Lipstick, Lettuce & Lycra

Body Positivity and Learning to Love Yourself

—

by

Retro Chick
in

Last night, while browsing Facebook, I came across a post about Tess Munster.

In case you don’t know she is a plus sized model who has recently been signed to a major London agency and started the #effyourbeautystandards hashtag. The post itself asked “Would you be happy if she was your childs role model?”, but it was the comments underneath that really started to make me feel queasy, where people, largely Men, but Women as well, felt somehow entitled to insult other commenters and Tess herself by just calling her names, and saying they were disgusting.

a5782fff09799dcc6c90e6993faa8385

I consider myself Body Positive. I don’t give a flying [insert rude word here] if you’re a size 6 or a size 60 as long as you’re happy and feel good and don’t judge me for my choices any more than I judge you for yours.

A few weeks ago I re-shared this post from 2012, and someone on Twitter called me out for fat shaming. The offending sentence was one that read “Happy people don’t comfort eat entire family sized pizzas and then despise themselves for not sticking to their lettuce leaf and ice water diet. ”

I felt awful. Then I thought about it a bit more and realised I didn’t. Happy people DON’T comfort eat entire family sized pizzas, because happy people don’t need to comfort eat. That said, happy people also don’t force themselves into a deprivation diet of lettuce and ice water either. I may have phrased some of that post differently if I wrote it now, but the point was to encourage people to eat good food all the time instead of stressing about being “on a diet”. We live in a world where having a healthy and balanced diet is incredibly hard as we’re constantly bombarded with fast food, where the “healthy” choice is one small section of uninspiring salads in the corner of the menu. The relationship between emotions, food, body image and body size is a delicate and complex one, I don’t judge anyone for wanting to lose weight, get fit, or not.  Outside of those with medical conditions, the choice is theirs to make, but being in a happy emotional place whatever your choice is and having the tools and support to follow through on your decision is something I think is important.

I’ve seen people calling out obese people personally as a drain on the NHS, which is absurd. Some people chain smoke 40 cigarettes, or binge drink at the weekends, or undertake physical exercise for which they may well at some point need the help of the NHS to treat an injury, or live under power lines, or even get old, hell, old people cost the NHS a fortune. I do, however, wish that we could recognise more as a society the reasons for our expanding waistlines over the years and have an honest debate about it. A less active society where the only readily available and cheap food is pumped full of additives, reconstituted and covered in breadcrumbs and we’re lead to believe that “healthy” foods are pre packaged and full of chemicals. I’d love to see a change in that culture, but that’s a thing that won’t happen quickly, if at all, and in the meantime all we can do is make the best choices that work for us in our lifestyles.

IMG_5522 copy

Developing a healthy relationship with my body and food has taken me years. Through the years when I was a size 8 and would throw my lunch away, to the years when I was in that (completely made up and BMI is nonsense) “obese” bracket and wore the same too small stretch jersey wrap dress for 2 years because I didn’t even know what dress size I was and couldn’t buy more clothes. I went to Weight Watchers and lost a load of weight, then gained a bit back. When I wrote this post in 2010 I still wasn’t there, I nearly was, but not quite, because I was still thinking of my body as a weight, and there being a weight where I would be “happy”.

For me, it was starting to exercise that was the final light bulb moment. I realised weight has very little relevance to how my body looks or feels. I stopped thinking about my body as merely something to put clothes on and present to the world, and started thinking about the things I needed it to do, that I WANTED it to do. I developed a relationship with how I felt physically when I ate and drank certain things, and then I found myself wanting to eat less junk food (I said less, not NONE), I even drink alcohol less often now than I used to (apart from Cocktail Week, that doesn’t count). At the moment I’m watching what I eat a little more, because, well, Christmas happened (and last year was already a downward slope of injury and illness) and body positivity is all very well as long as your clothes still fit and I’m not rich enough to buy a whole new wardrobe.  I’m heavier now than I was when I wrote that 2010 post, but most days I’m pretty happy and getting dressed isn’t a stressful experience because the relationship I have with my body is a realistic one.

IMG_5517

I hate that we live in a world where complete strangers can think it’s ok to call someone “disgusting” because they don’t fit into their ideal of how someone should look. I hate that we live in a world where there is a multi-million pound diet industry peddling additive and sweetener filled junk food as the solution to a problem that is both self-created and sometimes completely in our own heads. I hate that we are conditioned to think that happiness is a number on a scale or a point on a tape measure.

