Eating habits & body image during lockdown

The coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives exponentially.  For most of us daily life has changed beyond recognition. We are experiencing losses and grief on a collective level in a way most of us have never seen before. The loss of loved ones, of freedoms, of boundaries, of jobs, financial security and school and holiday or celebration plans. 

The one thing that remains a constant for all of us is change.  We know that change is inevitable.  But aside from some of the major changes we have all experienced together there are some changes taking place on an individual level that may also be hard to accept.  The changes we may have seen to our eating habits and our body image during lockdown.

Eating more, eating less, eating foods we wouldn’t normally eat, snacking more, cooking less and feeling bad about all of this. The thing is, we need to realise that all of this is normal even if it feels like a lack of control. Stress can impact our bodies in so many ways and eating habits is just one of those. It is helpful first to create some space for ourselves and drop our judgment.  Let go of the harsh inner critic as much as possible but at the same time recognise the emotions that are leading to under-eating or binge eating.  In this way we can work on other outlets for the feelings. 

Being at home socially isolating has also meant that for some of us our focus has turned to body image and whilst the initial feeling of relaxing and allowing the pyjama and ‘no make up’ days was relaxing, the constant Zoom meetings and video calls have caused lots of us to fixate on our body image. 

Being constantly at home gives us more time to check ourselves out in the mirror and more time to hone in on perceived flaws. Again this is normal, a natural human reaction to stressful circumstances. We instinctively want to turn the attention to something else that we can ‘fix’ or ‘alter’.  As with eating habits, it can help to ask ourselves ‘what am I really feeling here?’ and to think about whether there is some other way to deal with that emotion.

The most important thing is to know it’s normal to respond in this way, and it won’t last forever. Allow yourself to explore the emotions and your responses and to think about what might help you to react differently the next time the feeling arises.