Safety in Shrinking: When Weight Loss Becomes a Coping Strategy
For many, the pursuit of weight loss isn’t just about health or aesthetics—it’s about safety. After trauma, the body can feel like both a home and a threat. Disordered eating and body control can emerge as ways to manage overwhelming feelings, reclaim a sense of control, or protect oneself from unwanted attention.
In this post, we’ll explore why “shrinking” can sometimes feel like safety, and what it means to find more sustainable, compassionate ways to feel secure in your own skin.
Why Weight Loss Can Feel Protective
Trauma often leaves a deep imprint on how we inhabit our bodies. For some, losing weight becomes a way to:
Regain a sense of control. When everything feels unpredictable, food and weight may become the only things you can manage.
Create emotional distance. Restriction, hyperfocus on weight, or obsessing over food can numb pain and distract from difficult emotions.
Avoid visibility. For those who have experienced unwanted attention, losing or gaining weight can feel like safety.
Gain validation. Praise for weight loss can feel like external proof of worthiness, especially in a culture that idealises thinness.
The Hidden Costs of This Coping Strategy
While these strategies can feel protective in the short term, they often come at a cost. Constant preoccupation with food, exercise, and weight can increase anxiety, weaken your connection to your body, and keep you in a cycle of self-surveillance rather than self-compassion.
What begins as a survival strategy can quietly turn into a trap—reinforcing shame and disconnecting you from your needs.
Finding Safety Beyond the Scale
Healing means recognising the wisdom in your coping strategies—they developed for a reason—and slowly building new ways to feel safe. This might involve:
Therapeutic support to process trauma and learn grounding techniques.
Somatic practices that help you reconnect with your body gently, at your own pace.
Boundary work—learning to say no, express needs, and create environments that feel safe without changing your size.
Self-compassion practices that shift your inner voice from critical to caring.
Safety doesn’t have to come from shrinking. It can grow from support, connection, and a body that is allowed to take up space.
Final Thoughts
If you recognise yourself in this, know that your coping strategies were never a failure—they were a response to pain. And there are ways to find safety that don’t demand that you disappear.
Looking for Support?
My Coaching Workbook Collection offers guided exercises and reflections to help you untangle the links between trauma, body image, and eating habits, so you can move toward healing with kindness, not control.
