When Someone You Love Criticizes Your Body: Finding Grace in the Moment

By Jennifer Youngren, NDTR

It happened quietly, like these things often do. A passing comment over coffee, barely loud enough for anyone else to catch—but loud enough to echo in my mind for hours afterward.

"You look bloated," she said. "Your stomach is… protruding."

There wasn’t cruelty in her voice. In fact, it sounded almost like concern. But her words? They landed. And they lingered.

It wasn’t just her observation. It was the way it activated something old and familiar in me. A script I’ve spent years untangling. A story I no longer believe—but sometimes still hear in my own mind.

She’s in her eighties. She comes from another time, another system of beliefs. Her generation was taught to chase smallness like it was synonymous with virtue. There was no language for body acceptance or metabolic individuality in her world. No context for hormone shifts, digestive rhythms, or how trauma lives in the body. She was taught, by magazines and mothers and the quiet judgment of community, that a woman’s body was meant to shrink. That smaller meant safer. And that commentary, even when uninvited, was a form of care.

Still, her words hurt. Because I am human. And because I live in a body that has carried grief and children and caregiving and exhaustion and joy. My body is not a showpiece. It is a home. It is soft sometimes. Strong sometimes. Tired often. It is responsive, resilient, and alive.

Without saying anything, I texted my son—who was in the back room—and asked him to bring me a hoodie. Not because I was cold, but because I suddenly felt too visible. I wanted to hide.

I work closely with individuals navigating eating disorders and disordered eating. I’ve seen, firsthand, how deeply body image can shape a person’s sense of self. And I truly believe that nearly everyone—regardless of diagnosis—has experienced disordered thoughts about what their body should look like. Even those of us trained in this work. Even those of us doing the healing work ourselves.

You’d think I’d be beyond this by now. And for the most part, I am. Years of practice, reflection, and removing myself from conversations that shame or dissect other people’s bodies have created real distance between who I used to be and who I am now.

But I’m still a human being. I still live in a culture that equates thinness with value—even when that thinness is rooted in restriction, illness, or chronic anxiety. And paradoxically, I also live in a culture that criticizes bodies for being “too thin,” as if there is one narrow window of acceptable appearance, and everything outside of it is either indulgent or attention-seeking.

It’s exhausting. And it’s unsustainable.

There is no such thing as a perfect body. That’s something we need to collectively unlearn. Aesthetic ideals are not facts. They are cultural stories, rewritten every decade, recycled and repackaged as trends. What’s considered beautiful is often a moving target, dictated by industries that profit from our insecurities.

I’ve made comments too. About my own body. About others. I’ve caught myself mid-sentence and wished I could take it back. But the important thing is that I am catching myself now. That I’ve learned to pause, question, and choose differently.

And that’s what I teach—not perfection, but presence. Not body positivity, but body neutrality and respect. A way of existing in your body without needing to constantly audit or apologize for it.

Still, when someone you love makes a comment about your appearance, it’s jarring. It brings up more than just the moment. It activates every other time your body has felt like something to be managed or explained.

When that moment happened with my family member, I didn’t react outwardly. I didn’t argue or educate or correct her. I just wrapped myself in the hoodie and let the conversation move on. But it stayed with me.

Later, I reflected—not just on what she said, but on what it meant. And more importantly, on what I knew to be true:

That my body is not a static object.

That I do not owe flatness or firmness to anyone.

That I can be soft, strong, rested, bloated, or hungry—and all of those states are temporary and human.

That my worth doesn’t change because someone else feels entitled to comment on my body.

And that most people who comment on bodies are simply repeating what they were taught—that smaller is better, thinner is healthier, and change is always needed.

So here’s what I’ve learned, both as a practitioner and a person:

1. Pause before you absorb.

You don’t have to take on everything that’s said to you. You’re allowed to let it pass. You’re allowed to say: That’s not about me.

2. Consider where it’s coming from.

Most body criticism comes from fear, not fact. From someone’s own battles with shame and control. That doesn’t make it okay—but it helps you put it in perspective.

3. Stay connected to how you feel.

Not how you look in the mirror, but how you feel in your body. In your skin. In your meals. In your rest. In your movement. That’s the data that matters.

4. Don’t confuse appearance with character.

Kindness, intelligence, creativity, and joy have no weight limit. You do not become more valuable by becoming less visible.

5. Hold space for nuance.

You can want to feel good in your body and still reject the idea that your worth is tied to it. You can acknowledge your conditioning and still hold yourself accountable for doing better.

At Pumpkin House Nutrition, I work with real people. People who are healing. People who want to feel better without obsessing. People who are tired of food being a fight and their bodies being battlegrounds.

You don’t have to love your body to treat it with respect. You don’t have to be at peace to begin practicing care.

All you need is a willingness to question the scripts you’ve inherited and start writing new ones that serve your life—not someone else’s expectations.

Moments like these still happen. Maybe they always will. And sometimes, yes, I still react. I still tense up. I still want to retreat or disappear or change something about myself.

But I come back faster now. I don’t stay in that place. I pause, I check in, and I try to respond with more self-awareness than I had the time before.

That’s the real work. Not perfect acceptance, but the practice of returning—again and again—to yourself. To your values. To the truth that your body is not a problem to solve, but a relationship to tend to.