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Body image

Body image is about how you think and feel about your body, and it can have a big impact on your mental health. If you’re struggling with your body image, our guide offers tips and advice, including where to find support.

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What is body image?

Body image is about how you think and feel about your body. This includes how you feel about the way you look, how comfortable you feel in your body, and how much other people’s opinions affect you.

It’s not just about size or weight. Body image can include lots of things like shape, height, acne, scars, hair or hair loss, skin tone, facial features, or how your body moves or works. And worrying about your appearance isn’t always about wanting to look different. Sometimes it’s about wanting to feel accepted, attractive, confident, safe, or like you belong.

Everyone has a body image, and your feelings about it can change over time. Many young people say their body image worries started when their body began changing during puberty, or when they became more aware of how they compared to others at school or online. But anyone can struggle with body image at any time, and your feelings about your body can often change as you get older.

Worrying about your body image doesn’t mean you’re shallow or vain. It’s a very human response to wanting connection, acceptance, and reassurance from other people. If these worries are starting to feel overwhelming or upsetting, it might be time to get support. Our advice is here to help you understand what you’re feeling and find ways to feel more positive about your body and the way you look.

Body dysmorphic disorder, sometimes called body dysmorphia, is a mental health condition where you spend a lot of time worrying about flaws in your appearance. Often these flaws are not noticeable to other people, but they can feel very real to you.

If you have BDD, you might find yourself:

  • constantly checking or avoiding mirrors
  • comparing yourself a lot to others
  • spending a lot of time trying to hide or “fix” your appearance
  • feeling upset, anxious, or ashamed about your body

BDD can affect your everyday life, friendships, and mental health. And sometimes it can lead to depression or self-harm. If you think you might have BDD, it’s important to get help now. Talk to a GP or trusted adult about how to get support.

Find out more about BDD
A young Black woman sitting on a bench in the park.
BDD is something that takes time and effort to address, and requires a shift in mindset, which doesn’t happen overnight!
Molly
How mantras help me cope with body dysmorphic disorder

How can body image impact your mental health?

Feeling pressure to look a certain way can have a big impact on your mental health. This pressure is often about trying to fit to certain body ideals or be “perfect”, even though there’s no such thing. Many young people find themselves comparing their body to others – whether that’s friends, classmates, celebrities, or people on social media. Over time, this can lead to a negative body image, where you judge or criticise yourself a lot. This can affect your mental health, potentially leading to low mood, anxiety, or low self-esteem.

Building a more positive relationship with your body and not basing your worth on how you look or move can really support your wellbeing. When you start valuing things like your personality, values, effort, and strengths, it can help you to feel happier and healthier.

Get tips on building a positive body image

Everyone experiences body image differently. For some people, worrying about your body image can start to influence your everyday choices like what you wear, whether you go out with friends, or how comfortable you feel being seen by others.

Here are some signs you might be struggling:

  • feeling very worried or preoccupied with how you look
  • having low self-esteem or confidence, or a very negative view of yourself
  • having harsh or critical thoughts about your body or appearance
  • feeling anxious a lot of the time or more irritable than usual
  • wanting to cover up parts of your body because you feel self-conscious
  • avoiding certain clothes, especially tight or revealing ones
  • avoiding activities where you have to dress in a certain way, like swimming or PE
  • comparing your body to other people’s and feeling like yours is “wrong” or flawed
  • spending a lot of time looking in the mirror and criticising what you see, or avoiding mirrors altogether
  • changing the way you eat in the hope it will change how you look
  • having fixed ideas about food being good or bad
  • feeling ashamed, uncomfortable, or anxious about your body
  • withdrawing from friends or avoiding activities you usually enjoy
  • spending a long time getting ready or avoiding plans because of how you look
  • feeling anxious about being seen by others or eating in front of people
  • struggling to notice positive things about yourself
  • self-harming

If any of these feel familiar, it may be a sign that your body image is affecting your mental health. You don’t have to relate to everything on this list or feel “bad enough” to deserve support.

