Weight, value and the end of the decade — why we need treat our bodies better in 2020

Let me set the scene; you are in your teens at senior school, wearing nylon-synthetic-sweat-inducing trousers that are not designed for thighs that want to touch and caress each other, waiting to welcome the school into assembly. Well, I say welcome, you are there to ensure their uniform is correct, but we all know that you aren’t going to correct it — that would only emphasise your inability to be cool. You’ve had your breakfast SlimFast shake, and it’s had a good few hours to ferment and gather heat in order for the liquid to turn into steam, or my case, gas. At least, that’s the only explanation I can fathom as I pace, dance on the spot, and try and suppress what I suspect will be a 15-minute foghorn of a fart. I’m trying to lose weight, the story of my life at this age; and all I am is bloated and desperately uncomfortable. And why am I doing it? So, I can be skinny, attract boys and fit in (both with people and into clothes). This my friends is my ode to being a teenage girl and my reason for boycotting restrictive eating entirely.

Like all avid dieters, I have had the joys of trying most off-the-shelf, ready mix diets including shakes, fasts, those that have been recommended through other self-conscious mums (I will not forgive my mum for putting us on the British Heart Foundation diet, designed for people pre-heart surgery — PRE HEART SURGERY— to lose weight in order to be safe to operate on. I cannot bear the smell of cottage cheese to this very day, and for that reason will not revisit that dark time). I made up my own diets based on reading magazines including just eating dried apricots (spoiler — you’ll just spend a long time on the loo). After not getting the results I wanted at the speed in which I required, I dove headfirst into the world of laxatives, not eating anything and sickness in my late teens. When I lived alone in my early twenties, I lived off of a diet of tinned vegetables before becoming quite unwell (who knew) and finally being diagnosed initially with Chrones disease and then Celiac disease. I am absolutely convinced I have created this issue with the digestion of food for myself and live with both a shame and frustration that I let my disordered eating and body dysmorphia take such a hold over my life. I am further frustrated that dieting was just an excepted norm and I was never once discouraged from doing it. The way we encourage the mistreatment of our bodies — directly and indirectly — is a daily practice and needs to be corrected. It’s often innocent and is motivated by positive intentions, yet it legitimises a controlled approach to food that restricts, limits and eliminates for the sole purpose of creating something less than.

Body image still has a hold over many of us and the temptation to control our food and the intake of it remains at large. According to the Mental Health Foundation in May 2019, ‘1 in 8 adults talked about experiencing suicidal thoughts or feelings because of concerns over their body image’. Reading that genuinely hurt my heart yet I was not surprised. The stats are worse for teenagers and without intervention and change, will only continue to increase. Whether it’s Flat Tummy lollipops or Detox Teas being promoted by minor to major celebs that encourage quick and easy results; the media is selling a myth that skinny is king and making money from it. The reality is that we are actually just encouraging people to spend a lot of time on the toilet, develop stomach ulcers and create a fucked up bowel. Social media platforms are under more scrutiny than ever when it comes to content and how it is moderated; an opportunity for them to change the dial on this particular aspect of modern culture. The power of social media could support with the move away from non FDA approved, non-medical suppressants, designed to enable misery and self-loathing; to a kinder, inclusive, open space where all bodies are welcomed and exist on a level pegging field. It’s a bold move, but it would be making a statement that needs to be made. Yes, that is a utopia, but I’ve been told to manifest because it makes your dreams come true; so see you in nirvana.

When I lost a lot of weight last year due to stress, I was complimented on numerous occasions on my physique; a time of true unhappiness, where I was able to hide the misery and instead stand on the shaky and unstable platform of celebrating the ‘skinny’ me. We put a lot of power behind weight, ironically the less you weigh as a woman, the more power you hold. Yet by wanting to become smaller, we are abiding by archaic mysognyst principles where men are encouraged to become bigger — ‘beef up’ — and therefore take up more space; and women are encouraged to become tiny, fragile, frail (that makes me think of an ortolan bird and then I remembered that they’re a delicacy that you eat whole and now my woe has multiplied) and therefore take up as little space as possible. Whilst it is not positioned that way in the media, it is certainly a whole heap of folly that has been going for eons. *Watch me now step down from my soap box and escort you to an armchair to prepare for the flashback scene*

