In a world where thinness, perfectly manicured nails and a constantly changing wardrobe is presented as the minimum standard for women, I explore the relationship with my body, and find there is much more to life than meeting society’s expectations.
One of the earliest memories of being conscious of my body was when I was 8. Worried that my tummy was bigger than other girls in my class when getting changed for sport. A sad memory for me, but a poignant one. And I’m rather surprised actually that I didn’t have such thoughts earlier considering we live in a society where being small is still glamourised.
Fast-forward to my early twenties, a young single mum, who has tried most diets (unsuccessfully, unsurprisingly) and still clung onto my body as my whole self-worth. It was only when Covid hit, I took a diet way too far, and I could see it was affecting my daughter that I realised something radical had to change. I had conditioned myself to be outwardly critical towards my body, restrict food under the allusion of ‘healthy eating’ and forced my body through gruelling 5am workouts all in the name of ‘health’. And in turn, I was indirectly passing these thoughts onto my daughter.
Having reached a pretty low point, I scoured the internet, desperate to find other people who were like me, and who managed to forge a positive relationship with their bodies, food and exercise. This is where I was introduced to intuitive eating, the Health at Every Size (HAES) approach and joyful movement. And it was a revelation. I spent hours reading about set point theory (watch this video to learn more) and was hooked.
I struggled to comprehend that I, a relatively educated and worldly woman, was so manipulated by the pseudo-science of dieting, and had been wrapped up in harmful social media trends and truly believed that I had to push my body to extremes just to be accepted. However, I was ready to embrace this new mentality with both hands. And thus began my journey to true happiness and self-acceptance.
I spent the next 6 months intensively allowing my body to recover from years of restriction. What might be considered a rather radical approach was just what my body needed. I simply allowed my body whatever it wanted to eat (and at first, this truly was a lot of food), and amazingly, within a month or two, my cravings had completely reduced, my body craved a normal balanced diet (including plenty of sweets!) and my body weight settled at its happy point. At the same time, I stopped all exercise for a few months to re-wire my brain into not having an obsessive attitude to it, and deleted all social media accounts.
And it worked! It’s truly a relief now not to have to constantly be thinking of foods I wouldn’t allow myself to eat, to not have to sit with the guilt I would get for not having gone for a run or eaten a piece of chocolate cake, and to not constantly be worried about what others were thinking of me.
Photo by Eye for Ebony on Unsplash
And how has this changed my relationship with my daughter? Well, with her only being young, I feel extremely lucky that I worked on my issues early enough to make sure that I can set her up with a healthy example of a woman for most of her childhood. We never talk about food being good or bad, she knows to listen to her tummy when eating, we happily point out our wobbly bits, and I would never pressure her to exercise — instead, we go for bike rides, nature walks, paddle-boarding, all those fun things.
I am now working to make sure she is as resilient as possible for the inevitable times when she comes across diet culture, negative comments and peer pressure so that she too, can grow into a happy, healthy young woman.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Fuu J on Unsplash
