Goodbye to negativity! My journey to body acceptance and self love.

How I learned to let go of hate and finally make peace with my body.

You look ok, why would you hate yourself? That’s really, really simple actually, I hated myself because society, the diet industry, the media and the entertainment industry made me. From the time I was a child I was bombarded with images of thin women. Seeing all the magazines marvelling at how much weight x celebrity had lost. Being assured by a million different diet companies that if I bought their plan or pill or shake that I too could achieve the perfect body.

At school all the popular girls were thin. In movies fat people only seemed to exist to feel sympathy for or be the comic relief. No one promoted the message about the importance of body acceptance and self love. Instead everywhere I looked I was told I just wasn’t good enough. That my body was unacceptable. That it was my fault because my dedication and willpower weren’t strong enough to lose the weight. How could I not hate myself?

Looking back I am so sad and more than a little angry at all the wasted time. So many hours weighing both food and myself, poring over meal plans, reading “success stories” hoping for secrets that this time would allow me to be successful! The hours at the gym doing exercises classes I hated, running on the cross trainer to burn off the food I ate when I was “bad” and never once questioning why I was doing it. WHY did I need to be thin? Easy — because everywhere I looked I was told this was the only option. If body acceptance and self love was a thing no part of it had ever touched my world. This was the world of Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and the teeny tiny Kylie. Thin was in.

So what changed?

My sister, and I will love her forever for this, bought me the book Body Positive Power by Megan Jayne Crabbe. Jayne (my sister) saw how unhappy I was and thought that even if I still wanted to lose weight that being more positive about myself was the place to start. She was usually with me on the shopping trips that ended in tears because I looked awful in everything, if I even found anything my size to start with. I can honestly say that that book changed my life.

Really? That sounds like an amazing book! What did you learn?

I learned that only 5 percent of women are genetically capable of having bodies that are the omnipresent staples of the modelling industry. Yes, you read that right….5 percent!! Of those 5 percent every photo you see and even a lot of videos now have been heavily edited. I think we all know this but it isn’t til you google things like celebrity photoshop it really hits home the amount of the body that is altered. So to recap only 5 percent of women can look like the models and actresses we see everywhere and even they don’t look as thin and perfect as they do in their pictures. Mind blowing right? We are being coerced and pressured daily to enter a marathon where we have literally zero chance of ever reaching the finish line! Absolutely insane isn’t it?

I also learned because we see these images everywhere we go it continually reinforces that that is what beauty looks like. The only way to undo it then is to actively seek out and look at ALL types of bodies. Having read those words was honestly like a lightning bolt hitting me! I realised how completely true this is. If we as a society are going to do is continue to look at these niche, falsified, airbrushed examples of “perfection” then how will our perceptions of what is normal and even beautiful ever change? I started immediately seeking out all the different examples of human bodies I could find. All shapes, sizes, colours, levels of ableness, age etc. Once I started I actually became a bit addicted!

Where did you look if thin images are everywhere?

One of my earliest resources was of course Instagram. I followed bodyposipanda which is Megan’s Instagram account. It made sense, her book had led me here after all! I also discovered some of the louder voices in body acceptance movement — Jes Baker (more on her and her book in a bit), Virgie Tovar, Marilynn Wann and Nic McDermid. I was amazed and delighted by the openness of their posts and their willingness to display their bodies without shame. How their love for themselves seemed so completely genuine and how much they admired all body types. From there I branched out to look at other beautiful fat acceptance warriors and I now follow around 400 of them. The more I looked the more I realised the extent of my brain-washing. How and why I was made to feel like utter shit about myself — because a huge number of industries make vast sums of money from it. To say that I am made angry by this is a massive understatement!

From there I also began to seek out other images of bodies, this time across clothing brands who were actively reaching out to more than the traditional thin bodies. Seeing professionally photographed models looking fabulous made me smile and I realised this is how it should always have been! How many eating disorders, bouts of depression and general feelings of worthlessness could have been avoided if only the idea of the beauty of thinness had not been shoved down our throats every time we turned around? How much more could some of these vibrant, talented and beautiful people have achieved if they hadn’t spent so much of their lives on a fruitless quest to shrink their bodies into something society labelled as acceptable? Myself included! After all I only started believing in myself, wearing bright clothes, feeling beautiful and starting to write at the age of 40. Up until then I was either dieting or feeling full of self loathing for falling off the wagon yet again! Let me assure you if you don’t already know that this feeling of worthlessness does not just affect your feelings about how you look. It’s an insidious mist that drains your ability to believe in your capability across your whole life — work, home, love, friendships all of it!

Are we up to date then? This is how you learned body acceptance and self love?

No not quite. I was well on the road by this point but I still had a long way to go. My next step was reading Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker. Now I’m obviously not going to tell you everything from this book because that would take a long time! I want to share with you my major take aways.

