People worry about loved ones who are obese. The concern, they often say, is the medical risk.
But does a conversation about a person’s body, however well meaning, help?
Unsolicited advice never helped me. All I remember was the shame. And of course, I headed straight for food and gorged myself through the pain, which turned in to more shame.
The internal self-flagellation took years to get rid of. Being always in diet mode perpetuated that, as I was either good or bad, on a diet or off a diet.
My shamers were not horrible people. Many believed they were helping, thinking it would make me jump into action to try one more diet?
I have never responded to shame lessons. For anything!
And I am not alone. According to a study done by University College London, fat shaming led people to put on more weight.
Here is that lovely, lovely man, James Corden, responding to shaming.
I lost my weight because the pain had become too great. The anxiety, self-shaming and abuse around my weight impacted my life so much. Unless I made changes my future emotional well being did not look promising.
I lost weight because I wanted to feel better.
I lost weight for myself.
I did not lose weight because I was shamed by someone. Every shaming episode resulted in the same pattern: more shame, more self blame, self flagellation, binge eating and weight gain.
Until I became a Dieter in Recovery I made disparaging remarks about people’s bodies. From comparing myself (“I am not as big as her”) to health remarks (“oh poor thing she is going to have horrible health issues”) to disgust (“oh how could she let herself go”).
When I stopped dieting and worked on Loving kindness my internal dialogue made a shift.
In the beginning I found I still had judgement padding the loving kindness. If I saw someone I deemed overweight I would silently wish them well and express concern for their health. Easy to justify judgement when you are masking it as concern.
Through the body positive movement and reading the works of the earlier pioneers I recognized why my recovery would never be complete. I had missed a big part of the healing process: loving kindness, not just for me, but everyone.
I needed to embrace body autonomy not just for myself, but every other person.
My body is mine and no one gets to decide what I do with it and what size I am.
The more I became unwilling to participate in the body talk about others, the kinder I became to myself.
Now it feels toxic to engage in body comments.
And I stopped having areas where it was acceptable to make judgements (think celebrities and public figures). The body bashing and approval of celebrity bodies paves the way for all of us to make this acceptable to everyone.
I want no part of the evisceration of other people. Justifying it as concern does not make it right.
Concerned enough to make a donation to an eating disorder clinic?
When I stopped looking at people as sizes and body parts I saw their energy, their spirit, their talent, …. the person.
It shocked me how much I had missed, by focusing on the size of their thighs!
Are you ready to embrace yourself and others?
You are so worth it.
Thanks for reading,
Christina
