It is hardly uncommon to find that people who have lost of excess weight are not as happy as they would have been expected to be, or even as happy as society would have expected them to be.
Body image experts believe that it is fairly common, especially in the case of women, to be disappointed to some extent to discover that they still aren’t “perfect.” Even though they have managed to get rid of the excess weight, they see other issues like sagging skin, cellulite or a body shape that they still deem undesirable.
Some specialists use the term “phantom fat” to refer to this phenomenon of feeling fat and unacceptable after weight loss.
“People who were formerly overweight often still carry that internal image, perception, with them,” says Elayne Daniels, a psychologist in Canton, Mass., who specializes in body-image issues. “They literally feel as if they’re in a large body still.”
Daniels feels that one of the main reasons for this is that the brain hasn’t yet gotten used to the leaner, thinner body. This is particularly true of people who have had large amounts of excess weight and have undergone very rapid weight loss.
“Body image is a lot harder to change than the actual physical body is,” Daniels says.
Another reason for dissatisfaction with weight loss is the fear that they may regain all the pounds they have lost and they never feel safe. “They’re still in the back of their minds maybe waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he says.
Especially yo-yo dieters, who have seen their bodies lose and regain weight regularly find it hard to adjust to their image without worrying about losing it.
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