Promoting Body Image Awareness – Interview Series #5: Meet “Andy”
08/22/25:
Did you know that around 80% of girls and 50% of boys in Western countries have body image concerns during high school, according to the data from the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and the National Organization for Women (NOW)? The numbers are even higher for LGBTQ+ teens. People who struggle with body image are also more likely to develop eating disorders.
To help bring more attention to this issue, I’m starting an interview series with people I know. They’ll be sharing their personal stories—what they’ve gone through, how it’s affected them, and the ways they’ve learned to cope.
To keep things private, I’m using fake names for everyone I interview.
Q1. Overall, do you think you are satisfied with your body? Why or why not?
I would say that I am satisfied with my body, but there are always things that could be improved and changed. For example, it is my belief that I have not lost weight or gained muscle as much as I want to, and I blame myself when I do not make enough progress.
Q2. How has your body image affected your mental health?
I was always overweight growing up ever since childhood until high school. All my family and friends knew me as someone who was fat, any health issue I had was blamed on my weight, people would laugh when I could not fit into clothes and it was always on the back of my mind as an insecurity. Being “fat” was a label that I carried, and was often synonymous with being lazy. When I was brought up not wanting to be labeled that way, I often was met with blame with people telling me “If you don’t want to be called fat, then why don’t you lose weight?”. Then later there was a period of time that I was dealing with grief where I just stopped eating food and I started to lose weight rapidly. At around 15 years old I started to go to the gym every day and chose to eat healthier foods outside of the house. I started to gain muscle and lose weight in that process as I got more into fitness. Nowadays, many people compliment me and say that I am strong or have a muscular physique, but getting there took a lot of hard work and pain to get to that point. These personal experiences gave me insight on how differently people will treat one another based on appearance and body image.
Q3. Do you ever find yourself comparing your body to other people? How does that make you feel?
Of course, sometimes I see people with better physiques and then use that as motivation to start working harder. Often it can feel like I did not do enough to improve my physique when compared to others, but I try to use that to improve myself.
Q4. What advice would you give to people who are insecure about their bodies?
There are a few things to consider when dealing with insecurity. Oftentimes negative emotion and insecurity, it reflects a genuine signal of the mind that something is not right and needs to be fixed. When reflecting on what to do, it’s important to ask yourself if the expectations you place on yourself are realistic, and what would a better body look like. For many, body image issues cannot just be fixed in the mind and cognitively reframed, there needs to be work done to achieve that ideal body type. Many fail to consider that the foods we are used to or grew up with might be processed foods that have high calories but do not sustain hunger, and that takes work to change in dieting. For example, eating frozen fruits instead of ice cream, or avoiding oily foods. Create a schedule and find time to go to the gym every day even if your day is extremely busy, count calories and set realistic goals for yourself so that you can feel like you are making progress. Lastly, show some compassion towards yourself because many things like metabolism, access to healthy food, and time to exercise can be out of our control. Working on yourself takes time, and that there is hope with what you can control.
