A Thought on Body Image and Diet Culture.

“I will shed all of this skin down to the very bone beneath it, if that’s what it will take for you to come to the realization that appearance is not what makes a person beautiful.”

I have been complicit with diet culture. I have been complicit with making women and men believe that appearance is so important that it’s worth talking about on social media every day. I have commented on other people’s bodies. I have complimented weight loss and offered weight loss suggestions to people who have spoken to me about weight gain. 

I have been complicit. My actions have caused harm. My actions have caused others to believe that they needed to lose weight and inches in order to be their best selves. I am ashamed of pictures that I’ve posted online, posts that I’ve shared, and conversations that I’ve had about weight loss. If any of the things that I have posted, said, or done have impacted your self image in a negative way I sincerely apologize.

Today I want to redirect myself and start sharing new things and speaking differently about the human body. Differently about the way that it changes and adapts to life. