of a medium in her 70s.
When she took me dress shopping in my teens she would regularly reject a dress without words by just grabbing her own tummy fat to tell me she could see mine. It wasn’t meant to be cruel, she just wanted me to look my best, but it definitely created a lot of insecurity in my own little pooch even now in my 30s.
Recently while shopping for a 50th wedding anniversary dress she told me she was trying to lose weight. When I told her she should prioritize getting a dress that fits her, and not making herself fit into a dress, the response text I got was “😆 you are so funny.”
It made me so incredibly sad.
Yep moms are just human beings. Society says have them kids and raise em. Well imperfect, often young women have kids and how on earth can you expect to raise perfect kids?
You’ve just got to have some empathy and try to realize she didn’t pass through some “mother” terminal where all of life’s questions were answered and she is choosing to be imperfect.
When you talk to her try to do it with some sincere empathy FOR HER hating her body. Rather than expressing your pity for yourself about it. You may reach her easier that way.
Yes! I didn’t realise how much she had impacted my own view of my body until I left her with my husband in a crowded train station and later that night be said he now realises why I’m the way I am. In the time it took me for a bathroom break my mum had made 8 body shaming comments ranging from “why can’t I look like that” to “I’m glad I’m not as fat as that.”
She had me in weight watchers when I was 16. I was convinced I was whale like (despite being only 20lbs over the goal weight for my height), I fantasise about cutting parts of my away like my stomach and thighs. .
I’ve started using “sounds like a you problem” and “as long as they’re happy” when she starts on other women around me and I’m trying to do boundaries. Recently been on medication that made me gain weight so I’m really struggling
No- but probably because she was always content/proud of her figure. One time she weighed herself in middle age though and freaked out that she passed x weight. It’s indelible in my memory.
In general though my mom is very looks centred. The first thing she says when she sees me is to comment on my appearance, and she’s often talking about looks- which aunt or sister was the most good looking. Comparing me to her friend’s daughters. Who’s trying too hard. Who’s not trying enough. It has really made me overly conscious of my looks.
My mom hates having pictures taken of her.
Of course now I feel the same.
One of my coworkers told me at lunch today that her mother told her to take ozempic and that she can loose a few pounds. She’s rather sensitive about her figure as she’s tall and broad shouldered. I can’t fathom how someone could be so cruel to their own child.
Yep, my mum’s always been so critical of herself and everyone around her, friends, strangers, family, doesn’t matter. She rarely criticised me directly, but the messaging was there.
I was bullied all through school for my appearance which coupled with her petty judgement of everyone else was pretty damaging.
She’s 65 now and still complains daily about how fat she is/what she looks like, I’m almost 40 and still trying to find self acceptance/body neutrality and tune out her nonsense IRL and my own head.
We were at a family reunion over the weekend and as soon as part of the fam left she turned to me to say ‘how ugly’ one of my cousins kids was! I shut her down and said he’s a 7 year old, there’s nothing wrong with him, what’s wrong with you?! Her response: what? he is. Oof.
Oh my gosh, yes. It was always about her losing weight when I was growing up and how she thought she was unattractive. My dad would compliment her and she would say that he was just saying that because he had to since they’re married.
I hate talking about weight with her and try to avoid it at all costs. I don’t even like when she talks about my body. Recently I’ve taken up running mainly for my mental health after experiencing a miscarriage and she comments how I look so good and must be losing weight. I just tell her I do it to feel better and to have a goal to go towards (currently reducing my 5k time). She cannot fathom me not giving a shit about weight loss.
Yep, my mom has been vocally critical of her weight my entire life. She hasn’t been critical of me, but she calls me her “skinny mini me,” which I DO NOT LIKE. Her hate of her own body and the rampant 90s diet culture that she participated (and still participates) in has royally fucked up my relationship with food and driven me to some pretty disordered behavior. That shit’ll mess you up even when the insults aren’t aimed at you.
My mom constantly criticized her own body in front of me when I was growing up. She’d point out the most mundane things — elbows????? — and go on about how bad they are. Same with her face. “My eyes are too close together.” “I hate my smile.” And when people would say “you’re the spitting image of your mom!” Or when even mom herself would say we look alike, I took it to mean that I should dislike those things about myself.
For the record, my mom always told me that I’m beautiful and has never said a disparaging thing about my body directly.
I’m 35 now. A few years ago I mentioned the whole critiquing herself and saying I looked like her situation. How my child brain interpreted it. And she absolutely was blown away. It had literally NEVER occurred to her that her comments about her body would make me think of my own body. She apologized. I didn’t need an apology. I knew it was never intentional. But it blew my mind that she genuinely never realized it.
I don’t have kids, but I have nieces. I make an effort to never make comments about my or other bodies. I keep sentiments neutral or positive. If I do have kids, I’ll be sure to keep that up as well.
The opposite. My mom never says anything bad about her own body but constantly talks trash about mine, coworkers, strangers, etc.
She is naturally skinny. She has never worked out a day in her life and avoids most physical activity. Butters everything…but also thinks that asparagus is a meal. She’s crazy.
