BODY IMAGE AND AUTISM.

Disclaimer: This is NOT intended to replace medical or psychological advice. If you are dealing with that, read this story by all means, but don't stop receiving treatment.

One of the things that teenagers, be they autistic or not, may have to deal with at times is negative body image. It is not just females who can fall victim, there are countless cases of males, as well. And such issues may not always relate to being thin, there are males who workout for many hours a week, trying to achieve a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his twenties, believing that to be the ideal.

My own experience with body image was when I was late tween, early to mid teens, and I entered the growth spurt seemingly early (I was 180cms tall before I was thirteen) and, as such, I was relatively thin and developed stretch marks on my lower back, looking like I'd had the cat o' nine tails. As such, I was very conscious of my back and felt (and still feel) uncomfortable about going around without a shirt on. It was not helped by adolescent acne that also spread to my back and the same obnoxious kid I referred to who brought the lollies in what was like a mini milk carton, who looked down my collar and tormented me about my pimples.

My father wanted me to pump weights, but what he didn't understand was, one reason why I was happy to remain thin was that some of the bullies were muscular in build, and I didn't want to be like them in appearance. I didn't want haircuts like they had (some had flat tops, others had undercut styles that I did not like that were long on the top and in front, but shaved at the back and above the ears), I didn't want anything like them. I didn't even want the same make of cars their parents had, which caused me to favour my father's Ford over my mother's Holden.

My father needed to be able to go back to square one and say, "Well, if I want you to do this, and I'm not around as much, what I need is for you to have positive role models, so that you can say, "That man's got a muscular build and he's all right. A gentle giant. You, too, can be a gentle giant."" And such role models weren't TV Stars, they needed to be people I knew in everyday life. See, also, with me, I didn't want to have my hair cut like this famous singer, or wear clothes like this famous actor, or what have you.

I also believe in the old, when you get your head sorted out, your tail will follow. As such, if a person wants to have a particular build, when they reach that they may want more and more. Conversely, people who try to restrict their food intake and develop eating disorders may find that they reach their target weight and want to lose more, so then they have a new target weight and then they want to lose more. I can remember once, a young woman on twitter lamenting the fact that her weight was up one kilogram but she hadn't eaten anything. I said to her, "If you had congestive heart failure, that would be cause for concern, but if you haven't, then, I wouldn't worry too much," and left it at that. I knew not to go any further and say, "Well, if you haven't had a poo, if you haven't done this, or done that," lest I encourage her to take laxatives. She may have had other concerns and it was up to her to reach out to professionals.

Body image concerns may be things that we will all encounter, but the most important thing is to reach the root cause. For me, as a teenager, while I didn't have an eating disorder, positive role models were what were needed, and they were people who would treat me kindly. It is human nature that when you dislike somebody, many things about them disturb you, and to not want to look like these bullies was one thing. And let's not forget that not every bully is someone who has a low self-esteem, in fact MANY bullies are narcissists with such inflated egos it's awful. The challenge for parents is to help get their teenagers through this period minimally unscathed and with as much positive reinforcement of healthy images as possible.