I wrote this a while ago, and nothing has really changed. Much. There was a blip into the body positivity movement, but with ozempic everything changed. Or rather, it went back to how it used to be. How it was when I grew up. That heroin chic look is back in a big way and we desperately need to take a hard look at ourselves and ask if this is what we want our children growing up and thinking is normal. That we can just change our bodies to suit whatever person’s narrative, whether or not our body was healthy before. Because it’s not about getting in shape and feeling good and feeling healthy, is it? It’s about that certain look, the frailty that people love to chase after, their health be damned.
I truly never thought I’d be the type of person screaming about body positivity. I was always skinny in a more ‘healthy’ way aka I worked out an insane amount to make sure I could eat the cake and the chocolate bars and the McDonald’s. And, you know, I was a teenager and then a young adult so it was much easier for my body to be sculpted to, exactly, what the magazines said I should look like. But, somehow along the working out for hours every day (even while as a cashier I’d be doing calf raises so I could squeeze in more calorie burning when I couldn’t be at the gym), drinking my whiskey straight because pop had too many calories, and making myself fit into clothes that were too small instead of just buying a bigger size, I grew up.
I realized that this was absurd. That my body was capable of more than just looking a certain way. It, honestly, took my body going from healthy and relatively happy to absolute chronic migraines and a shut down for me to realize this, but here we are.
Unfortunately, not everyone gets this type of awakening and is stuck in the ways that we grew up in, in the ways that we were told were ‘healthy’.
There are people at work who exasperate you with their stupidity, there are people at work whom you love, and there’s always, always, that one woman who counts calories and wants the world to know it.
Recently, a woman at work and I were talking about cake. Seems innocent enough. Cake is delicious and is usually brought out to celebrate, so what could be the problem? She was wondering why I didn’t head into the lunch room to grab a slice of cake. I stated a simple ‘not wanting anything sweet right now,’ hoping that would be enough. It wasn’t. Obviously. This is a work place, and even throughout a pandemic, people are continuously forcing cake onto you and wondering just what in the fuck you’re thinking, not taking any.
I went through my whole spiel on how I’m not having any because sugar is a huge cause of my migraines, so I try to cut down on all junk foods. She then launched into how she has cut out bread and sugars from her entire life and now cannot eat her yogurt and berries tonight because she had a slice of cake today. Let’s ignore the part about her not being able to eat plain yogurt with berries for a minute just because she ate some cake. It’s absolutely ridiculous since berries and PLAIN yogurt are actually very good for you, but not the point that is most annoying.
The part that really stuck in my craw was the one that she’s often stressing out about food. Or, rather, the idea that food is the enemy. Which isn’t true, as I’ve learned on my migraine journey. I’ve been using food to heal myself instead of thinking of it as something to be angry with, to avoid. It’s changed my whole viewpoint on certain foods and made me wonder how we fell down this rabbit hole of hating the very thing that fuels our bodies.
After she finished her spiel on how she constantly ‘falls off the wagon’ and is always losing and gaining that same 25 lbs over the years, I was ready to get back to my work. But, feeling like this was a teachable moment on how food ISN’T the absolute worst thing to be feared, I told her how I don’t cut anything completely out of my life, and that’s how I’ve been able to eat far healthier than I ever have before without suddenly turning into an all-consuming monster of junk food and snacks for months on end.
I’m no doctor, but I can guess the reason why she was constantly having trouble with her weight: starvation. I saw this woman, someone who is old enough to know better, bring an egg to work for lunch most days, then eating it in the morning because she skipped breakfast, only to go out and buy lunch. Then, she would complain about how hungry and tired she was all the time and how she wasn’t losing the weight she wanted to.
Oh, really? I never would’ve guessed that working out obsessively and starving your body would lead someone to be tired and feel like absolute crap. Even when I was working out constantly in my youth I would be constantly eating. My body needed the fuel to keep up with my work-outs, and you know, just being alive.
Until recently, this woman never stated she was doing any of the above to be healthy but because she was fat. Don’t worry, she still thinks she’s a monster in size, but she’s just trying to be healthier this time around. This woman isn’t fat by any type of standard, except by the voice that lives in her head, the one that society has been feeding for years. I’m sure she was out of shape and not eating properly, but fat? Naw, we can’t state that. Instead of eating a balanced diet and exercising, she went full tilt, which always leads to rebounds. One of my favourite nutritionists on Instagram (Bonnie Roney, RD (@diet.culture.rebel) • Instagram photos and videos) always posts about how diets have been around for so long, and yet, everyone isn’t perfectly skinny and healthy and happy.
Because they’re just not sustainable.
Rebounds happen. You call your ex. You can’t make it through Sober November. You eat an entire cake and then a whole sleeve of cookies after not eating any sweets for weeks. It happens.
Our obsession with how much we weigh instead of how healthy we are, and the negative thoughts about ourselves and our physical appearance, have gotten out of hand. While #bodypositivity is trending and slowly changing the landscape, it’s still not enough. Mainly skinny women telling everyone to love the bodies they have, it’s more of a kick to the teeth than an emotional hug. Skinny women, of course, should be proud of their bodies, and they do receive a lot of flack for promoting body positivity, which isn’t fair. But, when all you see is someone in great — or relatively good — shape telling you that bodies are beautiful, it’s frustrating as all hell.
