Introducing Showers ... Now Without Shame
Regardless of fitness level, one thing about fitness centers terrifies us all - the judging eyes of others in the locker room
It's a familiar story. You go to the gym, stuff your coat and bag into your locker hurriedly and get to your workout. But when you're done, you need a shower and that's when the panic starts. You can't decide if you should change, wrap yourself in that towel and run for the showers - with your post-bathing clothes in hand, of course - or if you should just take care of all of it inside the privacy of the stall. One thing is certain though, you will not be changing in public.
It probably comes as no great shock that people are embarrassed to be naked in front of others. But it is surprising that those who devote themselves to fitness still lack the confidence to strip down in the privacy of the gym locker room. Yet, it's true. Which begs the question: What does it take to bare it?
The first step is identifying the problem. "For the general population, the locker room can be kind of a competitive event. We're very interested in what other people look like versus ourselves and how we measure up," says Dr. Stacey Rosenfeld, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist in New York City affiliated with Columbia University Medical Center. And when we judge ourselves, the results aren't pretty, literally.
"I think in general women have a lot of shame or feel embarrassment about their bodies because of the pressure put on them by society to look 'perfect,'" says Leslie Goldman, author of "Locker Room Diaries: The Naked Truth About Women, Body Image and Re-imagining the 'Perfect' Body" (Da Capo Press, 2007). "So if our bodies don't look like the ones in the Victoria's Secret catalog, we're bad or ugly. I think in the locker room especially, where we're naked for everyone to see, those issues are magnified."
Those concerns, however, seem to be youth's curse. "The whole locker room modesty thing is harder for younger women than older women," Goldman says. Rosenfeld says that interestingly age does seem to be a factor.
That's certainly the case for Jessica Torchia who says she cannot change in front of the other women in the locker room. The 23-year-old Bridgewater, N.J., resident goes to the gym three days a week and runs the other two. "I don't think I'm unattractive or out of shape," she says, but still, changing around other women she doesn't know makes her extremely uncomfortable and she worries they'll notice her imperfections. "I feel like people are analyzing me," Torchia says. "I always feel like they'll be comparing me to them."
She notes that the other women in her gym's locker room are "much older than me" and that she has noticed these women don't seem to care at all about walking around naked. It was that fact, however, that finally made Laura Schofield-Pierson realize that she needed to get over her locker room anxieties. Schofield-Pierson is the senior health and wellness director at the Brandywine branch of the YMCA of Delaware. As such, she promotes wellness, health and fitness programming among her club's 20,000 members. Despite her role, it wasn't always easy for her to walk among the naked in the locker room.
Given the choice between a general population shower area or private stall, most would probably choose the latter. However, when the club was going to build more of them, the senior-aged women in the club voiced an opinion: They didn't like the stalls because when they'd chat with each other in the shower they couldn't hear each other. The open area filled with showerheads made socializing hour a lot easier. It also gave Schofield-Pierson the courage to join them. "These women are so comfortable with their bodies," she says. "For so long, I would dread going into the locker rooms. I had to take ownership of that."
How can others do the same? After all, with all the space to change in the fancy fitness centers of today, why stuff yourself into a stall and risk having a sock end up in the toilet?
Rosenfeld says that mentally and behaviorally, "The first thing that needs to happen is for you to be comfortable naked around yourself." She suggests practicing a technique called mirror exposure. Stand in front of a mirror "as naked as you can," she says. While many feel the critical eye of others in the locker room, culture also plays a role in our nude (or not nude as the case may be) comfort zones. The goal here is to "practice a non-judgmental stance," Rosenfeld says, so don't beat yourself up if you can't begin stark naked. "Start in what you can. Look at your body. You're just looking and gathering objective information and not getting involved in hating," she says. If you find yourself criticizing, stop the exercise right there. Rosenfeld recommends 30 seconds of exposure initially and working toward increasing the lengths of time. She emphasizes this activity is to teach people how to look at themselves without reproach. Also, ease your mind with the knowledge that most people don't care what you look like.
"In general, people are more concerned about themselves than they are about you. The woman who is staring at you and comparing herself to you is freaking out about her own issues. Just realize it's not always about you," Goldman says. She also points out the flip side of the locker room. "The locker room is the great equalizer. There are no magic mirrors, no creative cover ups. When it comes to looking at other real women, you see everything from scars, post-pregnancy bellies, pimples and cellulite and you realize that we each have our own issues to deal with." She says that if there is comparing that's going on, it's likely that it's not malicious but more of a reassurance that no one is perfect no matter how hard some try.
Certainly more than one tucked-tummy has appeared in locker rooms in recent years, raising the bar in setting unrealistic expectations of how one should look, but it is "comparing ourselves against an unnatural ideal," Rosenfeld says. Instead, focus not on what your body looks like, but what it can do for you, she advises. Feed yourself with positive messages like, "My body can run five miles" or "My body is here to get stronger."
And take a page out of the books of the older women who, while perhaps too immodest in the opinion of some, "realize there are more important things than how you look or how you look naked, who take stock of their life and recognize there are other things to focus on rather than obsessing over your size," Goldman says. Loving your body doesn't have to wait until you're 65 or older.
So go ahead, get naked.
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