This year’s Body Image and Eating Disorder Awareness Week, from 7 to 13 September, is focusing on redefining ‘wellness.’ With recent research finding that body confidence declines with age, we explore the impact of wellness messaging, with a focus on older women.
It’s a no-brainer that discourse around wellness has blown up online, promoting narratives about health and appearance under the guise of ‘self-improvement.’ From ‘what I eat in a day’ compilations, to content promoting how using peptides can achieve a specific look, we are being flooded with messaging that promotes certain, often unrealistic, body ideals.
The information we consume about health and our bodies ‘can contribute to body dissatisfaction, disordered eating and eating disorders,’ Butterfly Foundation’s communications manager Zoe Bradbury tells PL. Under the theme ‘Redefining ‘wellness’ – stories we’re sold about health and our bodies,’ this year’s Body Image and Eating Disorder Awareness Week asks us to call these narratives into question.
“This focus arose from concerns shared by our community, who are finding that the constant focus on thinness, weight loss, self-improvement, wellness and health is triggering and causing people to feel worse about themselves, their body and appearance,” says Zoe.
Butterfly’s vision is for all people in Australia to live free from eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. “In order to achieve this, we need to explore how common messages about health, appearance and self-improvement contribute to our relationships with our bodies, food and exercise,” she says.
As for what ‘wellness’ means, Zoe says it ‘has evolved into a commercialised lifestyle industry.’
Clinical psychologist Lesley Russell
“Many of the ideals that are present in diet culture…have become co-opted by wellness culture in subtle ways under the guise of achieving ‘health,’” she says.
Clinical psychologist and credentialed eating disorder clinician Lesley Russell agrees, saying that the term wellness ‘is just repackaging diet culture to make it sound as if it is healthy.’
Lesley runs a private practice in Balgowlah on the Northern Beaches, offering evidence-based psychological therapy to people over the age of 16.
Although many people living with an eating disorder are young, with 27% being under the age of 19, Lesley emphasises that people can have eating disorders and body image concerns at any age.
“There’s obviously a lot of focus on young people, and appearances are really important to young people,” she says. “But I think we forget that it’s across the lifespan.”
The results of a cross-generational survey released by Butterfly in July uncovered that body confidence declines with age. The findings suggested that body dissatisfaction can be moulded over a lifetime, heavily shaped by social and cultural influences.
Lived experience advocate Clare Loewenthal
Having lived with an eating disorder during adolescence, Clare Loewenthal, 66, doesn’t consider these findings surprising. Clare is a Butterfly Pathfinder and was part of a cross-generational video series called Enter the Chat which discussed how culture and media shape the way we see ourselves.
“For many of us, we have had decades of unrealistic ideals put forward about how we should look,” says Clare. “On top of that, we’re supposed to be taking the right supplements, doing the right exercising, eating the right foods to be well. And we are also being pressured into trying to not age gracefully.
“That’s a very challenging mix of things because the wellness movement in and of itself is a positive thing. We all want to be well. We want to live our best lives, but it can put the focus back on many of the messages that have been hurtful for women.”
Older women have been exposed to decades of media putting forward an ideal body, the commercialisation of anti-ageing and weight loss, and now social media.
“Back when I was young, print media and fashion were the two big visual influences that I guess I was comparing myself to. I think with the rise of social media, things have got much more complicated for everybody of any age,” Clare says.
“People tend to feel that women my age aren’t as influenced by social media as younger people…but my experience is that women my age are still being very heavily influenced by what they are seeing on social media.”
Clare says that a lot of the wellness messaging targeting older women is rooted in ideas around anti-ageing and longevity, which can be especially problematic for people who have experienced an eating disorder or disordered eating.
“A woman’s body changes over time, and acceptance of that is hard when you’re being told that you should look like a 21-year-old. It’s such a constant barrage of these messages. It’s hard to step back from them and hold on to your own power,” she says.
“To a certain extent, I think it makes women feel like their body is a project that they have to keep working on. It doesn’t allow for a lot of acceptance, which I think is so important for recovery from an eating disorder.”
Lesley says that body image concerns can stem from common bodily changes experienced by women over which they have no control.
“Middle aged women going through perimenopause and menopause can experience major body changes,” she says. “That’s another point at which they can have body image concerns.”
Lesley says this can cause older people to be ‘very vulnerable’ as they pursue ‘a so-called healthy lifestyle, which is actually kind of a euphemism for diets and a lot of unhealthy behaviours.’
As a result, she encourages clients to have a more holistic view of health, something which she refers to as ‘true health,’ as opposed to focusing on wellness and diet culture which can cause harm.
This is something Clare tries to adopt, aiming to find impartial advice from ‘the people that have our best interest at heart,’ including medical professionals.
“Don’t take things at face value just because you see them on social media,” she says. “We need to challenge things that seem too good to be true because they will be.”
“It’s about us being more vigilant and not just accepting things, understanding that they (product-based companies) are playing to our vulnerabilities.”
“When we’re looking at all these other influences that are coming at us through the wellness industry, that’s what we need to understand. We’re in control of this.”
Now a lived experience advocate, Clare is hopeful that her voice alongside others will give hope to people who are struggling. She says she started speaking openly about her experience more recently and has ‘made more progress in terms of really coming to peace with everything that happened since I was 60.’
“It’s never too late to get help. It’s never too late to fully embrace life again, even if you have struggled with body image issues.”
For confidential and free support for eating disorders call the Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673) or visit butterfly.org.au to chat online or email.
