Banish Anxiety About Your Post-Lockdown Looks

Re-entry into pre-social distancing life is going to be such a joy. Re-entry into nonstretchy pants? Maybe not so much.

The coronavirus changed so much about people’s lives, including, for many folks, their bodies. Gyms closed, child care vanished, and while food became a comfort for some, others had their appetites squelched by anxiety. The yearlong media diet of bad news may have also given them a new wrinkle or two.

And these are just things that may have happened by following social distancing recommendations. Americans who contracted Covid-19 may still be reckoning with difficult physiological changes, including hair loss and even tooth loss.

If you’ve been feeling trepidation about your post-lockdown looks, know you’re not alone. In January, David Frederick, an associate professor of health psychology at Chapman University, asked Americans to describe how the pandemic influenced their body image. Forty-eight percent of female respondents said it contributed to negative feelings about their weight. When asked about overall feelings of attractiveness, 43 percent of women and 26 percent of men said Covid-19 negatively affected how attractive they felt.

These feelings may come from various places, including disrupted exercise routines or more time spent staring at screens: Researchers in Britain, in a study published in the Personality and Individual Differences journal in February, posited that an increased consumption of media — which can glorify thin bodies — could contribute to anxiety over body image. Researchers also found that the lockdowns, for those struggling with an eating disorder or with a history of eating disorders, have been especially triggering for harming behaviors like bingeing.

It doesn’t have to be like this, though. “You are enough; your body is enough,” said Joy Cox, who studies weight stigma at Rutgers University. “I don’t think we say that enough, honestly.” Instead of thinking about your body’s imperfections, why not focus on the fact that your body carried you through a global pandemic, emerging as a survivor on the other side? That’s remarkable and worth celebrating.