‘Tis the season of pledging to hate our appearance
A content warning for body image, relationship with food, and body prejudice. We know this can be a triggering discussion for many, so please do take care while reading.
It’s that time of the year, everyone. No, not the time of year when we congratulate ourselves for having made it through another 12 months around the sun — a period spanning the minor hiccup of, oh I don’t know, a devastating, ongoing global pandemic — or delight in the rest and rejuvenation that the end of year brings for many.
No, I mean the time of year when we commit to losing weight and hating our bodies. It’s time to shed our snake skins! The perfect body exists, and you don’t have it. But you could, if you just worked hard enough! January — well, now February — is the Annual Festival of Body Hatred™, during which we pledge unrealistic fitness goals (increase weekly gym attendance from 0 to 7 days) and downright impossible physical appearance goals (lose 15 pounds around my stomach SPECIFICALLY, no matter what my whiny metabolism tells you is possible. Or my adrenal glands. Or my insulin. Or — you know what, forget it).
This yearly reckoning comes on the back of another particularly harsh season for body feelings: the end-of-year festivities. It’s a time many people see family and loved ones, to mark holidays or otherwise gather together in celebration and relaxation. Along with the delicious food that you may be criticised for eating too much or not enough of, openly talking about other people’s weight is absolutely on the table during many of these communal gatherings. In some families or cultures, these types of conversations are especially common. Rarely in this setting, as far as I’ve experienced, do comments about our weight come as openly aggressive criticisms. They’re feathery, elusive comments — the purpose of these statements is to code judgments subtly enough that the speaker can deny them if they’re called out on what they’ve said. My personal favourite is ‘oh you’re looking healthy!’, which can somehow be used to signal both weight gain or weight loss. Indeed, these judgments are often embedded in so-called ‘concern’ for our health. (Much more has been said elsewhere about the inaccuracy of mainstream narratives about the relationship between health and weight; if you’re interested in learning more, look at the Health at Every Size movement.) Or, these comments may be straightforward observations — ‘you’ve gained weight’ — that once again the speaker can laugh off as an unloaded statement.
Not every fatphobic comment is said with cruel intentions, either; often, these comments are directed at ourselves. While ‘oh no I shouldn’t have one more chocolate, I’m so bad’ might feel like a bit of light-hearted self-deprecation, it reinforces the narrative that eating, and its potential effect on our weight, is something that needs to be publicly excused or apologised for. Others in our presence are hearing and internalising that sentiment.
All of this is to say: it’s exhausting! So much is demanded of us throughout all these interactions; we have to be outwardly confident while at the same time apologising for our food intake, either promising to ‘work it off’ during future exercise, or otherwise excuse why this intake is justified (‘oh well, it’s a special occasion I suppose!’). Our weight and eating patterns demand public justification. So far I’ve mostly addressed fatphobic judgments we might face, but this can also be an incredibly triggering time of year for those with eating disorders that decrease their weight as well. No one is free from judgment, and it can feel like we come to the end of year and have to excavate our internal lives for other people’s judgment, offering up apology and explanation to their satisfaction.
So even if you can steel yourself against the ‘all that food is for you?’s or ‘that’s all you’re having?’ of your aunties, the inescapable New Year’s headlines that your body is wrong, and that you’re ‘lazy’ if you don’t commit to changing it, is a harsh experience. I’ve been sarcastic throughout this deep dive, but I am fully serious about how stressful, damaging, and exhausting this annual occurrence is.
And it’s not just weight, either, that we judge ourselves and each other for, although that is usually the most popular theme of our annual charade of body apology. We pick apart our own bodies with our words and judgments as though they’re Frankenstein’s monsters made up of detachable, changeable parts. It reminds me of an online game called ‘My Scene’ which I would beg my mother for ‘screen time’ to play as a child, where you give unrealistically gorgeous virtual dolls makeovers. (I was DELIGHTED to find that many scenes from this game can still be played on a site called NuMuKi; beware of the sneaky pop-ups). With a click of a button, you can transform their hair colour, texture, even their eye colour. Reality notwithstanding, physical transformation is as easy as opening an email.
For my own part, a lot of my insecurities revolve around not feeling feminine enough. Hitting 5 feet before the beginning of secondary school — and, 16 years later, still being able to wear shoes from that time — with a loud, awkward personality to match, I’ve always felt too big, too much. Looking in the mirror, I see all the features I would ‘click away’ if I could. My eyes are too small. They’re too far back in my face. I need stronger cheekbones. My shoulders are too broad. Which would be fine if my ribcage weren’t quite so enormous. Which would also be fine if I had narrow hips, but I don’t. You get the picture.
Not only do all these thoughts reveal a rather depressing larger narrative of internalised body shame, but I also think to myself…how do I know all these things? They’re such specific observations! From the 27 years encased in the flesh-home that is my body, this has been my takeaway? For all the places my body has taken me, the illnesses it has seen me through, its quiet resilience to see me through to another day, all I have to give it are worryingly specific criticisms on features that can’t be changed. Is that all I have to give?
I wish I had answers to why I’m asking these questions, or how to stop. In truth, I wish I was writing to you about a completed journey of body love, or body acceptance at the very least.
But something I do know is that there’s nothing bad about your body or my body. You don’t need to change your body, and you don’t need to begin every new year with a display of public arithmetic for how you need to balance out your body’s sins by committing to a sufficiently punitive exercise regime.
It’s also true that body positivity is complicated. As well as commenting on how the movement has shifted from its radical roots, many activists and educators have noted that body neutrality and ‘fat acceptance’ are for many a more meaningful pathway to finding peace and compassion for our bodies, by de-focussing our hyper attention away from them. I, and many others across the world, have found The Body is Not An Apology book and movement by Sonya Renee Taylor an incredibly useful resource. Taylor digs deep into the political roots of body oppression, from fatphobia to ableism to transphobia and beyond, while simultaneously presenting practical exercises for practising what she labels ‘radical self-love’. It’s a persuasive and educational read, especially with the accompanying workbook, full of empathy and insight in equal measure.
Otherwise, although easier said than done, be kind to your body. Resist the publicity of others’ New Year’s commitments to less food and more exercise. Instead, make a quiet commitment to your body — ‘we’re in this together. I’m with you. Even if we don’t always agree, I love you’. In the words of Nayyirah Waheed, and one of our favourite quotes here at Bloom, “and i said to my body. softly. ‘i want to be your friend.’ it took a long breath. and replied ‘i have been waiting my whole life for this.’”
