Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, MD
Biography

What do you see when you look in the mirror? What do you want to see? What is healthy for you? Our "Supersize Your Life" instructor, Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, MD joined us on March 29, 2005 to kick off the course and discuss how everyone can develop a healthy body image.

If you have questions about your health, you should consult your personal physician. This event is meant for informational purposes only.

Support for this University course is provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

MODERATOR: Welcome to "Super-size Your Life," Dr. Oliver-Pyatt. How do we develop an image of our own bodies, whether good or bad? What are the early influences that hold us to a certain ideal?

OLIVER-PYATT: What a wonderful question. There are so many factors that affect our self-image and many of them are poorly understood. Let's talk about some personality characteristics that might set a person up for being excessively focused on body image.

The sort of person who may be vulnerable to a negative perception about their body might be the kind of person who has a high degree of need for social approval. He or she also might be the sort of person who lacks self-confidence or is the sort of person who's very sensitive to influences outside of themselves. This same sort of person might also be socially anxious or very receptive or suggestible regarding influences in the media. Additionally, this same person could be from a situation or family where there's a lot of emotion or conflict that isn't being managed, who then sort of takes on that burden through their body, through their relationship with their body, and feels like what's wrong in their life is really their body.

Sometimes this allows us to feel like we can fix our problems in life by simply fixing our body. Therefore maintaining the negative self-concept with regard to your body always gives you the opportunity to "fix" your problems by "fixing" your body.

MODERATOR: So how do we filter out the negative voices?

OLIVER-PYATT: It's very important to start off by noticing our thought process and noticing our reaction. Very frequently when we are engaging in self-destructive behavior of any sort it's because we are responding to things going on in both our environment and within ourselves and we're responding without noticing what's happening. Therefore, we have a reaction to situations that's based not on mindfulness, but on emotional reactivity.

So we always start off not by running from those negative voices, not by trying to ignore them or pretending they're not there, but by actually noticing the actual thoughts and voices. Once we notice the thoughts and voices we can take a look at them and determine whether or not we want to respond to them in a particular way. This is a process called "becoming mindful," and living a mindful life allows us to become purpose-driven versus reactive.

MODERATOR: So now we need to develop healthy body images. What can we look to?

OLIVER-PYATT: Let's start off by noticing what we are exposed to in our society. We are not exposed only to the people in our day-to-day lives to compare ourselves to, we are constantly, via the media, exposed to body sizes and shapes that are liposuctioned, anorexia-driven, and air- brush derived -- not real bodies. We're not just exposed as we would have been hundreds of years ago to the people in our villages or communities, to our parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and friends, we are constantly exposed via the television and magazines, to these unrealistic images.

As we are developing, do we compare ourselves to our friends and family in our community or do we compare ourselves to what we see on the covers of magazines or on television? People who have more of a tendency to be receptive to media influences are those of us who are more likely to develop eating disorders. Girls who watch at least three nights of TV each week were 50% more likely to say they were too fat and 30% more likely to diet than the girls who didn't watch much TV, even though the TV watchers didn't weigh more than the non-watchers. This was a study done in Fiji after American television first arrived there.

MODERATOR: But even our media image of "good bodies" has changed drastically over the years. What used to be average is now full figured.

OLIVER-PYATT: It is incredibly important that we not talk about the influence of the media in a nonchalant way and we take this seriously. These media influences are killing people. These media influences are ravaging life. In spite of tremendous energy and increased awareness from groups such as the National Eating Disorder Association or Dads and Daughters, two of my favorites, the media continues to plague our society and cause tremendous harm.

Something I feel is very exciting in Israel is that there is a movement going on which would outlaw using underweight models. This is an example of taking media influences seriously. It's easy enough to ignore the impact of media influences when you don't have a daughter or loved one with an eating disorder, but when you experience the ravages of an eating disorder in a real-life way, sometimes that helps you become more focused.

It's not just individuals with classic eating disorders, and it's not just girls anymore. It's men and boys, as well. Many people, whether underweight, overweight or in a normal weight range, walk around feeling miserable about themselves because of their body size and shape, almost erasing all the other aspects of themselves that are powerful, lovely, and significant. It's as if the self is erased.

That's what I love to talk about with individuals; redefining your life and what is more important than dieting. Ironically, becoming focused on what's more important than dieting can lead to balance and peace, not just within your life, but with your relationship to food.

The opinions expressed herein are the guests' alone and have not been reviewed by a WebMD physician.