Some people feel embarrassed talking about body image worries or fear that others will think they’re being vain or overly dramatic. But struggling with body image is very common, and no matter how you experience it you deserve support just as much as anyone else.

If body image worries are taking up space in your head, that matters. There are lots of people and organisations you can contact for help.

Get help now
A young person laughing with her friends.
When it comes to body insecurity, it can range from insecurity over our thighs and belly, to our face, arms, or other parts of ourselves. Growing up, I have always been insecure about my face – specifically, my acne.
Lily
Tips for overcoming body insecurities

What causes difficulties with body image?

There isn’t one single reason why someone might struggle with body image. How you feel about your body is shaped by your experiences and environment, and this can be different for everyone. Here are some common things that can impact how you feel about your body.

Social media can be a place to connect and express yourself, but it can also make it harder to feel good about your body, especially when images are filtered, posed, or focused on appearance. Over time, this can affect your self-esteem, increase anxiety, and make you feel unhappy with how you look.

Some young people find their body image improves when they take breaks from social media or change the accounts they follow.

Get advice in our guide to social media and mental health

For some people, body image is closely linked to specific experiences or parts of who you are. This could include:

  • living with a long-term health condition or disability
  • cultural expectations about what bodies “should” look like
  • your gender or sexuality

These things don’t exist on their own. They’re often connected to wider social pressures and discrimination, which can make difficulties with your body image harder to deal with.

Find out more about identity and body image

The way family members talk about other people’s bodies and their own can influence how you feel about yours. Comments about weight, food, or appearance (even if they’re meant as jokes or helpful advice) can stick with you.

Lots of parents and carers can also have a positive impact on your body image, by making you feel supported and accepted for who you are. But if you’re struggling with family expectations, our guide can help.

Guide to struggling with family

Friends and classmates can have a big influence on how you feel about your body. Supportive friendships can help you feel accepted and more confident, but sometimes there can be pressure to look a certain way to fit in. Comments about appearance or comparing yourself to others can also have an impact.

Get more advice on friendships

If you’re being bullied or cyberbullied about how you look, this can be especially harmful for your body image and mental health. Bullying is never okay, and it’s important to tell someone you trust and get support.

Find out more in our guide to bullying

Struggling with body image can happen at any time, but it’s especially common to have difficult feelings about your body during puberty. That’s because puberty can change your body in ways you can’t control – like your height, weight, or shape – which can be hard to adjust to.

If your body develops earlier or later than your friends, or differently from what you think it “should” look like, this can make it even harder to feel positive about your body. If you’re trans or non-binary and struggle with how your body looks as a result, you may find this especially difficult.

Three young people sitting together in a park.
Puberty was a traumatic time because my body began changing in ways that felt completely at odds with how I saw myself.
Charlie, 20
My experience of an eating disorder as a trans man

Some medications, especially those used to treat severe mental health problems, can cause side effects like weight gain or physical changes. This can be upsetting and affect how you feel about your body, even if the medication is helping your health in other ways.

If medication side effects are affecting your body image or self-esteem, you deserve support. Talk to your doctor or mental health team about how you’re feeling and whether there are ways to manage these side effects or get extra support.

Find out more about medication
A boy wearing a grey t-shirt sits beside a window while using Facebook on his laptop.
Those images don’t reflect how people look in real life. Everybody has imperfections and insecurities – that’s what makes us human.
How to cope if social media affects your body image

Identity and body image

How you feel about your body doesn’t exist on its own. It’s often shaped by who you are, how you’re seen by others, and the expectations placed on you. It’s very linked to your identity, your experiences, and the different things that make you who you are.

If parts of your identity have made body image harder for you, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It just means that the people around you don’t always get the ways in which we’re all different. Everyone deserves to feel safe and at home in their own bodies.

Here are some parts of your identity that might have an impact on how you feel about your body.

People from all backgrounds can struggle with body image. But what those worries look like isn’t always about weight or shape.

For some people, body image worries might focus more on things like skin tone, hair texture, facial features, or body shape, especially if these don’t match what’s seen as “ideal” in the media or wider society.

