TW: weight gain, weight fluctuations, diet culture, eating, body image, etc.
Hello WordPress,
There is something that I’ve been meaning to talk about, but I did put out a trigger warning to anyone who might get upset and/or triggered by the following topics. 🙂
So, the semester’s finally over, and the year being entirely held online, I can tell you I spent a lot of time on Instagram this year. I mean I was home most of the time, so breaks consisted mainly of checking my phone.
As I always point out, anyone who knows me knows that I have a love-hate relationship with social media. My content, though, has always been for the general public—I share my drawings, articles, photos, and thoughts on my profiles, so no content has ever been too political or too specific about anything. A lot of people use their profiles to stand up for a cause or for activism, which I used to do at some point as well (as I recall), but that didn’t last very long. I root more for making my content the more positive kind; the kind that puts a smile on people’s faces. Hence why I never fully disconnect from social media; my purpose for even being on those platforms keeps drawing me back on there.
However, I am tired of seeing perfection on my feed. Heavily edited photos, perfect bodies and perfect faces, perfect lifestyles as if a non-living microorganism hasn’t attacked the planet. Nobody wants those people to live agonizing lives, but the content that they are posting is harming a lot of their followers, especially the ones who are experiencing body mass fluctuations and negative perceptions of themselves, and/or the ones going through a hard time financially (who no longer can afford ‘healthier’ foods, etc.).
About a year-or-so ago, I followed an account by a journalist and influencer called Danae Mercer, who made it her mission to remind people they’re special and to love their bodies. She does that by explaining poses and angles used by models, and how photo/video editing apps work and trick viewers into believing something that isn’t real.
I’m flabbergasted by how simple posing could have such an impact!
But let’s talk about “quarantine weight”. At the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of people were stress-eating (some may still be stress-eating today), and for the same reason, nutrition gurus and diet culture ambassadors automatically saw this as an invitation to guilt-trap those people into thinking it’s not okay to gain weight during such a time.
While a lot of people perceived quarantine as an opportunity to ameliorate their lifestyles and build new habits, as I have previously documented in my Quarantine Journal category, something that should regularly be highlighted is that body mass fluctuations are normal!
Our bodies have kept us alive and healthy through every single day of this 1.5-year pandemic, and even before that, but we are not giving them enough credit and love!
Unfortunately, the media has trapped us into believing that something revolutionary had to happen to our lives during this pandemic, but even more awfully, they have been doing that to us every day before COVID-19.
If I had to talk about weight gain more specifically, I can only imagine how women with PCOS for example might have felt or still feel—for the ones who don’t know, women with PCOS should really pay attention to their body mass and body fat percentage to avoid aggravating their condition. I can also think of the people who compulsively begin eating when they’re down, stressed, or worried. I can only imagine detox tea wizards behind their pots plotting how they’re going to trick people at their most vulnerable state.
To that I respond first by admitting we’re all in this together. But hey, sometimes we tend to forget some essentials:
- The number on the scale is not an indicator of how fat you are because it is the totality of everything in your body, including bone mass, muscular mass, etc.
- BMI is not an accurate indicator about whether or not you are overweight, fine, or underweight because it’s an equation that correlates the number on the scale (that, again, accounts for all masses in your body) to your height. It was deduced based on type of body, not accounting for different types. Furthermore, if a body builder measures their BMI, it’ll be pretty high (indicating being overweight), but it’s actually because of their muscle mass. Does a high BMI mean a body builder isn’t healthy?!
- Your body mass is the least interesting thing about you. Honestly.
- Skipping meals is never the answer. You need to fuel your body with nutrients and energy, regardless of how much you ate the day before or at the beginning of the day. You deserve to eat.
- The body’s mass regularly fluctuates, and body allure fluctuates quite often during the day. How you look in the morning will surely be different than how you look in the evening. It’s an indication that your body is working normally! And do you really want to link your worth to something so unstable?
- There are no magical detox drinks and foods. Your liver does that for you. And there aren’t fat burning drinks either.
But, as always, I have comments on my own comments.
It is difficult to accept oneself once we look different from what we’re used to. To that, I respond: the problem isn’t with diets in themselves. The problem is guilt-trapping people into believing their worth and their happiness with themselves is tightly related to their appearances. The problem was never to diet because you want to feel better about yourself, but rather making you believe that dieting, very low calorie intake, cutting out carbs, and meal-skipping are the only key to your happiness. So, yes. Your fit friend will still want to regulate their food intake even though their body allure changes aren’t “visible”. On the other hand, your other friend who may have gained some mass might be at the happiest mindset they’ve ever been, especially that they let go of harmful eating habits.
I once read that body positivity is not about eradicating diets nor not going through plastic surgery. People who are body positive can still go through diets and plastic surgery if it makes them happy. The whole purpose of this concept is that all people, regardless of size, skin color, religion, sex, and culture be happy in their body. The reason for it is to not impose a “one-size-fits-all” on people. Body positive people can still have bad body image days, but as a whole, they are comfortable and happy in their own skin, and are not engaging in harmful and unhealthy behaviors. You can be body positive and still want to diet, still want to get a nose job, or still want to eat out every day.
As long as you are not shaming yourself for your behaviors or for not working out as much as you desire,
As long as you are allowing yourself to rest and digest,
As long as you are not talking negatively to yourself,
As long as you are not obsessively trying to fit into the media’s one-size-fits-all (because, let’s face it, it doesn’t exist),
It doesn’t matter how you want to go about your life.
You do you, for you.
I’ve already made this post way too long, so I think it needs a 22: Part III, Part II. What I do want to say is, if you find yourself labeling food as good or bad, skipping meals, working out extensively to compensate for a binge, or experiencing any form of disordered eating, please consider seeking help to make peace with food, mind, body, and soul (as the wonderful RecoverlyEverAfter would put it).
Kind reminder: you are beautiful, and worth way more than your appearance. You deserve to eat and embrace the natural functioning of a body that cares about nothing else but you. Take care of yourselves.
See you for part II.
Found a New Home 