When these perfect-looking models promote body positivity, they’re met with a lot of praise from most people. Yes, you should love your stretch marks! Yes, all scars are beautiful! Yes, cellulite and pimples happen! Except, flip this. Put a fat chick in there, and the internet goes buck fucking wild. She’s promoting unhealthy choices. She hates skinny women. She’s telling girls that being fat is okay, even if you’re unhealthy.
Which is total, complete bullshit.
Our weight doesn’t automatically mean that we are healthy or unhealthy.
Let’s talk about BMI, something my co-worker also brought up in this talk that put me over the edge, shall we? Body Mass Index has been around for a while and is a tool used to measure just how healthy or unhealthy you are. And, sure, if you’re weighing over 300 lbs, you’re most likely not doing too well health-wise, depending on your frame and muscle mass and all that good stuff. But, there’s a HUGE but here…and maybe a huge butt…we’ve started to use this as a way to tout how healthy skinny bodies are.
We’ve also just kept on using it as a way to determine this, even though it is highly, highly flawed.
Which, again, is total, complete bullshit.
Skinny does not automatically mean healthy. I’ve got two examples where we can call bullshit on skinny equaling healthy. Let’s start with my father-in-law. Now, this man is hella healthy. He can outrun, outbike, outswim, out-fucking-anything-athletic me. Even if we swap my body out for the body I had when I was in tip-top shape, he could still go toe-to-toe with me today. He is 40 years older (rockin’ his 70s). He eats incredibly well and has for years. My husband complains about how they were forced to eat tofu for suppers and rarely had boxed meals or sugary cereals. He looks like the poster person for healthy living, right down to his skinny body.
But…this man has extremely high cholesterol. So much so that he has specific plant sterol margarine that he buys and avoids a lot of foods or can only eat very little of them. Looking at him, you’d think, ‘damn, this guy has to be as healthy as they come,’ and he is, for the most part. But it’s not as eclipsing as everyone claims skinny people are/should be. I’m sure his BMI is perfect, although I honestly can’t say I know for sure. Sometimes, other factors come into play and it has absolutely nothing to do with how skinny you are.
Let’s move on to my second example. Surprise! It’s me! Or, rather, high school me. I remember, quite distinctly, getting our BMI measured in high school. Thinking I was going to nail this, I didn’t bat an eye when the measurements were taken. I walked a lot, I went for runs, I played sports, I ate…okay. My parents fed me relatively healthy meals, also without boxed or sugary cereals most of the time, but I was 15, so McDonald’s was a delicious treat instead of a fail (now, I’ve learned it’s still a delicious treat and not a fail, but damn, did it take me years to get there). The measurements were taken, and I was declared…obese.
Not slightly above average, not athletic, right to obese. A word that is used to describe someone with abnormal and excessive weight that is detrimental to their health. Do you think a young teenager who played basketball, went for runs and walked a lot of places, and could out bench-press most of her male peers was holding onto so much weight that it made a detrimental effect on her life?
I almost cried. Maybe I did later, thinking about being shamed about my body; who can remember? I do remember feeling ashamed that my BMI was too high and that I was considered obese. My stomach was flat, and I was in incredible shape; what more could I do?
Fucking nothing.
Because BMI, and your weight, is complete bullshit as the sole indicator of whether or not you are a healthy human being.
At the time I wrote this, I was the largest I’ve been, give or take 5 lbs. I’m not obese by any true standards, I still fit a size 12 pants/dress, which doesn’t put me into the plus-sized section, but I’m sure my BMI would be so high that doctors who only believe in such bullshit would faint. I also get some exercise (though I’m working on adding more to my routine. Turns out, you can’t just jump into high-intensity cardio after years of 5–10+ migraines a month), I eat pretty fucking healthy, and have cut junk food out of my life. Not fully because I’m not a psycho, but I don’t eat a bag of chips to feel better or nom on chocolate bars just because I’m bored, and I am able to say no to free cake at work just because I don’t feel like it anymore instead of feel like it was a freebie and I HAD to have some.
Right now, I feel healthy. I feel amazing. I feel the best I ever have. And yet, by society’s standards, I’m a fat piece of garbage that should be dying from health issues. Because of what I look like, what that scale is telling me. My neurologist once told me if I lost weight, I could have fewer migraines. Well, I haven’t lost much weight, and I’m having fewer migraines, so could it be that the actual weight — and not the healthy choices made — doesn’t 100% matter?
My stepmother-in-law moved a scale into the cabin bathroom because she, apparently, wants us all to hate ourselves while we laze and hike and sun away our troubles at the lake. I made the mistake of stepping onto that scale one weekend, and I’ve been horrified ever since. Horrified by a number that doesn’t mean much if my blood pressure is good, my heart is happy, my body is full of vitamins from healthy veggies and fruits, my brain feels great, and everything is working as it should. Yet, I feel like my body isn’t worthy of this amazing feeling because it’s chubby, it’s flabby in some areas, and just okay in others.
Let’s change the perception that fat people are unhealthy simply because they are fat. Let’s start talking about healthy choices, healthy foods, and exercise. Let’s talk about how food isn’t the enemy, and having those chips, when you’re craving them, and having those sweets when you want them, is okay. Let’s put away the starvation diets, the cleanses, really, the anything diets. Let’s start loving our bodies and accepting their flaws with the good bits. Let’s start being nicer to ourselves and ignore what a number on a scale says. We owe it to our children to not have to grow up with these ideas that food is the enemy.
We owe it to ourselves.
Juniper and Daisies 