Without fail at noon on every Friday, 30 minutes before my beginner ballet class starts, a mixture of fear and dread ooze into my mind. It starts when I think of getting dressed for class. Despite a well-stocked closet, I am never content with my choices. I spend 20 minutes scouring my closet for a garment that doesn’t exist—I am looking for something that will make me invincible. Exasperated, I leave wearing the same men’s gym shorts and oversized t-shirt. My nerves don’t get any better once I get to class. I am scared to look at my body in a mirror; I am scared to compare my body to my peers. I try to stand in the back rows as far away from the mirrors as possible, and I still occasionally catch a glimpse of my double chin. Or my belly escaping the drapery of my shirt. I am scared that even after working at accepting my body and fighting tooth and nail to get those around me to change their actions and opinions, I will see something repulsive. I can’t get through a weekly dance class without having to give myself pep talks. It takes all that I can muster to remind myself that I am beautiful and, more importantly, worthy of being in that class. It takes all that I have to remind myself that I love my body and that I can take pleasure in moving it. I can take pleasure and find beauty in my body.
I loathe classifying these problems (yes, I acknowledge that they’re problems) as “body image” problems. “Body image” isn’t really about the image of bodies. It’s about the holistic relationships we have with our bodies. It’s about how bodies look, how they move, what they feel like, and how we treat them. Even if we ignore semantics, conversations about body image almost always come down to health. Most conversations I’ve had about body image blame the media and advertising for exposing young girls to impossible standards in order to sell products. But more than selling products, these images drive people to unhealthy habits—crash diets, disordered eating, and sometimes even more dramatic actions like diet pills and self-harm.
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Hypothetical Situation: You're 40. Your doctor has discovered a blockage in one of the major arteries in your leg and you've just had surgery to remove it, as it was causing numbness in your leg and after a few weeks of that you started having trouble walking. You're not overweight, you don't drink, you exercise moderately and eat healthily. However, you do smoke cigarettes. Further tests have shown that you have several other arteries in your body that aren't completely blocked, but are over 50% blocked and will only continue to become more so. This is putting increasing strain on your heart.
Your surgeon and your doctor both sit you down after the surgery and tell you that the plaque blocking your arteries is a DIRECT result of your 30 a day cigarette habit. They both tell you, as medical professionals, that if you do not quit smoking then there is a VERY high risk that this will kill you prematurely.
Do you stand up, get angry, yell at the doctor and surgeon not to be so bigoted, and storm out? Or do you sit up and take notice and realise that you need to stop smoking otherwise your health and circulation is only going to steadily decline, as is your quality of life? You have been given a direct instruction that quitting smoking will improve your health, probably dramatically, and extend your life measurably.
Do you stand there and say that you're a proud smoker? That no matter what people think about your smoking habit, that you love yourself as a smoker and couldn't see yourself any other way? Do you say that it doesn't matter that this affliction is slowly killing you, because you're happy with yourself and you enjoy smoking and that is all that matters to you? Let's face it, being ALIVE is what matters most to anyone when faced with the alternative.
We really need to get off the bullsh*t horse when it comes to obesity. I'm talking "eligible-for-weight-loss-surgery-morbidly-obese-death" obesity. If we continue to deny there is a problem, or deny the overwhelming scientific, medical and SOCIAL evidence that a terrible diet and a sedentary lifestyle is slowly killing some of us, then there really is no hope of changing this. We as a society need to step up and say that this is not OK. Not when so many of these illnesses and issues are preventable within the individuals who carry them. Yes I do understand some cases are not the persons fault. However, if someone is morbidly obese because of, say, a thyroid condition, does this mean because they have a condition that makes their obesity "not their fault" that we should not still try and treat this obesity in this person? Whether it's your own fault you're obese or the doing of some other underlying medical or psychological condition, it does not make being morbidly obese any less disasterous for the body or dangerous for the person who has it.
Personally, I believe the ONLY opinions that really carry weight (pardon the pun) in this debate are those of trained medical professionals, those who have trained for years in this field and who have used the combined knowledge of humanity, collected over hundreds of years, to form educated opinions on the matter.
Why is everyone so against someone being happy with themselves?
This woman has managed to find love for herself in a world telling her to literally kill herself, starve herself and exercise herself to death. She is living life and loving herself with a positive attitude.
Why can't people accept it and then think what would make me love myself like that?
In a world full of shallow, vain people that only care about looks I believe it is heartening to see that some people despite the messages the media/strangers sends can love themselves.
Fat hate must end - as must healthism. Many people have health problems that are entirely unrelated to their weight. And health does not equal our worth.
I love you, Jenn Leyva. Truly, I do.
As a kid I was told by my parents, constantly that I was fat and overweight. I was confused, ashamed and had no idea how to handle it. I was eating flaxseed salads and diet shakes in high school when all my friends had ham sandwiches. I got that I was fatter than them, but I didn't get why. It wasn't until I moved out, at 22, that I started to realise how my body worked and that the way it worked and looked was ok. Buying my first lot of clothing without my mother there telling me "It's not the right cut" was breathtakingly cathartic. I now am a much happier person and spend more time taking care of the inside of me than the outside. It comes down to understanding, not striving for a certain image.
Seriously, so much love for you. x