As a female lifter, athlete and a personal trainer, I’ve had quite a lot of female clients with different mindset’s about training. All these years one thing remained constant “the perception of the body image in comparison to what it really is.”
All women at some point have questioned their body image once in a month. Or more than once. So, I did some digging and I stumbled upon this recent study from Krohmer et al. (2019)
Their study aimed to investigate the association of menstrual cycle phase with body satisfaction and its perception. In a within subject design, 16 women with a natural menstrual cycle (NC) and 19 women who used hormonal contraception (HC) rated their bodily attractiveness and underwent a 3-minute mirror exposure while their eye movements were recorded at two different times during their cycle (NC: ovulation vs. late luteal phase; HC: mid vs. end of cycle).
They found that naturally cycling (NC) women felt less attractive, especially for potential partners, during the late luteal phase (cycle end) relative to ovulation (mid-cycle). They also gazed longer and more frequently toward their most unattractive body parts relative to their most attractive body part at the end of their menstrual cycle. The hormonal contraception group (HC) showed little difference between phases. -
So what did this mean for us?
Hormonal changes during our menstrual cycle can affect self-perception of body image which influences our food habits, mindfulness and exercise habits too. You either tend to spiral and eat all wrong, or exercise too hard or eat nothing at all. But knowing it is temporary, you can surely ask yourself next time whether you’re between phases.
There’s not much that can be done about the hormonal fluctuations as they are natural and critical for procreation.
But I felt just knowing about this study might influence your mind if and when you assess body image. If you’re reading this and you’re body image sensitive on some parts of the month, just put a cloth on that mirror, girl & keep doing what you do normally!
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(Reading & Reference :-
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6519316/)
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