You might also feel caught between different cultural expectations, like if your family values one type of body, but the world around you promotes another.

Feeling judged, misunderstood, or pressured to fit in can make body image worries harder to deal with, especially if you’ve experienced racism or discrimination. Our guides can help.

Living with a long-term physical or mental health condition, or a disability, can affect how you experience your body. This could be because of changes to your appearance, energy levels, mobility, chronic pain, visible, or how your body functions. As a result, you might feel frustrated, disconnected from your body, or judged by others who don’t understand what you’re dealing with.

None of this means you’re weak or failing. It just means society has not done a good job of making things accessible for you and that some people might find it hard to understand what your life is like.

Get more advice on disability and mental health

Some neurodivergent young people, including autistic young people or those with learning disabilities, might experience their bodies differently.

This could include feeling less connected to your body, finding coordination or movement harder, or struggling with how your body feels in space. Being misunderstood, excluded, or bullied can also affect confidence and self-esteem, which are closely linked to body image.

Finding ways to feel more comfortable and confident in how your body moves and works, rather than how it looks, can help build a more positive body image over time. We have more advice in our guides.

If you’re a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, you might experience extra pressures around your body image. For example, you might feel pressured to look a certain way to be accepted, attractive, or feel validated in your sexuality or gender. Some people feel judged even within their own communities, while others feel unsafe or excluded in wider society.

For trans and non-binary young people, body image can also be closely linked to gender dysphoria (a feeling of distress caused by a mismatch between your body and your gender identity). And how you feel about your body may change over time, especially at different points in your transition, if that’s something you choose to do.

If you need support, we have more advice in our guides:

A young Black woman in a wheelchair talking to a young Black man on a bench in the park. The woman is laughing while the man explains something.
I know it's easier said than done, but it’s important to accept and value ourselves as we are. We are all great in our own different ways.
Grace, 25
Comparing yourself to others: how to stop it bringing you down

Body image and eating disorders

Struggling with body image can sometimes lead to eating problems or eating disorders, like anorexia or bulimia. At the same time, having an eating disorder can make you feel worse about your body, creating a cycle where body image and eating problems feed into each other.

If you have an eating problem or disorder, you might notice changes in your eating habits, thoughts about food, or feelings about your body, or find yourself avoiding social situations because of body image worries. If this sounds familiar, it’s important to get support as soon as possible. We have more advice in our guides.

A young person smiling at their friends.
Every eating disorder is different, and not everybody experiences the same symptoms and experiences. So, whatever your experience is, please know that it’s valid.
Beth, 16
Tips on the start of your eating disorder recovery journey

Tips for developing a more positive body image

A positive body image doesn’t mean you always love every part of your body or feel perfect all the time. It means accepting your appearance most of the time and making sure negative thoughts don’t stop you from living a full life. Improving this takes time and practice, but even small changes over time can help.

Below are some tips you can try. Not every tip will work for everyone, but trying different approaches can help you feel more confident in the way you look.

If your body image is causing stress, or if you’re being bullied about how you look, it can help to talk to a friend, a trusted adult, or a health professional. This is especially important if you feel pressure to make drastic changes, like starting extreme diets, taking supplements, having cosmetic procedures, or if you have thoughts of harming yourself. Reaching out can help you feel less alone and get the right support.

Get advice on talking to your GP

Social media can be fun and a good way to connect, but it can also affect how you feel about your body. Notice how scrolling or certain accounts make you feel. If posts or hashtags trigger negative feelings about your body, consider muting or unfollowing them. Remember that images are often edited or posed, and not always a reflection of real life. Taking breaks from online platforms can help protect your mental health.

Get more advice on social media and mental health
One habit I have adopted that has improved my body confidence is not going on social media as often. I find that social media really does a lot of damage to my self-worth and can be a drain of our self-love.
Samantha, 16
My journey to loving my body

When body image is affecting your confidence, it can start to feel like how you look is the most important thing about you. But there are lots of other ways to build confidence and feel good about yourself.