I do not know Tess Munster, I have no idea what she eats, how she exercises or how her body feels to her, but if she is a role model to children, then I’m happy about that, because the message she sends is that WHATEVER your body is like, it’s yours, it tells your story, and your body is not what is holding you back from happiness, that only comes from within.

Your body reflects the life you live. Live it your way, be happy, and enjoy the fact that your body reflects that too. My body has thighs that could only be described as “sturdy”, they are solid and reflect hours spent running, playing Roller Derby and at the gym, I’m a little “overweight” (depending on what measure you use!), but I’m a girl who likes cocktails and cheese, I like to go out for dinner and I like to eat good food, and occasionally really terrible junk food, because it has its place, I have big upper arms that mean I sometimes struggle to buy dresses with sleeves, but I’m an excellent person to have on hand if you want something heavy moving, I have a 20 year old tattoo of a lizard on my hip as evidence of my misspent youth and a scar on my knee from when I fell over in the playground when I was little, I have a scar on my right arm as evidence that I can’t take things out of an oven without supervision, and a birthmark on my right hand. All these things are my body, and they’re not flaws, they’re the marks of living my life as I want to live it (apart from the birth mark, I had no choice in that).

Body positivity isn’t confined to a plus size movement. If you’re a size 6 and you hate your skinny ankles or your knobbly knees, a size 14 and hate your fat arms or a size 20 and wish you had a more defined waist then it’s for you. Your body is the vehicle that takes you through life, and it’s such a shame to waste that life worrying that other people might be judging you when you could be getting out there and living it your way.

Comments

70 responses to “Body Positivity and Learning to Love Yourself”

  1. Debbie avatar
    Debbie

    I’ve started obsessing over bmi…my wii fit tells me I’m overweight…my wedding ring will not happily sit next to my engagement and eternity rings… I’ve already had my rings enlarged…but I love my boobage…urgh. Rings fitting is my target, there, said it…will do it! I too enjoy having a healthy, strong body. Quite frankly I’m terrified of frailty in old age. Bodies are a funny thing eh?

    1. Gemma avatar
      Gemma

      Oh gosh, don’t let your wi-fit upset you! I think things not fitting is a guide I now use. I can’t buy a new wardrobe every 5 minutes, and your rings are irreplaceable!

  2. pippi hepburn avatar
    pippi hepburn

    Beautiful is beautiful. No matter what size one is. I am so happy these plus size models are getting regular work. Now you even see models with scars or birthmarks on their faces. It is just more character, and that adds to beauty too. Yes, we all need to exercise, it makes you feel great!

  3. Thursday avatar
    Thursday

    Where does your tenuous theory that vanity sizing is making us all miss the fact we’re fat fit in with this version of body positivity? If it’s about body stewardship, and not a number on a label, why do those numbers being inconsistent matter? And how often do you come across a woman who DOESN’T dislike her body in some way and stress about her weight at least a little? There are so many pressures in society and the media that the number on your trousers being one less than two years ago is not going to make many women, if any, think that they suddenly fit the beauty standard and don’t have to worry any more.

    I am a fierce proponent of body positivity, because so many people waste so much energy hating themselves because others stand to profit from that hate. I think the “fat people are unhealthy” defence is weak at best – you are not a person’s medical professional so you have no idea what is going on in their body. Fat doesn’t automatically equally unhealthy, and even if you are overweight due to lifestyle choices, there is no evidence to suggest that shame and hatred will help you. Quite the opposite. If you can understand and accept your body for what it is, you are more likely to enter a space where you care for it as you need to.

    1. Gemma avatar
      Gemma

      I was thinking about that when I was writing this, but there is only so much I can say in one piece as I don’t want to write a 10,000 word thesis!

      I think vanity sizing is part of the same problem with the relationship we have with food. We spend a lot of time deluding ourselves that we are fine rather than being honest about our bodies and our relationship with them. I don’t think body positivity involves pretending there aren’t ever any issues with weight or health. It’s do with not hating yourself for things you can’t change, or don’t want to change. The numbers on our clothing being inconsistent matter for several reasons. The first is it makes it bloody hard to buy clothes if the numbers on the label are different from shop to shop. The second is that inconsistency means that many women actually DON’T know anything about their bodies, because they think of them solely in terms of what dress size they are fitting into and if that’s a size 10, well, they’re skinny and that must equal healthy and they have nothing to worry about. I don’t think vanity sizing is making us fat. I think it’s allowing us to convince ourselves we aren’t, and that’s not an honest relationship with your body. Articles about Tess Munster will frequently say she’s a size 24, but that’s a totally made up number that may well have been a size 32 in the 1960s and in another 20 years might be a size 20. It means nothing and gives no information about someones health, or even their shape.

