Everyone has stuff about their body, right? I can count on one hand the number of people I know that are happy with the skin they’re in.
There are so very many avenues that perfectionism and controlling behaviour manifest in our lives. Our bodies, nearest and dearest to us, are often the vessel in our complete control, and usually bear the brunt of this.
There are so many expectations and understandings (misunderstandings?) that we have about our own bodies, and how they work. What is healthy, or unhealthy, what exercise is good, or bad, how much sleep we need, how much indulgence we should, or should not, have, how hard we should or should not push ourselves. Many of us then fall prey to controlling our bodies, then project those standards onto others. Parents onto children, friends onto friends, lovers onto each other. Strangers walking down the street. This can be a source of huge angst and pain, equating love and acceptance as conditional upon our bodies.
Study after study has shown that people who are larger are discriminated against in dating, in employment, for housing, and most perniciously, for medical treatment. They are not believed, found to be less trustworthy. Fat people are shunned and shamed in a number of ways. Being skinny is seen as healthy, beautiful, and a moral imperative. Conversely, being fat is seen as unhealthy, ugly and a moral failing.
It is so much more complicated than that!
Over the next few weeks, I want to try and dispel a few myths about bodies through telling my story about my body, body image, and how I travelled full circle, from eating disorder behaviours to loving my body, no matter what size I am, to self-love and self-care by way of changing how I eat and move.
I am hoping that through telling my story, I can explain why I have embarked on a path that seems so contrary to my usual ‘eat, drink and be merry’ philosophy, and create a space to start having a more helpful conversation about our relationship with ourselves, our bodies, food, and each other.
Starving ≠ Skinny
Myth #1: Only skinny people have eating disorders
When I was 11, I had a friend at Intermediate who didn’t eat at school. In solidarity, I decided to join her. Then I would scoff my sandwiches on my way home. I’ve always had a very healthy appetite. I wanted to be skinny, but food was JUST.SO.GOOD. If the choice was between skinny and a few more biscuits, then a few more biscuits it would be.
A year later, I had my first trip to Australia. It was hot. 45 degrees one day. Too hot to eat. I was not hungry. My mother wasn’t around to force me to eat. In three weeks, I went from pudgy kid to awkward blossoming tween. Between a growth spurt, fitness-obsessed teachers, and a spot of food avoidance I was finally ‘skinny’ (for my body) and would look at the models in the Warehouse brochures, then put myself in the same pose as the underwear models, and compare, concluding proudly that I was skinnier than them. In hindsight, a pre-teen girl probably should be. However, I was 12-going-on-22, so, in my head, it was a completely valid comparison.
I would have one Weetbix for breakfast, when forced. Usually, I would escape the house and walk to school before Mum could make me. When she cottoned on to me sneaking my lunch into the bin after school, I got better at throwing it out at school. I started doing the 40 hour Famine, which ticked a few boxes – practise not eating, and also help those less fortunate – for me, that was a win-win.
“Why aren’t you eating your lunch, Lauren?” My goofy classmate, Shane asked one April day.
“I’m not hungry.”
“How can you not be hungry at lunch time?”
“I don’t know, I’m just not. I don’t eat at school” I thought I was so cool.
Shane scoffed. “I thought if you starve yourself, you were supposed to be skinny.”
His comment hit me like a punch in the gut. He wasn’t trying to be mean, he just had a knack for saying the first thing that came into his head. Despite my efforts, I was usually the biggest girl in the room. The fact that I could probably outrun or outlift Shane didn’t matter: that was not part of anyone’s ‘beauty success criteria’ for girls.
“If I keep at it, maybe I will be soon!”
He chuckled, shook his head, and went back to joking with Vincent.
Eating disorders take a number of forms. They are much more about control, perfectionism, and insecurity than they are about food. Looking back, I’m not sure I had a full blown eating disorder, but there was certainly a problematic relationship with food, with my self-worth, and trying to live up to others expectations of how I should look in order to gain approval, attention, and love.
Even at my skinniest, when I was severely restricting how much I ate, and exercising extensively daily, the lightest I ever got was 65kg, about a size 10-12. No one was going to be hospitalising me, I wasn’t considered ‘ill’ or ‘broken’.
If I look at BMI for my height, even at my skinniest, I’m still nearly in the overweight category. (All Blacks are all morbidly obese by this measure, so grain of salt.) Externally, people would look at me, and see a young, healthy, fit girl, and praise my efforts to stay thin and trim. Internally, I hated my body, I hated my inability to be thin like the other girls. I was a mess. And I, doubtless, in my pursuit of trying to fulfill those societal expectations, reinforced them for other girls and women as well.
Instead of concern, people complimented my body and my efforts to tame it. I attributed anyone being my friend or liking me to it being dependent on whether or not I was skinny, particularly attention from boys. It’s only in later years, that I realise how toxic my relationship with food was. All the girls in my friend group were doing the same thing, so it just seemed normal to me.
About then, I did start getting the attention of boys. Efforts to tame my body became reinforced by classmates saying things like ‘Well she’s chunky,’ peering out the bus window at a girl walking on the footpath who was medium build. ‘Good God, if he thinks that about her, I wonder what he thinks about me? To get anyone to like me, I will have to look like a supermodel.’
Thankfully, I realised as I got older that it was possible to be happy, loved, and not stick-thin. That boys who think like that are likely not the ones who you want to like you anyway, and that confidence and kindness are actually sexier than being skinny.
But this is just the beginning of the story.
Next week, we will look at how fat ≠ unhealthy.
For more information on eating disorders and their causes see here, here, here, and here.
Thank you for sharing these words. I think so many woman have these struggles with body image.
A lot of my ‘growing’ years I was an airhead, light, frilly personality. Some was pure joy lightness, and most was had no idea of the world or my place in it. All had implications for my life. Feeling that heaviness, hard to physically move, looking so different…
Today I thought to ask myself, (not my body) what weighs heavy on my heart, mind, emotions? I faced it and did one small thing to care for myself.
Hugs to you all
Thank you so much for sharing, Lauren ❤ as not-ill-intentioned as your friend’s remark may have been, I felt like I’d been punched in the chest reading that! Words matter. I’m interested to read what you have to say in the rest of the posts in this series!