"Sexual abuse is a hard topic, but it is very applicable to far too many people. Your like, comment, or share on this post could get it into the news feed of someone who needs it. Here's where this topic converges with our work: Most survivors of sexual assault experience body image disturbance -- from preoccupation with appearance to severe eating disorders. Reports show 30-60% of patients in treatment for eating disorders have been sexually assaulted. Survivors of sexual assault report feelings and behaviors that are associated with body shame, or feelings of disgust for your own body. Girls and women starve, binge, purge, compulsively overeat, avoid exercise, exercise obsessively, isolate themselves, and elect to life-threatening cosmetic surgery in an attempt to or control their bodies — either by forcing them to fit cultural beauty ideals (which are upheld as the product of superior willpower and self-discipline) or to avoid conforming to beauty ideals and thus avoid sexual attention. Girls and women who have been used and abused as objects are likely to treat their own bodies as objects.
The effects of body shame, whether prompted by sexual assault or a lifetime of objectification, are tremendously painful. But we’re not writing this just to shed light on the pain. We’re writing this to help people — maybe even you — use that pain for good, for progress, for power. Our research centers on the goal of body image resilience, which is the ability to harness and use innate and learned skills to overcome the harms of objectification brought on by life disruptions. Those disruptions can range from sexual assault to bullying to stress over wearing a swimsuit. When not handled effectively, disruptions can drag people deeper into body shame and poor health choices or can be absorbed into a normalized “comfort zone” of body shame and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Disruptions can be daily or one-time events, but they always provide opportunities for growth that are not possible without pain. Your painful experience could be a powerful catalyst for the light at the end of the dark tunnel in all of our research: body image resilience."
-Beauty Redefined
See article @ Beauty Redefined