Estos últimos fines de semana Ana María Gallardo (37) los ha pasado en el campo, en una casa antigua en la que no hay espejos y donde en general, casi nunca, se encuentra con sus vecinos. Como tampoco tiene un clóset propio, sólo lleva la cantidad de ropa que le cabe en su mochila, porque además debe trasladar las cosas de sus hijos. No se preocupa por su apariencia porque nadie la ve, no conoce a nadie por ahí. En resumen, la comodidad ha sido su prioridad.

He has in that at least about 4 or 5 weekends and this last Sunday, at the end of the day, he realized that he had time to cook, take the children to the pool, gardine, go running, go out to eatWith the family and even read a book.The revelation did not occur immediately, it was on this last trip to the field, when when doing the backpack, he had to add a second reading.There he was aware of how profitable his weekends were in that house.

Where did you usually get that energy and time?Ana María is a psychologist and director of the Body Positive Chile Center, an activist of body diversity.Still acknowledges that moving away from the mirrors was something very spontaneous, that he did not look for.“Thanks to my work, I have focused on reunitting with my body image in front of the mirror and it has been a tremendous job to look at me with a more loving look.However, I recognize the high emotional burden that my physical appearance has had throughout my life, ”he says.And it's normal.Most women give a high emotional burden on how we see ourselves, and that is the product of how we have been socialized and symbolic violence with respect to our role in society.That is why we can spend several hours of the day worried about our physical appearance, thinking that we are more or less valuable for how we see each other.

“Living without mirrors was something that I did not look for, but that moment came and I realized how my relationship with my body changed: what clothes I choose to be comfortable, how long I dedicate to my personal appearance and how much energy I left available to do others stuff.Those weekends I could connect with the movement that my body offers me, connect with the feeling of comfort, I even came to play with mud as when I was 5 years old.At that time, the most important thing was to have a good time, and not how I saw me, because my physical appearance had not been important to achieve any of these things, ”he says.

El famoso Body checking

According to Ana María, women usually autocosify ourselves, that is, treating us as an evaluation object.“In societies like ours, even the value of women passes more for their physical appearance than for who is really.In this way, women lead to develop hypervigilance towards our body and our physical appearance.The social pressure becomes so strong, that finally we also come to accept that role in society.That is why we talk about symbolic violence, because we end up accepting and reproducing it ”.This in turn translates into the fact that we use several hours of our day precisely pending our physical aspect, making sure that "it looks good".In fact, a study led by the rebellion of the body determined that women use between 3 and 4 hours a day in something related to our physical appearance.

This concern is channeled through the body checking, bodily verification behaviors such as looking in the mirror, testing clothes of a certain size to see whether or not, touching the body to see if it has a certain volume or if it has changed;constantly measure."We all do it to a lesser or greater extent.For example, you pass in front of a showcase and take advantage of checking if your clothes fit well, or if you may be disheveled or makeup.However, when one works with people who have eating disorders (TCA), one notes that these behaviors are much more frequent.For example, see if the clothes feel good or if your body increased in volume after eating.So, it is a behavior that is aimed at ensuring that your body remains in a certain weight or volume.Somehow, body checking is aimed at lowering anxiety against potential weight gain, ”explains Ana.

The problem is that, what has been observed is that these behaviors tend to increase anxiety for physical appearance and become a vicious circle.“It is normal that after eating one has a belly, but for a person with TCA this can be perceived as an increase in weight and that can generate a lot of emotional or fear discomfort.And people without TCA can also incur an excessive body checking, can even alter our ability to concentrate on what we are doing.Already in the year 98, an researcher showed how concern about our physical appearance in women can go to the detriment of our performance in academic activities.We can see this very specifically in girls who are forced to use Jumper or skirts at school, who lose part of their concentration is to check that they are not seen their underwear instead of worrying about their task ”.

For all this is that for Ana, the discovery of the mirror has been a nice exercise.“As valid as carrying out activities that look in the mirror to meet him with him.I, for example, like to dance, and I love to see the movement of my body when I dance without an appreciation with respect to whether or not to hear.I think that as a conclusion, the important thing is to learn to inhabit the body.As Lindsay Kite psychiatrist says, ‘it is important.