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…”
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