Spending time on hobbies, creativity, sport, music, gaming, volunteering, mindfulness, learning new skills, or anything else you enjoy can help you focus on more than appearance and feel more connected to who you are.

Try to find activities and ways of moving your body that feel enjoyable, comforting, or meaningful for you, rather than things that feel punishing or pressured. Feeling proud of yourself for things you do, not just how you look, can help build self-esteem over time.

Pay attention to how you look at yourself. If mirrors or reflective surfaces make you feel anxious, don’t avoid them, but instead look into them and try to focus on what you like about your body and what it can do. Setting small boundaries for time spent in front of the mirror, and practising different ways of responding to your triggers, can help you develop a healthier relationship with your body.

Try to notice when you’re having unhelpful thoughts about your body, like assuming everyone is judging you or focusing only on one feature. When this happens, pause and ask yourself: “Is this really true?” or “Would I think this about a friend?”. Try keeping a small journal or note on your phone to track moments when you notice these thoughts and how you respond.

I recommend to anyone battling any form of insecurities to start to keep a journal. One of the first things I started to do was every morning I would make a body gratitude list.
Ria, 24
Tips for your journey towards self-love

Feeling accepted and understood by other people can make a big difference to how you feel about yourself. Try to spend time with people who make you feel comfortable being yourself, rather than people who make you feel judged or pressured to look a certain way.

This could be friends, family members, online communities, clubs, support groups, or communities connected to your identity, interests, culture, sexuality, gender, or experiences. Feeling like you belong can help you build confidence that is not only based on appearance. Depending on what you’re going through, there are lots of peer support groups you can join, giving you a chance to meet others who’ve been through it too:

Your body is not just something to look at. It’s also something that supports you every day.

Even if you’re struggling with how you feel about your body, trying to care for it gently can help you build a healthier relationship with yourself over time. This might include getting enough rest, eating regularly, drinking water, moving in ways that feel good, wearing clothes that feel comfortable, or giving yourself time to relax and recover.

You don’t have to love every part of your body all the time to treat yourself with care and compassion.

Are you caring for or criticising your appearance?

Caring about your appearance is not automatically unhealthy. Lots of people enjoy fashion, skincare, makeup, fitness, hairstyling, or expressing themselves through how they look.

What often matters more is how these things make you feel and where the pressure is coming from. For example, are you doing something because it helps you feel comfortable, confident, creative, or cared for? Or because you feel ashamed, anxious, “not good enough”, or afraid people will reject you otherwise?

Sometimes body-related habits can slowly become more about self-criticism or control than self-care. Checking in with yourself kindly and honestly can help you notice when something is starting to affect your mental health.

Two boys sitting in the park with their arms around each other, smiling and looking at each other.
I quickly realised that my acne wasn’t going to disappear overnight, and I needed to try and shift my perspective in order to manage my mental health and gain back some self-confidence.
Rowan, 24
Acne and mental health: how I improved my self-confidence

How to support someone struggling with body image

If someone you care about is struggling with how they feel about their body, your support can really help. Here are some things you can do:

  • Help them see they’re more than how they look

    Remind them that their appearance is only one small part of who they are. Notice and encourage their personality, values, skills, interests, friendships, and passions. Focusing on how they feel and what they enjoy can help take the pressure off appearance.

  • Be mindful of your language

    Your words matter. Try to avoid body-shaming or diet talk about anyone, including yourself. Being kind to your own body and modelling self-care can show them healthier ways to think about how they look.

  • Help them create a safe online space

    Help them to clean up their social media by looking at which accounts they could unfollow or mute. Instead, suggest content that celebrates body diversity. You could also encourage them to take breaks from social media altogether.

  • Encourage them to seek support

    If body image worries are starting to affect their mental health, eating, or daily life, encourage them to get professional support. This could be talking to a GP or contacting a helpline. Looking for help early can make a real difference.

Real stories from young people

Get help now

More information and advice

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This page was reviewed in May 2026.

It was co-created by young people with lived experience of body image worries.

We will next review the page in 2029.

YoungMinds is a proud member of PIF TICK – the UK's quality mark for trusted health information.

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