You’re Welcome.
Is it me, or does it seems like a couple of people posting here assume that someone complaining about low-self esteem must be over weight? Not everyone has jumped to that conclusion, but a few have and I find it concerning. I know some “full figured gals” who love themselves and life and have known slender women whose self-esteem was in the toilet. Granted, weight issues are part of the problem, but it seems to me people get eatting disorders because they feel like crap in the first place.
I agree that outside reenforcemnt is important and it MUST start at home - reading what some of you wrote about your parents reminds me that not everyone ought to be in charge of children (I hope you folks have at least ONE decent relative to counter-act the 'rents!).
And I’m all for even sven’s suggestion - let’s have an orgy!
Patty
I wasn’t overweight until around 3rd grade or so. If I was sad, I ate. If I was upset, I ate, and so on. And I hated, hated, hated going clothes shopping with my mom. She tried to put it nicely (because she had a mom who would make fun of her to her face about being overweight as a kid!), but hearing, “you’re really going to have to lose some weight”, even gently phrased, felt like a knife in the gut. So I’d get upset, and, yep you guessed it, eat. I got made fun of in school for being fat, so I’d eat because I was upset, etc etc.
Then came high school. It was actually a rather decent high school; I don’t recall a single time that anyone made fun of me for being overweight (all girls school). But that was when I really became obsessed with it. I have no idea why. So I decided to not eat.
In less than a year, I went from being 200lbs to 125. I remember one part of an August, being so damn proud that I managed to go 3 days without eating a single thing.
Eventually I got some of my mental things back in order. But that meant going back to eating, and I still hadn’t learned how to eat properly. So guess what weight I’m up to now? 195. :sigh:
And for me, having a significant other doesn’t even help things. For one thing, I can’t even admit to myself that I have one, because the idea just boggles my mind. I actually get irritated at any compliments he gives me. I detest physical contact. I was so tightly-wound about all this crap that the first time he hugged me (hugged, for God’s sake!) I burst into tears. 
I just couldn’t handle it, I felt utterly miserable.
But overall, I have found little things that have helped. I realised that all the little things that I stress about, hell, no one’s gonna notice them! My hair’s a bit flatter (hard to do, with fine straight hair)? Who’s gonna notice that? Yeah, I don’t like my body, but if I can at least put on the attitude that I do, it’ll do wonders.
And I’ve started to do stuff about it. I’m exercising 20 minutes a day/3 days a week (and once I get used to that, I’ll probably go to 5 days). I’m trying to eat better, and if I fall off the healthy track, I don’t beat myself up over it, I just start again. And eventually I’ll get pretty close to what I want to be, which sounds pretty damn good.
Oh, and an addendum:
Back when I wasn’t eating, during that entire time, I must admit that I was most miserable when I got below 150 lbs. That’s when I became the most insecure, paranoid, miserable person I’ve seen. It got worse when I finally got below 140. So slimming down doesn’t do jack to your self-esteem if you’re slimming down for the wrong reasons.
Why should I conform to other people’s standards?
I don’t see them making any effort to conform to mine… 
(if I had my way, “smiling and thanking” would happen much more often. )
… adding, in all seriousness, even your most well meaning friends will sometimes try to “help” you.
Yet there is nothing bad about being different.
My grandma once said she thought it was because people who lacked confidence sought to be the same/to encourage others to be like them - so as not to be thought “different” themselves.
Sometimes loneliness hurts - but then you go out and find others who have a bit in common with you, rather than seeking to be acceptable to those you have little in common with.
Age helps, I guess. The older you get, the less it matters - I think!
Leastaways, this is what I am finding.
A real help has been my constant interest in learning stuff.
Not to become an expert, or to be thought interesting - but for something worthwhile to occupy my thoughts.
to moderator : i agree with you.
to zweisamkeit : looks like you are willing to give it another shot … but utlimately there is no point in giving it another shot unless you have figured out why you failed the first time. what the **** am i saying ? i am not saying you should not try, what i am saying is that you should do some good research and know what youre getting into before you do it.
i always thought i knew what i was doing when i was dieting – i didn’t. its not very complicated but few really have a grasp of it, and as far as i know the only ones who understand it are the harcore bodybuilders.
if you do not know what LEPTIN is, then you definitely should do some reading … i would start here :
you could just browse through different threads for a few days, then venutre a question, but be advised that you better not talk too much yourself because those guys know more than you do and will flame you to death.
so everyone knows, men have self esteem issues too, and its just as bad for us as it is for women.
http://www.news.wisc.edu/view.html?get=398
So perhaps low self esteem isn’t just due to TV or sexuality, perhaps its ingrained deep in our minds to force us to compete with each other or some other half assed sociological theory.
Not to draw the crux of the discussion into some gender-indifferent everyone accepts everyone movement, but since it is (not as much as yesteryear, but still) culturally expected that women be vulnerable, insecure & timid, and culturally expected that men be brave, secure & extroverted, is this why only women’s low self esteem makes the news & bestselling books? because they are expected to be weak & insecure while men are expected to be the opposite? I guess that topic should go on the G.D. board.
i find that incredibly sexy for some strange reason.
