Body negativity in the workplace can impact your productivity, here’s how
WORDS BY MARY-ANN MCCALL
“When we don’t feel confident in how we look, we don’t put our hand up, speak out, step up or go for opportunities at work.”
The last thing anyone wants while working in an office is a voice in the back of your head telling you your body doesn’t look right. It’s not just something that affects people working in offices, either. Maybe you work at a hospital and you don’t feel comfortable in your scrubs, or you can’t stop checking how your body looks in the mirrors that line the walls at your retail job.
I remember working at a skin clinic and listening to the concerns of my clients, but thinking to myself that my uniform was feeling tighter than usual which, of course, distracted me from my work. This has got me thinking: are body image issues affecting our productivity at work?
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Body image activist and 2023 Australian of the Year Taryn Brumfitt knows what it’s like when negative thoughts take over. In fact, she’s made it her job to help people create a better body image for themselves.
Together with Dr Zali Yager, they’ve created Embrace Collective, a charity focused on the prevention of eating disorders and body image issues. Recently, the pair have been creating resources to help combat body image issues in the workplace.
Taryn tells me one of the main issues they’re working on tackling is body negativity. Below, the pair dissect some of the reasons why body negativity may be getting in the way of productivity at work.
Confidence in the workplace
Dr Zali believes one of the main impacts poor body image in the workplace can have is a lack of confidence. “I think this is actually one of the main impacts of body image on performance – and one that most people would experience. When we don’t feel confident in how we look, we don’t put our hand up, speak out, step up or go for opportunities at work. This impacts on our own performance and our collective productivity,” he explains.
Taryn agrees that there’s a strong correlation between body image and confidence. “We know that if we’re preoccupied with thoughts of ‘What do I look like?‘, or ‘What do other people think I look like?’, then it’s really hard to be present whether that’s in your personal relationships or even at work and it’s one of the reasons why we need to reduce appearance-based commentary,” explains Taryn.
Appearance biases
In the past, I’ve had clients say to me “You wouldn’t want your skin therapist to have bad skin!” as if that was a requirement for someone in my line of work. Dr Zali tells me that appearance biases, including size discrimination, have been found to reduce opportunities at work.
“Research has shown, time and time again, that people in larger bodies, in particular, are discriminated against in the workplace. Many of the studies have managers rate resumes and people in smaller bodies often get rated higher than people in larger bodies who have more skills and experience for the role,” he says.
Eating-based habits
Not wanting to eat in front of colleagues or worrying that the outfit you’ve chosen isn’t fitting well after a big lunch can lead people to not fuel their bodies adequately throughout the day.
“I think that it’s quite interesting that, despite the well-known impact of food and nutrition on energy and cognitive performance – and therefore, on workplace productivity – employers generally don’t consider how their employees fuel their body for optimal workplace performance,” Dr Zali tells me.
Social media
At work, many of us are regularly using our phones to call clients, message colleagues and scroll through Instagram and TikTok. But Dr Zali says our social media consumption will likely have a more noticeable impact on our body image if we work in industries like fashion and beauty, particularly if we’re in content creation, social media or marketing.
“If you work in the fashion and beauty industry, you are likely to follow more fashion and beauty content which is known to have some of the most harmful effects,” he explains. As someone who works in the beauty industry, I know this firsthand. On numerous occasions, I’ve had clients show me a stranger’s face on social media and tell me they’d like to copy it entirely – it’s wild.
When lunchtime rolls around, most of us are doom scrolling as soon as we have the opportunity to but studies have found that mindless scrolling like this can have a detrimental impact on both our physical and mental health. And, as anyone who’s spent their lunch break looking at videos of women with toned bodies and flawless skin can attest to, it can have a devastating impact on our self-image.
To break this cycle, Taryn tells me we need to be more discerning about what we allow in our feeds. “We need to demand what we want or what we don’t want. It’s about getting every person to be discerning about where they put their time and their energy, and know that there are alternatives. I don’t want to feel bad about my body or who I am,” she says.
That’s not to say it’s all negative, though. Social media sites like Pinterest, a site many creatives use at work, are implementing tools to help bolster positive body image. Pinterest’s AI tool diversifies the inspiration images our searches turn up so that more varying body types and skin tones appear without having to look too hard for them. In turn, it provides a more authentic representation of what people actually look like.
What can workplaces do to help?
With all this in mind, it’s clear workplaces need to be doing more to deal with the impact of negative body image. Taryn believes workplaces need to actively create space for employees to talk about the way they feel about their bodies in order for positive change to happen, something she’s been working on with Dr Zali. They’re currently putting the final touches on Embrace at Work, a program that focuses on wellbeing in the workplace.
Taryn’s film about body image, Embrace, is also screened in workplaces around Australia. “There’s a lot of organisations that do screenings of Embrace to shift the dial. It’s storytelling that opens up a space for conversations, and we know that people who feel better about their bodies are more productive in the workplace,” Taryn says.
In Australia, organisations like The Wellness Workshop and Brave Heart Wellbeing offer workshops that help employees develop practical tools to work through body image issues and negative self-talk. Programs like these help ensure work becomes a nurturing environment where everyone is comfortable and valued, regardless of their appearance. At the end of the day, everyone deserves to feel at ease in their body while working, and initiatives like these mean that the hateful voices in our heads may someday become a whisper that we decide not to listen to.
For more on how body image can affect the workplace, head here.
