By Lisa Hamilton Wellness 28.08.2025

"I’ve Battled Body Image Issues Since My Teens. This Changed Everything"

After body positivity swept the world, writer Lisa Hamilton explores how this new mindset helped ease her anxiety and embrace her postpartum self.

TW: the article mentions body image and disordered eating.

Motherhood cracked me wide open.

There were sleepless nights, a relearning of self, a deep aching love, uncomfortable truths, and a newfound clarity about what does and doesn’t hold value.

Amongst the tears (lots), delightful sniffing of newborn heads (LOTS), and endless cycles of spit-up-stained clothes (no, seriously – A LOT), also came another layer to unpack as I waded through postpartum territory: body image issues.

After the birth of my second child, I found myself faced with overwhelming feelings of body dissatisfaction that manifested as irking, twisting, and contradictory thought patterns.

In strange synchronicity, I applauded my body for safely carrying and giving birth to a second child all the while chastising my reflection which displayed new battle scars, lumps, bumps, dips, curves and softness.

Research shows that around one in three women will experience body image issues during the postpartum phase with numerous studies revealing that body dissatisfaction is a huge contributor to poor mental health.

I began doing a bit of desktop research to learn more about this idea, which, according to the Butterfly Foundation, is a concept that suggests “a body is simply a vessel that carries us through life, and is never the most important thing about us.”

Oof. Yep, that struck a chord.

My body, while incredible in its endeavours to bring life into this world, is hardly the most interesting thing about me. I slowly but surely felt the edges of the new me settle into this concept of body neutrality, which became a new home for my thoughts and feelings with grace and compassion.

To better understand body neutrality, I spoke to Dr Kim Stirling, the Clinic Director at Foundations Perinatal and Child Psychology Centre, where she specialises in a broad spectrum of support services including perinatal mental health.

Throughout my teens and 20s, I experienced extreme body dysmorphia which would lead to episodes of disordered eating. So to say I was well versed in navigating the murky waters of body image would be an understatement.

However, being presented with such profound feelings of body dissatisfaction in my 30s after I had done so much work to overcome disordered eating in the past – I felt defeated.

I felt defeated because I wanted better for myself and I wanted to be better for my daughters, so they would always have a healthy role model to guide them.

I knew I had to switch my mindset and change the negative thought pattern - but how?

In the past, at my lowest points I unknowingly aligned with body negativity, and at my best I wholeheartedly jumped aboard the body positivity train that swept the world throughout the 2010s. But as I discovered postpartum, neither body negativity nor body positivity resonated or would work for this new me. I didn’t want to delve deeper into old negative patterns, but I also wasn’t quite in a position to be shouting from the rooftops about how much I love my slightly (ok fine: quite intensely) wonky breasts.

So that left me with body neutrality.

She told me that the perinatal period can be particularly challenging. Not only because of the major changes our bodies have gone through, but also because we are hyper-aware, which gives way to a preoccupation with body image.

“Imagine we draw a pie chart of our sense of self-worth,” she said. “The more preoccupied we are with a certain aspect of self, the larger the slice of that pie. If there is a huge preoccupation on our body as indicating our worth, it becomes a big problem for our mental health during the perinatal period when there are just so many biological things that are out of our control.

If we perceive these changes as flaws/defects, then we are more likely to be impacted and view our whole ‘self’ as not good enough.”

Dr Stirling told me that body neutrality is a particularly helpful mindset for postpartum mothers as it allows women to recognise that you don’t have to feel good about your body all the time and that approach is perfectly okay.

“The most helpful approach is to just focus our energy on meeting our physiological needs and making values-focused choices about how we show up in our lives,” she said.

In order to truly lean into body neutrality, I wanted to make sure I had the right tools to do so. I asked Dr Stirling for some advice on how she would encourage postpartum mothers to approach body neutrality.

1. Banish the inner critic

In perhaps an obvious statement (but one that bears repeating), often our harshest critic is ourselves. Embracing body neutrality isn’t about replacing negative self-talk with overtly positive mantras but rather ones that come from a place of compassion.

Instead of, “wow, you look beautiful today”, I’m using language like “my body is not a reflection of my worth”, “I listen to my body’s needs with care and respect”, and “my body is tired, but it’s getting me through the day”.\

2. Remove the obsession

We now know that being preoccupied with body image can often fuel the obsession around ‘bouncing back’. In order to lean into body neutrality, I’ve taken Dr Stirling’s advice to reduce or remove behaviours that were encouraging a preoccupation with my appearance.

Things like checking my weight, measuring myself, obsessing over recent pictures of myself and comparing myself to other postpartum mothers were not benefiting my overall well-being and therefore I had to change these behaviours to ensure I wasn’t falling back into obsessive negative patterns.

3. Engage in meaningful practices.

Body neutrality has been a really important reminder that my body image pales in comparison to my mind and body health. Shifting to more meaningful practices has been essential in cultivating this new mindset.

These practices have included engaging in physical exercise that feels regulating rather than focused on changing my body, wearing clothes that fit even if it means accepting they may be a different size, reconnecting with creative hobbies that aren’t body image related, removing food restrictions by focusing on nourishment above anything else and recognising critical thought patterns, and then closing the loop with 10 minutes of fresh air.

Since leaning into a body neutral mindset I’ve come to realise that this postpartum journey isn’t about overnight fixes. Just like my body grew and stretched gradually through pregnancy I have to allow the same grace and patience for my mind in this postpartum stage.