At the beginning of the 19th century, the fashion trend (and therefore if achieved a sign of wealth, status, beauty — basically the equivalent to be a Hadid in the past) was a corseted waist and sloped shoulders; often associated with weakness and subservience; the absolute dream, amirite? Weight loss adverts then kicked off in the 1920’s, and if Mad Men has taught me anything, it’s that the advertisers probably weren’t the ones having to diet (yes, Draper is a sex pot but he’s an absolute bellend and definitely would have had a paunch; the double standard-ing white privileged man-who-makes-me-so-cross). By the 90’s, it was becoming clear anyone who wasn’t deemed slim or skinny was not a part of the ‘club’ and popular TV did a sterling job at portraying heavier women as the unintelligent, greedy stereotype; almost always unable to form a romantic attachment — the ultimate fear of any teenage girl (I do wonder what on earth the fuss was all about now — I can barely cope with men’s hormones now let alone a teenage boy who has no idea what he is doing, what the female anatomy is — no thanks to the textbooks that don’t even talk about the clitoris… *Emma we are off of the soapbox now, it’s the flashback bit*). When it comes to weight and value — two inextricably linked entities — it’s been a dark and unwelcoming place for a while and since the introduction of the internet; there is a worry that it will become darker for younger and future generations to come.

Now it’s Christmas so it can’t all be bad news, can it? There is a hope; the dial is moving and things are starting to change with body positive activists coming to the forefront including Jameel Jamil, Lizzo and Megan Jane Crabbe, who are challenging the norms that have been created and who are carving out a new space where acceptance is key and all bodies are celebrated. The activists in this space also move the focus from body to mind and what you offer — a more substantial and meaningful conversation to be having.

I don’t think too much about food these days unless it’s thinking about being kinder to my body and digestive system. I eat intuitively, I refrain from labelling food and enjoy what happens around food — the company, the conversation, the way it will satiate my body. I am proud of what my body can do, the distances we have run together, and I like how it looks with clothes and without. That’s not to say I don’t have bad days; only recently I was convinced I needed to diet and berated myself for looking older. I now endeavour to maintain body neutrality — trying not to place any focus on it and accept that on some days (thank you mother nature and the monthly blob visits) I won’t like my body very much. I refrain from talking about the weight of others unless I have permission — if they are dieting for their own happiness and esteem I will focus on how it makes them seem as a person, rather than the outward effect — and will almost always compliment people on their happiness rather than their size. I do also appreciate though if you are trying to lose weight for you and want to be told you look shit hot, then obviously I say that kind of thing — the only difference being that I am likely to see you as shit hot at any size.

More than ever now though, I don’t want to make myself smaller in presence or in voice. If I spend less time thinking about my body and thinking about what you think about my body (which is genuinely the most exhausting and pointless conversation to have in my own head) then I can use that time to invest it in things I care about; in researching and reading, in being able to debate, challenge and get stuff done. I can channel the energy into bettering my mind and strengthening my body to carry me through the next 50 years. I can use the hours to make my presence so undeniable that all of the Don Draper’s of the world would shudder in their boots (or more likely shit themselves as they’d be doing very well if still alive but I imagine less so continence wise).

None of this is new news. None of it is rocket science. But as we approach the Holy Trinity of winter time; Christmas, NYE and January — one a time of indulgence, one a time of looking party ready and kiss-me-quick gorgeous; and the other a time for new beginnings, fresh starts/hitting the gym/stopping drinking/losing weight (delete where appropriate) — take a minute to think about your relationship with your body. What your body does for you. How you want to feel in your body and what stops you from feeling that way; and by default which of those things are messages pumped out by media and the patriarchy; and which of those are absolutely yours to own and act upon. Because your existence is more than the numbers on a scale, the size of a piece of clothing, the compliment of ‘oh wow you look so skinny’.

In the perspective of life — the probability of the right sperm meeting the right egg to create you is one in 400 quadrillion. And that makes you a miracle, whatever size or shape you are. So when times are hard, I hope that knowledge can act as an anchor that navigates you back to your true value and worth.