Today I swam 800 meters

Today I swam 800 meters. I didn’t do it particularly fast, or particularly well. It’s not an exceptional feat, but it was something that I did today. And it was my body that allowed me to do it. My body that I’ve spent years hating and wanting to change. The body that I’ve looked at and wished I could just grab fat and it would dissolve, the body that makes me change my mind at the last minute because the dress I wanted to wear is just a bit too tight and I don’t quite have the figure.

What else did my body do today? It allowed me to walk to where I needed to go. It allowed me to laugh, to store and recall memories. It balanced hormones, digested food, absorbed nutrients….a whole host of functions that just happen. I mean, that’s pretty great.

Now, I know I’m no exception when it comes to opinions regarding body image – there’s a whole wealth of literature out there that describes hundreds of thousands of people who experience less than favourable relationships with their bodies. Similarly, there’s a wide variety of theories about why this is, which most of us will be able to recognize and understand, the media, the pressure to reach perfection, social media…. It’s not something I talk to about friends very often, apart from the occasional ‘I need to go on a diet’ or ‘lets start yoga before our holiday’, but I do remember one evening at university surrounded by some of my closest friends in a sort of sofa den we had made (yes, we made a den, yes, we were 21 years old, and it was great). We each said one thing about our bodies that we really did not like. Now, I’m not going to list what these wonderful people take issue with on their own person, but I sat there listening to all of these insecurities I had never considered they had. I was surrounded by friends whose bodies I envied – they were so strong, they inhabited themselves so well and so fully, they were so lean, or flexible, their bodies taken them to so many places - withstanding heartbreak, grief, and stress.

I take issue with the ‘love your body’ rhetoric. It’s too forceful. I don’t need to love my body thank you very much, in fact, you’re probably the same industry that thrives on me wanting to change my body and causing this confusion so I’m not sure I should take your advice. Of course, if you do love your body then that’s great. Similarly, if you don’t like it, no worries – you don’t have to. You do not need to love your body to love yourself and to love others. Having said that, hating your body is fruitless. Look at what it does! Since when did bodies become more than something to transport and lift and hug with? They are primarily there for function, not aesthetic, and certainly not one, narrow aesthetic presented as the ideal. Naturally, there are varying levels of body image issues and I would never devalue the incredible pain and difficulty that such problems can cause. I just don’t think you have to love your body. I think a good starting point is to acknowledge your body – in all its gloriousness, in all its complex biological wonder, and yes – maybe your love of pastries shows, and maybe you’re struggling to put on weight, or maybe you’re arms aren’t as strong as you like, or your nose too long – but you have a nose, you had the amazing experience of eating those pastries, and these perceived ‘problems’ are just one part of such a huge and wonderful whole. They might not disappear and you might struggle to look at them with love, so just acknowledge them. Acknowledge your body, take pride in it’s abilities – however sparse you may think they are, see your body as part of you – not some casing that you want to escape from. The idea that you exercise or eat well in order to change your body comes from a place of hate; surely it would be better to do these things in order to feed and care for your body, coming from a place of gratitude?

I know it’s easy to write this and harder to practice it, often we have convinced ourselves into our failings over years and years so it’s probably not going to change quickly or easily.  Nevertheless, I’ve decided that it is okay that I don’t love my body, and maybe I never will, I would like very much to be stronger and leaner (admittedly for aesthetic as well as health reasons), and I am doing things to achieve this, but this is made so much easier by not waking up and thinking ‘oh god look at my thighs, I can’t wear that skirt it’s too short, I shouldn’t be allowed to wear jeans, look how much they spread when I sit down!’ Instead, I’m trying to think ‘okay, so there’s my thighs, not a huge fan of them, but there they are, and they get me from A to B, and they let me swim…”