Ruptured feedback loops: Body image/schema and food journaling technologies

Abstract

The psychoanalytical term ‘body image’ is commonly understood by women today as a way of describing how we feel about our outward appearance compared to others. A second term—‘body schema’—remains part of the specialized vocabulary of philosophy, but provides a fuller account of how we come to experience our bodies in movement and in knowing the world around us. The two concepts together form our embodiment through feedback loops between mind, body, and technology. After briefly situating the practice of food journaling in response to the social pressure to be thin, I explore how the food journal serves as a site where these feedback loops between body image and body schema are ruptured, interrupting the eating process and providing cognitive dissonance in the weight reduction process. I propose the ecstatic body as a means to rejoin the body image and body schema through Health at Every Size practices.