      I also think that “fat people are unhealthy” is an unhelpful generalisation, and I don’t even know how we define “fat” anyway. BMI is mostly nonsense and although we can use other indicators personally I don’t think they are of much use if people are active and not suffering ill effects. There are studies that relate waist measurements and WHR to an increased likelihood of developing certain diseases, but there are also studies that link being overweight to a decreased likelihood of other diseases. I also don’t think that saying you can be fat and fit is very helpful if people AREN’T fat and fit, and a lot of people aren’t. I think these things are important to be aware of. If you have a 34″ waist and never walk any further than your car then it’s worth knowing that is a risk factor for heart disease, especially if you have a family history of it, if you have a 34″ waist but you run 10 miles 3 times a week and have just completed a triathlon then you’re probably mitigating that risk factor quite a bit by having a healthy heart!

      I don’t think anyone should base their self worth on the number on a scale or the label on a dress, but I am passionate about people having the honest information and tools to know what’s going on with their own bodies and to understand them better. That was kind of exactly my point with this piece, is that life is too short to waste spending it obsessed with how your body looks, or slating how other peoples bodies look. Just get out there and live it and be happy, the rest happens anyway.

  4. Mim McDonald (@crinolinerobot) avatar
    Mim McDonald (@crinolinerobot)

    I eat family-sized pizzas because I like them. World of difference from comfort eating! There was an interesting piece on Radio 4’s Inside Health about a project working with severely obese people in Gloucester; rather than relying solely on nutritional advice, they have therapists and other specialists who help people understand *why* they comfort eat. Pretty much all their clients have tried every diet going, lost weight and then regained; they can probably tell you how many calories are in any food you could name. Their relationship to food is disordered – which is not to say all fat people’s relationship to food is. I’m plus sized and reckon there are far more important things in life to worry about than my dress size.

    I didn’t find your piece offensive. Some people’s relationship with food needs addressing because it’s symptomatic of underlying psychological problems that they *do* need help with – and which being thin won’t make disappear. Sadly, the people who simply tell fat people to lose weight don’t give a flying toss about that. They don’t want us to be happy, they just want us to be thin.

    1. Gemma avatar
      Gemma

      I have been known to eat family size pizzas myself. I invariably regret it because pizza seems to disagree with me and I often feel ill the next day, but it’s worth it once in a while!

      My BMI is currently 28.8, but I wear a size 12-14. I can only assume there’s some muscle mass in there, but it’s fun to confuse medical professionals. A nurse made me get on her scales twice the other day as she thought she’d read it wrong, which is an exact reason not to let arbitrary numbers bother you.

      The Inside Health piece sounds interesting, that’s exactly the sort of thing that I was thinking of when I talk about giving people the tools to make their own decisions. Everyone makes their own choices, but if you don’t have the help and information to make that choice then it’s not really a choice.

      I’m pretty sure I could be a size 8 if I wanted, but I’d have to give up a lot of the stuff I enjoy, and that’s not going to happen!

  5. miss magpie avatar
    miss magpie

    To go off at a slight tangent I have also been thinking about what I want my body to do. Watching my Dad struggle with his mobility because to be blunt he was too lazy to do what the doctor told him, (use it or lose it basically!) made me think about myself. I am very much cut from the same ‘can’t be arsed to get up off the sofa cloth’ as he, and suddenly my own everyday aches and pains reminded me I’m not getting any younger and I really don’t want to go the same way.

    Sadly my Dad had a stroke a few weeks ago and watching him having to literally re-learn the most simple of things, things that we all do without even pausing to think, has made me think about my own mobility even more. Now I don’t particularly care about being thin, though I am aware as a size 14/16 I’m carrying a bit more weight than I should be, what I want now is to be healthy and fit.

    1. Gemma avatar
      Gemma

      I’m so sorry to hear about your Dads stroke. I hope he recovers well. x