Yes, they're connected, argues columnist Zosia Mamet. So if your mom didn't pass along perfect body-image attitudes, where does that leave you? Mamet reflects.
Body Revolution "We can break the cycle of hate," says Mamet.
A few weeks ago I got a text from the girl who plays my best friend in a film I had just shot. We had figured out that we'd gone to the same elementary school and shared stories of our crazy principal, other kids, the terrible teachers, etc. She sent me a copy of my seventh-grade class picture—and there I was, 12-year-old me, clad in my plaid school uniform, sitting front row, pretending to smile. If you saw that picture, you might think, There's a cute little girl; I'm sure she's happy. But when I saw it, emotions flooded through me. I remembered how desperately unhappy I felt there. I was bullied. I didn't have any friends. I thought a boy would never look at me. I hated myself, and I really hated my body.
I have said it before and will say it again: I've struggled with body image for as long as I can remember. Thoughts like, "What did I eat today?" "What time can I get to yoga tomorrow?" "Do my jeans feel tighter than they did this morning?" bounce about every day in my brain. Sometimes they're ambient noise, and sometimes they're so loud I can barely hear anything else. Anyone who has had eating issues knows those noises never fully go away. But seeing Baby Me got me remembering how things were for me as a girl, wondering how this struggle began and when this seed was planted. And I kept thinking about my mother's influence.
In this day and age, yes, many things contribute to a woman's body image—but research has shown that a girl's mother is perhaps the biggest factor. A girl whose body is criticized by her mother is more likely to dislike her body or engage in disordered eating. If her mother tells her she should eat less, same thing. Furthermore, a girl who sees her mother dieting or obsessing over her own weight is more likely to be unhappy with her body. The apple, the tree.
Here's the tree I fell from: When I was growing up, my mother was always on some sort of diet, and everything I was fed was nonfat or sugar free. When I was hungry, her first response was, "Are you sure?" I dreaded shopping. My mother would say to me, "Zosia, let's look in the husky section."
To be totally honest, I was always jealous of her body. She had been a dancer growing up and had the body to match—flat stomach, small chest. I remember as a girl taking baths with her; I would stare down at my pudgy stomach and feel deep pangs of envy. I prayed I would grow up to have her body.
When I talk to women who have endured eating disorders or body issues, I hear stories like mine. They say: "I wasn't allowed to have sugar growing up, my mom said it was fattening." "My mom wouldn't touch a carb, so I learned not to." "My mother overexercised so I thought you had to be skinny." As kids we are molded by our parents, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. I want to be clear: I AM NOT BLAMING MY MOTHER FOR MY EATING DISORDER. More so, I empathize. I know that my mother's treatment of me stemmed from her own issues with her body. She struggled, so I struggled. But I did struggle.
I got to talking about all this with a female director I was working with one night. She told me that her mother never discussed her body in terms of weight or shape; instead, her mom emphasized healthfulness, telling her how eating well and dancing (she danced) would make her strong. So this girl grew up not once thinking of her body in terms of jean size or "being skinny." She fully escaped the demons. To me, she's a unicorn. But a girl growing up happy and healthy shouldn't be so rare.
Which brings me back to the photo. As I stared at myself at 12, I wondered: What would that girl say to me? What would I say to her? I would say, "You're beautiful. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It gets better." And what if all our mothers had kept it at that? Of course, they were human—so we have to work to forgive our mothers, hope they have forgiven their mothers, and start mothering ourselves, start mothering the broken 12-year-olds inside of us.
Here's what that would look like: We can feed ourselves when we're hungry and feel good when we're full. We can thank our bodies for everything they give us rather than criticizing them for everything they don't. And when we look in the mirror, we can think of what we would say to ourselves at 12. I would tell my younger self she's beautiful just the way she is. I hope my mom is telling herself the same thing.
*Zosia Mamet is a star of HBO's Girls. *
