Improving body image with cystic fibrosis

By Marie-Michèle Ricard, M.Sc., P.s. ed., psychotherapist

Do you like your body? Are you happy with it? Do you feel any dissatisfaction? The answers to these questions tell you about your body image, the perception that brings together the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations that are triggered when you think about or look at your body. Several body characteristics are linked to body satisfaction or dissatisfaction. These include hair, face, body shape, height, weight, body shape, height, weight, teeth, physical disabilities, chest, muscles, and scars.

The way you feel about your body can change over time, and vary between situations and contexts. Even if you're not always 100% happy with your body, your body image can be quite positive. However, it can also be negative if the way you feel about your body causes you pain, affects your mood, health, work, activities, or relationships.

Cystic fibrosis can affect the development, appearance, and function of your body and present several challenges to your body image, especially when it comes to body shape, skin appearance, weight, posture, and muscle mass. CF, its development, and its various treatments are important factors that can negatively influence your body image. With CF, it can become difficult to see your body as an ally. Does CF affect your body image? Do you think you have a positive or negative body image? How do you accept the changes imposed by CF and by certain treatments? Do you sometimes feel that your body is betraying you, or that it is not what you would like it to be?

It is entirely possible that CF raises some questions about your body image. Indeed, several body dissatisfactions are reported by people living with CF. These refer to body characteristics that do not correspond to the unique beauty model conveyed by society: too much weight, underdeveloped muscles, smaller size, or the presence of scars.

Did you know that your body image develops as you age and that it is the interaction of various developmental factors that determines how you assess your body? Your physical characteristics (weight, puberty, gender, age), your individual psychological factors (personality traits, self-esteem), your interpersonal experiences, and socio-cultural factors are the factors that determine the body image you have developed.

Also, it is important to realize that the body dissatisfaction that you may experience is triggered by a discrepancy between the perception you have of your body and the perception of “your ideal body”. The latter is mostly decided by social norms. The greater the gap, the greater will be the body dissatisfaction experienced.

Improving your body image is a process that takes time. No magic wand can change the relationship you develop with your body in one move. However, several activities and exercises (behavioral, emotional or cognitive) can improve it. The important thing is to take it one small step at a time. Slowly but surely.

Developing a positive body image allows you to feel good about yourself, and this, with certain dissatisfactions, and above all, with an illness. Positive body image allows you to feel pleasant emotions about your body, to appreciate its unique beauty, and to use your body wisely. This positive body image is very closely linked to good mental health. In fact, people who develop it feel less distress about their body, adopt more balanced eating behaviors and express greater well-being. They also report better physical health.

To have a healthier and more diverse body image, certain skills need to be developed. Thoughts can be aroused and certain behaviors are important to implement, or even to stop.

Far from being a rigid protocol or a magic recipe, here are suggestions for improving the relationship with your body.

Suggestion n^O 1: Observe yourself

Close your eyes

Picture yourself in front of the mirror.

Let emotions and thoughts activate.

Be aware of the discomfort you are feeling.

What behaviors do you want to implement right now?

Observe yourself.

Think of a typical day. What behaviors do you do in relation to your body image? What place do your body concerns play in your life? How important are your physical dissatisfactions right now?

This exercise allows you to connect with your body image. Whether exercise is pleasant or unpleasant gives you a clue as to whether you have a good or bad relationship with your body. This observation will then allow you to make some changes.

Suggestion n^O 2: Understand the development of your body dissatisfaction

Give yourself the opportunity to understand where your body dissatisfaction comes from. What factors contributed the most? Several are decisive in the development of body dissatisfaction. Allowing yourself to chart the developmental trajectory of your body image is a good step towards a complete understanding that leads to improvement. Think about your physical and psychological characteristics, past interpersonal experiences, and the impact society may have had on you. Maybe you can identify an important trigger, or maybe you can't. Remember, it is the interaction of several factors, not just one, that explains your body dissatisfaction.

Suggestion n^O 3: Connect to your body sensations

Take a few minutes each day: sit down and breathe slowly. Connect to your body sensations. When you are hungry, tired, sore, or excited, take a few seconds to identify what sensations are present. Do you know what messages your body is sending you with these sensations? Are you in a position to meet their real needs? Try to identify your feelings without judging them. Reconnect to your body by simply listening.

Suggestion n^O 4: Take care of your body

Taking care of your body means being able to offer it what it asks for. Food, liquid, rest, warmth, sweetness. Meeting your body's needs can be difficult and even complex, especially if you've lost the habit of listening to them. Go slowly. And allow yourself, sometimes, to be wrong. Adjust your actions. Take the trouble to dose what you offer your body and see if it reacts well to it. Listen to it.

Your body may be sick, but it's still alive and well. You have every right to be mad at CF. You may need to grieve certain bodily functions, the loss of a body free of disease, the loss of a different body. Allow yourself that moment, whenever it's needed. At the same time, allow yourself to ally yourself with your body. Even with CF, he talks to you and expects you to listen.

Suggestion n^O 5: Identify your maintenance behaviors

If you are concerned about your body image, you probably have behaviors that keep you in this worried state. Identify these behaviors more clearly. Think about your eating or physical activity behaviors, or what you might be doing to monitor your weight. Think about behaviors that you avoid doing, such as clothes that you avoid wearing (although you would like to) or places that you avoid going (although you would like to).

These behaviors are called maintenance behaviors. Through their action, they maintain your body concerns, as a constant reminder to think about your body, your weight, your shape. Correcting or stopping these behaviors at the same time alleviates your concerns and gives you more mental space for other things, for other areas of interest.

Suggestion n^O 6: Tame your body

Improving the relationship you have with your body takes time. It's a relationship. It therefore requires taming your body, orRétame quietly. Give yourself this time and identify the basic need that you are trying to meet through your body control. Remember that to improve the relationship with your body, you will most likely have to tolerate discomfort and connect to a need, such as the need to be loved, to be accompanied, to be validated, to be important. Remember that these needs are fundamental and that it is up to you to express them and ensure that they are met.

Improving your body image is possible. And when you take that path, no one can take away your new image. This is precisely one of the goals of this work: to regain power over your own body without regard to external control, based on idealized images, social norms, rules decided by others.

Your body is yours. It is up to you to form a team and learn to live in harmony with him.

To learn more about body image and the relationship you have with your body, here is a very relevant reading suggestion:

From dissatisfaction to body acceptance, develop a more positive relationship with your body, published by Éditions JFD, by Marie-Michèle Ricard.

Marie-Michèle Ricard, psychoeducator and psychotherapist, has more than twenty years of experience in the field. She specializes in the treatment of problems related to the body and food, is the co-founder of the Imavi Clinic (www.imavi.ca), is located behind the platform www.acceptersoncorps.com and is the author of several books.

Social media @mmricardpsed

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