In case my post draws away from the original purpose of this thread, what i meant was because men have self esteem issues as bad as women, and men aren’t expected to be pretty, then perhaps self esteem issues are deeper than just physical beauty. Several of the women here admit that even when they were more attractive they still had self esteem issues. Men (who really don’t have to worry about being attractive) have issues just as bad as women. Lack of self esteem is probably a much deeper issue than just female sexuality. Female sexuality is probably just one of the more obvious expressions of this universal, ingrained attribute, not the cause of it.
With all due respect, The Calculus of Logic, I think there are significant differences between men & women having low self esteem. Did you ever see the Special K commercial with men repeating things typical said by women? “Do these pants make my butt look big… I have my mother’s thighs…” etc. It was funny because, you rarely hear a man say such things, and sadly, women say that kind of thing all too frequently. Did you happen to catch the NYPD Blue episode where Dennis Franz was shown naked (back side)? You think prime time TV would ever show a women equal to his size nude? Not bloody likely.
What I’m saying is, I think men can & do have self esteem issues too. But they seem to be from different causes. Being manly & macho enough. The media isn’t telling men to starve themselves, so far as I can tell.
I’m not trying to be rude, but I think the issues aren’t the same. And, the OP was specifically asking about women.
Marvel, you make a good point - not all self esteem problems are related to weight but sadly, a lot of them are. Look around at magazines, TV, and movies. Jennifer Lopez and Kate Winslet are what they consider curvy & full figured (in Kate’s case). It boggles the mind. People like Rosie O’Donnell and Carmen Maynheim can hardly be mentioned in an article without their weight being mentioned, sometimes several times. Yet, I rarely see this for larger male actors. There is a double standard out there.
Make that Camryn Manheim. D’oh. I knew I shouldn’t have guessed at the spelling.
I don’t want to get too far off topic, either, but I think men’s self-esteem issues are usually centered on financial success and emotional stoicism (i.e. “big boys don’t cry”) rather than physical stuff. Not that that is any easier to cope with, but it’s a different issue.
I can’t imagine how low someone’s self-esteem has to be to result in three days of NO food. Talk about self-abuse. Which makes me think: I’ve often looked at eating disorders as a distorted body image spiraling out of control, but I don’t think the aspect of self-punishment was ever brought so forcefully home to me as it was in zweisamkeit’s post.
Generally fashion designers pick stick-women to model their stuff because it’s easy to make something look good on the hanger without any pesky curves to interfere with the line of the outfit.
Calculus, I know that men are targets of advertising to make them feel inadequate just like women are (with their own set of triggers, of course), but I didn’t want to muddy the waters too much here by addressing both men’s and women’s self-esteem problems. My husband and I have talked about the differences between how men and women are cut down by the media many times, and it truly is a whole 'nother thread.
Jujutsu (the study, thereof) greatly improved my wife’s self-image. Note that this was not a “self-defense course” (a bunch of questionable tricks) or some sort of “esteem building” use of jujutsu. It was also not for sports. It was a fairly traditional jujutsu school.
Wow, LifeOnWry, I didn’t think that I wrote something that powerful! 
The scary thing is that I know that I haven’t kicked it completely; there are times when I feel I must lose weight now, so I drop to one meal (which can be just a cup of instant matzo ball soup, at a whopping 50 calories) for a week or so. I know that isn’t right or healthy, but sometimes…
And the one thing that scares me about it is the feeling of utter power that I get by not eating! I’ve read that a lot of times eating disorders are all about control, and I think that’s at least partially true. If I feel hungry but don’t eat anything, I have this rush of, “ha HA! I beat you! I’m not eating anything and you can’t do anything about it!” Do I know who I’m saying this to? Of course not, it’s completely illogical.
You know why I finally stopped? The big part was that I had friends who sat down and talked to me, and made sure I ate when I was with them at a restaurant or places like that. It made me feel better about it, at least a little bit, especially since they didn’t hold any of it against me.
But another minor aspect was that it was getting scary. I woke up one day, sat, then stood out of bed, and prompty passed out onto my floor. I woke up pretty quickly (I think!), but it was so freaky because I fell like a sack of potatoes. I went to a Rob Zombie concert with my friends one evening, and during the intermission, I started to black out, falling into one of my friends. I remembered everything getting really dim and noises sounding like they were far away and filtered, and feeling dizzy, then stumbling. I hadn’t eaten a single thing that day.
Afterwards, I forgot just how CRAPPY I felt all the damn time. Walking around was tiring, and walking for too long (“too long” being more than a couple minutes) could make me feel light-headed and weak. I survived on Diet Pepsi and an occasional Altoid, outside of a dinner when I was at home.
It’s not safe and it’s not fun, and I have to admit that I’m glad I have at least a little bit more self-confidence now, even though I weigh a lot more than I did at my low.
zweisamkeit - it takes courage to face your mistakes, and grace and humility to recognize and acknowledge the help of your friends.
Ya know what that makes you, right now? A courageous, graceful woman who is so lucky to have friends that think highly enough of you to intervene on your behalf.
You must be a pretty cool person. I’d say you’re worth more credit than you give yourself.
(No - this is not an attempt to “psychologize” you. Just a not-so-subtle reminder that we - all of us - are more than our body image.)
Y’know, I’ve read through this whole thread, and I’ve come down strongly on the side of those who advocate weightlifting as a confidence booster. Even if your figure doesn’t change a bit, you’ll be stronger, and the sense of accomplishment you get from that alone will make a huge difference in how you feel about yourself.
If you’re interested, you should read this.