Many people feel pressure to achieve a “summer body” in the summer season. This is especially apparent in California, where beauty standards are represented by the state’s influx of celebrities and socialites. Add the season’s pool parties, beach trips and shedding layers for the hot weather, there’s an uptick in body dysmorphia, which can lead to bigger issues like an eating disorder.
Margot Rittenhouse, MS, LPCC, Director of Clinical Services at Alsana Westlake Village met with KNX Radio reporter Nataly Tavidian to discuss body dysmorphia and how to help someone who may be suffering. They discussed:
Barbecues, weddings and other social summer activities that revolve around food can be especially triggering for anyone suffering from body dysmorphia due to the pressure to look ‘picture perfect.’
Most of the images and body standards people compare themselves to online and in the media are not real. Photoshop, photo editing and filters can dramatically distort someone’s authentic features without looking obvious. This creates unrealistic body standards that are difficult or even impossible to achieve in the real world.
Always approach anyone who may be struggling with an eating disorder or body dysmorphia with compassion. Be the person who will listen without judgement, and do not let fear direct your conversation.
Listen to the Full Interview
Read the Transcript
FEMALE ANNOUNCER
Some experts are weighing in on a link between body image issues in the heat of hot girl summer. Here’s Nataly Tavidian.
KXN NEWS’ NATALY TAVIDIAN
Physical and mental well-being go hand-to-hand, says Margot Rittenhouse, a licensed clinical counselor at one of Alsana’s eating disorder treatment center locations. What they see on the rise, especially this time of year, body dysmorphia.
ALSANA’S MARGOT RITTENHOUSE
Body dysmorphia, simply put, is a misperception of the body. It can relate to the way that an individual perceives maybe their size, their weight, or even certain features.
TAVIDIAN
She encourages this.
RITTENHOUSE
Understanding intimately those cues from the body of what it needs in order to engage in what we call intuitive eating, which is eating, nourishing in connection with what the body is telling you that it needs.
TAVIDIAN
Rittenhouse says it’s all too common chatting about size, weight, appearance, but consider steering clear and moving away from diet culture convos at events. I’m Nataly Tavidian, KNX News 97.1 FM.