My mom does the same thing. Won’t let me even get a word in to comfort her. TBH i think she just wants to complain about something. And honestly I don’t feel that bad for her because she used to sob when I was in 7th grade because I was “fat”. I wasn’t even fat at all, I just wasn’t rail thin, which is what she wanted me to be.
Yep. My mom always complains about how she looks. Unfortunately she gets it from her mom.
Yes, and it makes me so, so incredibly sad. I love my mom. My mom is the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. She’s been fat, she’s been midsize, she’s been muscular, and so on. She’s always been a beautiful woman though. She talks badly about herself, and her past larger self, and I hate it. Although her past larger body was struggling with an eating disorder and she wasn’t taking care of herself, she was never ugly. Was she healthy? No. Is she healthy now? Yes. Even now, taking care of herself and being healthy, she talks badly about herself. I love her and I hate how she talks about herself. I always tell her she’s pretty and I always tell her, even when she was fat (she’s fine with the word, it’s not a bad word), she was pretty then too.
It has affected my own confidence and how I see myself, but I see my mom in aspects of myself. I can’t call those parts ugly, and I can’t hate them. I don’t think she gets it, but even though I don’t like all of me, I love everything that I see of myself that’s from her, no matter what it is. My mom has gotten better with talking badly about herself though, whether it’s through working on things on her own, or my words, or something else.
Very common but luckily my mom has always been very chill. Zero criticisms, zero toxic stuff. We joke about our own minor flaws for a laugh. (Boob jokes are just funny)
She’s pretty neutral most of the time like just pointing things out about herself as an observation. Then she gets positive when she wears a cute outfit but she doesn’t say anything really about her body itself just that she feels that she looks good
Any discussion about weight is about health. Shes in the normal range and strong but we talk about family members who are underweight with only medical concern
She hates when other family members fat shame or skinny shame people
This post made me realize that my mom has literally the most stellar attitude about body stuff and has never slipped up. Kinda wild that I had a hidden eating disorder as a kid anyway lmaoo
Yes!!! My mom is super self conscious about her weight and is worried she’s too fat.
She is under 100 lbs and has barely any fat on her body. Like she is worryingly underweight and still doesn’t eat enough for fear of gaining weight.
She’s not supportive of my transition but has kinda come to an acceptance that my body is the way it is now. I’ve put on a lot of weight since starting transition to aid in fat redistribution, and it’s worked great and I’m really happy with how my body and curves have filled out. However she also noticed I have put on weight and has started to comment on it and it makes me uncomfortable because I’m happy with my weight right now.
Before transition she was extremely picky about what I wore and would criticize my outfits if she didn’t like them. She also hated when I started to grow out my hair (🥚) and forced me to cut it and get it styled exactly the way she liked. Post transition if I wear something slightly too femme leaning it will set her off and she will ask me to change because it makes her uncomfortable.
No, my mom constantly criticized my body.
I call it a successful trip back home if my mom /doesn’t/ think I’m pregnant with my extremely mild weight fluctuation.
No, but she never had any issues criticizing mine. 🙄
My mother didn’t like anything about the female body that distinguished it as female. When my bra size began to exceed hers, she seemed frightened. Her way of describing pregnancy was “[the woman’s] belly out to here.” She had eating disorders from an early age. I read Karen Carpenter’s bio and Karen seemed to want to reshape her body to look more like her brother’s because he was always the favored child. I think my mother’s issue was my grandmother, who was a stout, fleshy country type. ‘Eat big meals because it’s your job to nurture the entire world!’ Grandma raised 7 kids; Mom only had one, and that didn’t happen until she was nearly 40. Breastfeeding? Ha–she thought that was obscene. I don’t know if “gynephobia” is a word, but it should be, and would describe my mother’s mindset perfectly.
My mom literally grabs my hand and puts it on her “spare tire” (the fat around her waist) at least 2 times while spending the day with her.
She’ll say that her ass is flat like a pancake completely out of the blue because she spent “so many years sitting at a desk for work as a secretary.” She will shake her arms and a points out that they jiggle. This was a constant throughout my life and still continues now that she is 65 years old.
It breaks my heart to witness this because she is absolutely beautiful. At the same time, she has a huge aversion to working out and especially going to the gym. She has straight up told me she doesn’t like the gym since seeing other naked women in the locker room??
I like to think this hasn’t affected me but it probably has just as much as media has affected my perception of beauty.
My mom criticized her body when I was growing up.
I have memories of doing the same to myself starting in early elementary.
I don’t ever say anything out loud in front of my kids. When they ask why I’m working out or eating different I normally tell them that I’m training to get stronger so I can keep carrying them as they get bigger 😆
Moms gotta be soooo careful not to do this. It’s very damaging for kids. Sons grow up thinking they can belittle women for physical flaws, and girls grow up thinking flaws matter a lot. When/if anyone on here has kids, only say how pretty and strong and content you feel in your own body. Give your kids the gift of self love.