New Year, Same Body
TRIGGER WARNING: diet culture and eating disorders
To start on what I wish was a lighter note, January is a hard month. We continue to battle long, dark and cold nights, longing for the days to get brighter. This year, if we’re lucky enough to be working, we’re most likely sitting hunched over a desk in our bedrooms, with smiles from our colleagues received through a blurry Microsoft Teams or Zoom call. We’re also grieving and mourning 2020 as one of the most challenging and painful years we’ve ever lived through. Nonetheless, there are glimmers of hope in the form of vaccinations and longer days.
I personally felt quite overwhelmed and pessimistic at the beginning of 2021 and as the third national lockdown was announced. I tried to focus on appreciating what I have and being grateful, but perhaps selfishly, I couldn’t help but feel saddened by an overwhelming sense of loss and utter helplessness; despair at the privileged white men running our country. I know I’m not alone in this. As aforementioned, life has been exceptionally difficult for so many people over the last year. Millions have faced redundancies, more people than ever are depending on food banks, key workers have been exhausted and not to mention the millions that have lost their lives.
On top of this, we are facing a mental health crisis. As part of this crisis, more and more people are approaching eating disorder services for support, which generally have a 4-6 month waiting list. For eating disorder sufferers, Christmas and the subsequent welcoming of 2021 is incredibly challenging as we face the influx of people detailing their new year goals, weight loss adverts permeating newspapers, magazines, social media, and influencers irresponsibly promoting diet drinks and workout plans.
As a young woman who has battled an eating disorder, please don’t tell me to lose weight this month, this year, or ever. Please don’t tell me that I need to shred or burn off the Christmas food that I so heartily enjoyed over this festive season. Please don’t continue to allow diet culture to make me believe that my body needs to change with the New Year. Our life’s purpose is not to lose weight or to change our bodies, or profit the companies capitalising on fatphobia. Being thin should not be your life goal because someone, or a company, tells you that it should be.
Who cares if you ‘indulged’ over the holidays or because of the pandemic? (I really hate that word). Who cares if you have eaten more than you usually do? Whatever you eat, you don’t have to burn it off or lose weight through any means of diet or exercise as a punishment. Don’t feel any guilt for consuming food as you deserve to eat and nourish your body. And regardless of however much you ate today, yesterday or the last few weeks, you deserve to eat tomorrow. And the next day. And every day after that.
Every year up until this year, I have restricted my intake and compulsively exercised from January 1st - it’s always something I felt obliged to do, both for self-acceptance and the acceptance of others. The ‘wow, you look great!’ or ‘you’ve lost weight!’ comments gave me validation and sadly, made me feel loved and admired. This was an incredibly toxic mind-set to be in and it badly affected my mental health as trying to maintain a certain image costed me the happiness and freedom. The pervading and everlasting focus on appearance in our society has always haunted me in the sense that I always fell victim to its evil body-shaming, and I’ve simply had enough.
If you are triggered by any kind of conversation around a January or lockdown diet, exercise or weight loss, remember that you are perfect as you are and you don’t need to change. Deprivation and restriction only leads to misery, and will not build on your confidence but crush it even further. Listen to your body, honour its cravings, calls for nourishment, hunger and move it because it makes you feel good physically and mentally. Exercise to me is ‘joyful movement’ – moving my body because it makes me happy and relieves stress, as oppose to evading any feelings of guilt.
If you live with or are close to someone that struggles with an eating disorder or negative body image, please be wary of your vocabulary and language. No food is ‘bad’, there are no ‘treats’ and there is no ‘healthy or unhealthy’ because all food groups are essential to a balanced and well-rounded diet. This is extremely important because these terms can be huge triggers and lead to restriction. And as we all know by this point, eating disorders are killers, with anorexia having the highest death rate of ANY mental health disorder.
So, eat that chocolate, eat those carbs and choose a life worth living, a life full of energy. If you do want to lose weight as a new goal, then I wish you all the best. Please just do it with tenderness, sensitivity, with a mindfulness of others and most importantly for YOU and not for anyone else. Every single body is different so try not to compare your body and its needs to the needs of others.
I’ve come to think that making resolutions at the start of the year and at any point during the year can actually be really valuable, depending on what they entail. They could be anything from ‘complete one act of self-care every day’ or ‘try and read one book every three months’. They should build on your happiness, lust for life and loving yourself - they shouldn’t fill you with the dread of needing to change the way you look to conform to a societal pressure. Eating disorders steal lives, and our young people today need to be reminded that they are beautiful as they are and that having a positive relationship with food and your body is possible.
By disregarding and not fuelling diet culture, perhaps we can all achieve comfort, happiness and freedom to be who we are within our bodies. Your body has carried you through 2020 and with nourishment it will continue to do so, as we progress into what will hopefully turn out to be a really positive year. So please, be kind to yourself and I’m so proud of you for getting here.
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Social media can definitely drive standards of body image and thinness but please diversify your feed and follow these wonderful people/pages:
- @stephanieyeboah
- @khal_essie
- @curvynyome
- @selfloveliv
- @chloeincurve_
- @gracefvictory
- @_nelly_london
- @i_weigh
- @jameelajamilofficial
- @antidietriotclub
- @alexlight_ldn
- @thebodylovesociety
- @anniewadesmith
- @emmabreschi
- @brynonygordon
- @bopoboy
Written by Molly Gorman
‘Hey, I’m Molly, a 23-year-old youth charity worker living in London. I’m passionate about making a positive difference and amplifying the experiences of young women struggling with eating disorders.’