Fathers, Daughters and Body Image

Fathers with demands about how women should look can create body image issues in their daughters.

If a father of a daughter has specific expectations about how a woman should look, this can create significant body image issues in a daughter. The “type” that the father has can vary; one father may demand a woman be rail thin, whereas another might want women to have large breasts and bum. His “type”" could be short or tall, and could expand to areas like hair color and how she wears makeup. There are many forms his expression of that demand can take.

It can take very overt forms, such as directly urging the daughter to work out, to lose weight, to change her body shape in some way, and even to suggest or enthusiastically pay for plastic surgery.

This may seem intense but I know women who have had dads like this, and the pressures of these demands are crushing. There can often be a sexual attraction component to these demands which adds another layer of complexity to the damage.

However, most women do not experience this overt expression, but rather more subtle demands which can still have an impact.

Even if a father never comments directly to his own daughter about her looks or body, if he openly criticizes other women's bodies with feelings of distaste or disapproval, this creates body image issues.

If a father never compliments a daughter's appearance until her body changes due to an eating disorder or surgery, and then this is the only time he compliments her, the silence that was present at all other times communicates a very clear message.

A father with strong demands about how women should look will directly or indirectly teach his daughter that unless she looks a certain way, she will not be loved or approved of or wanted, particularly by a man.

I invite all daughters to consider whether their dad(s) had judgements about women's bodies or demands on how they should look, and if so, what these were and how that would have impacted you.

It should be stated that for women and body image issues, there are multiple combinations of causes in terms of parental impact: some women do not have fathers with these demands but rather internalize their body image stuff from their mothers, and some women get it from both parents. It is somewhat uncommon for it to only come from a father, but it is certainly possible.

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