Embody

Recently I got a chance to spend time with a toddler and his mother. We were sitting on the ground, playing with stickers, when he lifted his shirt up just past his rounded, circular, and truly jolly looking belly. He started rubbing his stomach with his hand, laughing, and smiling, as he placed a bright blue fish sticker right over his belly button. He looked up proudly at his mom, still drawing circles with his hand around his stomach. I sat there in awe of the curiosity and happiness that this young boy was approaching his body with.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt my feelings in my body. I am one of those people who takes breaks throughout the day to stretch. When I wake up in the morning, I spend a minute rolling my neck around, like it’s my way of allowing the day in. Maybe I’m this way because I grew up playing competitive tennis, which taught me from a very young age that my body is central to my identity. Whenever I was on court, whether it was playing a match, practicing, or running sprints, I learned that my body had to produce results, that my body was something that always had to be refined, shaped, made better. I learned that I had to keep my body both thin and strong, to make sure I could move around the court with ease.

This messaging — the one that tells people, especially women, that their bodies must be controlled so that they can move freely in the world — is so pervasive, it goes unnoticed. We are told, both explicitly and implicitly, that our bodies are not good enough, that we must control ourselves, shrink ourselves, make sure we never consider taking up too much space. We are told to never eat too much, indulge too frequently, or take too much rest. To remain presentable, beautiful, and accepted, we are told to place our hunger and our body size under control, no matter what the costs are.

My own attempts to control my body have been vast. After I stopped playing tennis, I felt the desperate need to ensure that I did not gain weight. Some of my initial attempts included cutting down my sugar intake, not eating after 8pm, and making sure I never had too many carbs. When none of these projects produced any noticeable results, I began eliminating more and more foods until I became a vegan, making sure to tell everyone it was purely for ethical reasons. I found myself working out twice a day. I started eating less and would only allow myself food that I considered “clean.”

After months and months, my body started to become smaller, and my muscles became visible. I began receiving praise from people in my life for my dedication and restraint. Beyond the actions I took everyday to control my body, I had no energy for anything else in my life. I simultaneously lost my personality and lost any trust that I once had in my body.

With a world of help from my loved ones, I began to see how incredibly consuming and deeply unhealthy my behaviors had become. I can surely say that recovering from an eating disorder, especially while living on a college campus filled with diet talk and exercise addiction, is an immensely challenging pursuit. I want to personally hug and applaud anyone who has recovered from any form of disordered eating, because it takes huge amounts of persistence and vulnerability to allow oneself to grow, both physically and mentally.

Recovery taught me more than I could imagine, and one of the most powerful lessons I have learned is that there is no social justice without bodies. We live in a society that is intensely fatphobic, one in which people living in larger bodies face absolutely atrocious levels of discrimination and hatred. In addition to the obsession that our society has with marginalizing folks based on race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, and ability, we are also obsessed with telling people that they are unworthy because of the size of their bodies. Even in progressive spaces, people continue to overtly discriminate and harshly criticize those living in larger bodies.

Science has shown that weight is in no way a good indicator of health, and that fat does not play a substantive role in causing disease. Instead, science has shown that being subjected to discrimination, including weight-based discrimination, is associated with increased levels of stress and diminished quality of life (Bacon & Aphramor, 2014). Despite these facts, we continue to demonize fatness and glorify thinness, as though one’s morality is tied to their size.

Ultimately, what I wish is that everyone could have the chance to live peacefully in their bodies. In order for this to become a reality, we must address our own fatphobia, in addition to the other biases we carry. We must begin to call out weight-based discrimination in our everyday lives. We must educate ourselves about what it means to respect and care for those of diverse body types. We have to change our language, listen to people’s stories, and broaden our perspectives. Leaders like Linda Bacon, Sonya Renee Taylor, Christy Harrison, Megan Crabbe, and Melissa Toler have made remarkable strides in advancing the body liberation conversation; however, there is still so much work to be done. It is time that all bodies are included in the conversation, because there is no such thing as collective liberation when certain bodies continue to be marginalized.

Bacon, Linda, and Lucy Aphramor. (2014) Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight. Dallas, Texas: BenBella Books.