First of all, I’ve reclaimed the word “fat”. Fat is still seen as one of the worst and most mortifying insults possible in our society today. I honestly believe many of us would rather be labelled as almost anything else other than fat. This is completely illogical because fat is just an adjective. A simple descriptor with no more moral or emotional implication than blue-eyed, tall or brown-haired. All the negativity that it comes bundled with has been constructed by the industries that make money off it being a bad thing. Yes I’m looking at you diet, supplements, fitness, beauty, fashion and cosmetic surgery industries. The best thing about reclaiming the word fat though is that it can no longer be used against you. If someone calls you fat expecting it to be a killer blow and you just shrug nonchalantly and say “yeah, so?” the look on their face is truly priceless! It also leaves them nowhere to go. They’ve used their most deadly insult and it bounced off. It really baffles and annoys them believe me!

The second big thing I took from the book was the challenges. Throughout the book Jes sets challenges encouraging the reader to do things fat people are not supposed to do. These include everything from doing a cannonball in the pool or local lake to wearing a bikini or sitting in a booth at a restaurant. You’re encouraged to do as many or as few as you want to. I still haven’t worked up the courage to wear a bikini but I know I’ll get there one day. My latest big challenge was a bodycon dress. I look bulgy and bit lumpy but I still feel I rocked it! 5 years ago? I wouldn’t have even tried.

That’s great! You’ve embraced body acceptance and self love but weren’t you worried about your health? Type 2 diabetes, heart attacks, and cancer. Aren’t they all linked to obesity?

Yes. I really was worried about all those things. That niggle in the back of my mind was always there as I was working to quit the quest to be thin and diet culture forever. Was it worth being happy and embracing self love if it shortened my life? I reached out and read all the posts and blogs I could find and in led me to Linda Bacon’s book Health At Every Size. This is another fabulous read which deconstructs the fallacies and outright lies around what we have been taught to believe about obesity. The first major lie is that if you eat less and exercise more anyone can lose weight. Yes this is possibly true…in the short term. In the long term in studies only 0.01–5% of people lost weight and kept it off for more than five years. The majority gained the weight back and in many cases put even more on! This on-off-on-off yo-yo dieting can actually cause more stress on the body than just staying overweight to begin with.

What should you do then?

For this reason the health at ever size program advocates ignoring weight as our primary focus altogether. Throw away those scales! Instead focus on nourishing our bodies by eating a varied diet. Try to include more natural minimally processed foods. Make eating an event and really enjoy and be conscious of every mouthful. Build movement back into our lives and move for the joy of it and the benefits it brings not just working off the food we eat. Or indeed punishing ourselves for what we ate, something the chronic dieters among us know only too well! If we do these things our health will improve even if our weight doesn’t change.

What about the illnesses though?

To my surprise studies on both humans and rats show very few correlations between obesity and these illnesses. It is true that in a study those in the obese category were found to have higher blood pressure than those in the obese range. On further investigation though this may be due to yo-yo dieting rather than the weight itself. In both humans and rats who were obese but had never dieted blood pressure was found to be normal.

High Blood Pressure

In the case of plaque build up on the arteries no link has ever been found between increased fat on the body and increased plaque in the veins. Even more interestingly in the case where plaque build up was found in obese individuals their survival rate was higher than those in the ideal weight range!

Type 2 Diabetes

Obviously yes type 2 diabetes is very common in those significantly overweight. However research shows the spikes in sugar levels occur before the person gains weight. This is fact may be what leads to the weight gain. Once the weight is there it has a more negative effect and it’s a vicious circle. The solution to reversing this has been found to be exercise rather than weight loss. Every diabetes information page cites exercise as a vital component in getting the condition under control.

Cancer

The CDC completed an investigation and concluded there was little to no increase in mortality across all cancers in any BMI bracket.

I know this probably contradicts everything you’ve ever been taught but believe me the science is there to back it up. Every claim Linda Bacon made has anywhere from 1–8 citations to published and reviewed studies. I looked some of them up and they made for really interesting reading. If you’re interested in learning more I recommend you get a copy of Health at Every Size. In fact to be honest I recommend you get a copy of all three of the books I’ve mentioned. If you’re anything like me they’ll completely change the was you see your body.

Are we there yet?

Yes we are, you made it! How I learned body acceptance and self love. I will close by saying though that this isn’t a race with a finish line. My relationship with my body, my self esteem and feeling of self worth have improved beyond all recognition it true. That does not mean though that I never wobble! I never feel an urge to step in the scales, question if I should really be eating that or agonise over how I look in a new dress. This is a daily battle but it’s one that makes me feel valued and so I fight it gladly. I want to spread the word far and wide that everyone can feel this way too and I hope I’ve achieved that with this article. and you can begin your journey today.