How Does Body Image Impact Eating Patterns and Hormones?
- Namrata Manyal Agicha
- Apr 21
- 3 min read
‘When was the first time someone pointed out your weight?’
This is the question I ask my clients & they often have a stark memory of their mother/relative/school teacher/doctor pointing it out first:
‘Oh, you look too chubby!’
‘You are so healthy, eat less, it will create problems later’
And for many, that’s where the doubt & fear around your body, food, and self quietly begins
Every conversation, event, and outfit suddenly becomes about your weight.
You begin to notice how your arms look in a sleeveless top, how your hips look so heavy in that dress, your face too chubby, no jawline & a waist that feels too big, especially when you sit.
It starts to make you feel unworthy and unaccepted.
How Body Image Shapes Your Relationship with Food
In the quest to be accepted & validated by some people around you, you try to fit into a smaller size or weigh less.
Unfortunately, the methods that you try to use for ‘fitting in’ begin to disconnect you from your body.
That is how you start developing a love-hate (or rather hate-hate) relationship with your body.
On one hand, you keep feeling you need to do more & on the other hand, there is a certain level of frustration thinking ‘It should have worked by now!'
This shows up in your food patterns & that impacts your hormones.
Common Eating Patterns That Disrupt Your Hormones
Skipping breakfast, thinking it will help cut down calories. But it ends up raising your stress hormones & so your waist size keeps increasing for no apparent reason
Cutting starches to a great extent, which disrupts your progesterone levels, leading to mood swings, scanty flow and missing periods.
Eating just salads because that's what every diet says, but that makes you feel bloated, unsatisfied & later causes sugar cravings
Cutting out food portions, that gives you nutritional deficiencies & a thyroid imbalance.
For many, these body signs often begin with a strained relationship with your body
🌱Irregular periods
🌱Painful periods
🌱Scanty/too heavy flow
🌱Fatigue
🌱Hair loss
🌱Facial hair & acne
🌱Brain fog
And then years later, you get a label of ‘PCOS’ & you are told to ‘Lose Weight’!
Suddenly, then, the first comment about your weight begins to feel true & you go in the self-doubt all over again.
I know what you are thinking: ‘What should I do then?’
A Different Starting Point: Repairing Your Relationship with Your Body
I have a simple starting question for you:
Would you take relentless efforts for someone you hate to look at?
Or
Would you take relentless efforts for someone you love, irrespective of anything?
The latter sounds better, doesn’t it?
Which is why your starting point for hormonal imbalance is returning to your body, not another diet.
3 Gentle Ways to Reconnect with Your Body
Here’s what you can start doing & why:
1. Start with small body check-ins:
‘How am I feeling now?’
This will help you revive the lost connection with your body. It will give you clarity on your hunger and cravings. You will slowly begin to understand your hunger patterns, and also know when you are eating emotionally & prevent binges.
2. Take a small pause before meals
Over time, this reflects in your portion sizes, your ability to stop when full & will improve your digestion by reducing bloating.
3. Sway and move your body as you like.
Cut the noise, plug in your earphones, drop into your body & move as you please.
Let all the stored stiffness/rules/comments leave your body & generate safety.
Your patterns, eating behaviours, and the way you show up for yourself, slowly begin to change sustainably & that shows on your PCOS symptoms too.
Because now you are not doing this to seek validation or because someone told you to.
You are doing it as an act of unconditional self-respect & self-love
Slowly, you will begin to see that your body was never the problem; it was just unheard & under-nourished.
If you’re someone who feels like you’ve tried everything: diets, cutting foods, being stricter, but your body still feels out of sync, there’s likely a deeper layer your body is asking you to look at.
If you want to understand what’s really going on with your body and where to begin, you can book a complimentary consult call here:
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