Trigger warning: Eating disorders, discussion about body image
I attended (via Zoom) a discussion hosted by my friend and role model Genevieve about fatphobia, our bodies, and how our relationship with them might change while we're all staying home for quarantine time.
There were probably over 30 people there and they represented so many different sizes and shapes. We were all just people who had one of two things in common: we had bodies and we had experienced something in our lives that affected the way we thought about them. It was the first time that I ever really sat in on a discussion like that.
In the past, usually, when I was talking about my body, it revolved around what I didn't like about it. Many of us can relate to this but when did we start deciding that that was okay?
There are a few things we need to understand before we can legitimately talk about overcoming this. I believe common language is so important and in the discussion led by Genevieve, she also illuminated specific terms relating to these concepts. I will not be mentioning all of the same terms, but I feel it is imperative that I give credit where credit is due.
Fatphobia: Fear and dislike of people with fat and/or fat.
Body dysmorphia: A mental illness involving obsessive focus on a perceived flaw in appearance
Diet culture: is a set of beliefs revolving around the idea that "thin" bodies are the most desirable, valuable, and "healthy."Diet culture also conveys that eating a certain way is "good" or "bad" - and that a person's worth increases when eating "healthy," or when living in a small body.
With that being said, let me give a little bit of background on myself.
I have never been very small. At least not in comparison to my siblings and classmates. It didn't take long for me to realize that this wasn't perceived as a good thing. I had done something wrong by becoming "big", something that wasn't even in my control at the age of 10.
I remember when this picture was taken I was in Liberia for the first time ever and relatives I had never met were commenting and joking about my weight. Fatphobia is cultural too.
I won't say that I ever developed a clinical eating disorder but my eating did become disordered. I never thought that I would be the person crying if something I ate wasn't as healthy as I originally thought I would. I was a kid. I grew up eating food because I enjoyed it. My obsession with continuously losing weight led to me turning into the kid who ate to keep myself alive and able to lose even more weight.
It never got better the smaller I got. If anything, it grew worse. I was seeing my restrictive lifestyle was working. Why would I stop? My family was proud of me, I felt like boys would finally see me as attractive (something I couldn't possibly imagine before), everything was great.
Diet culture is a system in place that is so pervasive in our thoughts and actions that we oftentimes don't even identify it as wrong. All the Instagram and Tumblr pages told me that I was doing something right, even if I didn't feel happy or healthy at all. I limited my health to my physical appearance and the appearance of fat on my body and I fixated on it. It got to the point where I look back at pictures now from when I was 14 where I thought I was so fat and I was the thinnest I had been in my life.
We spread it by the words we say to each other. By using weight loss as a compliment, not considering how that weight was lost or if they even wanted to lose it.
The notion that health comes from size is used as an excuse for us to act this way towards one another. It isn't okay to assume anything about a person's health by their appearance. You do not know their lifestyle or physical needs just by looking at them.
When life got busy around my senior year of high school and I started to develop more, I naturally gained weight. It was really difficult. I ran cross country and if you know anything about long-distance running, you know that all the people that are the best are usually very slim and petite. At this point, I weighed at least 15 more pounds than when I ran cross country my freshman year. I was slower and felt huge compared to everyone else on my team.
Over time and a lot of hard conversations with myself, I realized something. I love being active and working towards a goal. But making that goal a certain weight or weight loss, in general, was not only mentally harming me, but it was also practically unattainable. When I entered college, I stayed active and ate healthy yet still gained some weight. Something I had to realize without having anyone to tell me is that it is okay. You can be active and have fat on your body and not abuse yourself for not eliminating that fat. The two can be mutually exclusive. It was more unhealthy for me to think that if I wasn't "burning fat" than there was no point to me going hard in the gym.
Diet culture and societal factors took enjoyable activities from me. It convinced me that being smaller was the only valid reason I should engage myself in movement. And when I would work out, all I could think was, "Is this making me smaller? Is this the best workout to make my butt more lifted or my shoulders more defined?". But it took some time for me to be able to have the ability to work towards goals that lay outside of vanity.
So, to reference the title of this post, how do you do it? How do you go to the gym without being disappointed with what you see? How do you stay active without forcing yourself to think about how you don't look as an "athlete is supposed to"?
1. Recognize that it is not your fault
One thing that was said in the discussion on Zoom was that we need to acknowledge that these thoughts we have about our bodies are not our own. We didn't just pull this negativity out of thin air. Diet culture is systemic. It is ingrained in our minds and our mirrors. So naturally, it is not going to be overnight that you feel great about working out without considering weight loss. You've been told your whole life that that is the main reason to be active. You were put in sports and recreational activities just to lose weight. Heck, the reason I even considered cross country was to lose more weight. You aren't just negative and self-sabotaging. You didn't do this to yourself.
2. Be patient
To add to the last point, this is years and years of built-up self-hate! It's okay that it takes a while. It is okay if you talk yourself out of working out because you're afraid of where it might lead you. You won't always feel this way. Take the baby steps you have to take. If you can't work out in front of a mirror yet, that's okay! If you can only go on strolls where you can hear the birds sing and enjoy the sunset and not focus on your body, then do that! The point isn't to reach some destination of being a gym guru but to be able to enjoy movement for the sake of movement and not weight loss.
3. Move your body how you want to move it
How many of us have run on a treadmill or used an elliptical not because we wanted to, but because we were told cardio is the fastest way to burn fat? Yeah, me too. Something that has helped me is doing forms of exercise that feel good to me on that day and challenge me in the way I want to be challenged. If you find yourself dreading physical activity constantly, it might be a sign that you're not doing something that you will actually enjoy. Try different things out. Go for walks, dance, do yoga, anything that combines your desire to be active with things you actually enjoy. Since we're all stuck at home right now, this is a great time to look into things you might like doing.
4. Recognize that your attractiveness doesn't come from your size OR features matching certain beauty standards
This is a really important one. I cannot stress how frustrating it is to have the trends of what is attractive dictate how you see yourself. They change from day-to-day. In He's Just Not That Into You, to have a big butt was the worst feature a woman could have. Fast forward to now, everyone wants a big butt. Maybe years from now, everyone will want something else but the point is that it changes so quickly and it depends on so many factors. Beauty standards are biased and rigid ideals that most of us can't fit into. So stop trying. We have to unlearn that we need to constantly compare ourselves to some ideal to see if we measure up. Like in everything, we have to be our own measuring stick and when it comes to our bodies, we've always been enough. Big or small, tall or short, there is something to love about all of us. Find the things you find attractive in yourself and love them. Not because someone told you it's beautiful but because you told you it is beautiful. And if you can't, again, that's okay. But I promise you that the indefatigable race to the body "nirvana" is never-ending and a waste of your lifetime.
Life is too short to try and make yourself less of who you are. Focus on what is important: loving yourself, doing what makes you happy, dismantling the patriarchy and subsequent systematic oppression, and being comfortable.
Thank you so much for reading. This was hard to talk about and be vulnerable about and so I thank you for being open to learning and I do hope that you learned something!
Cover Image: @recipesforselflove on Instagram
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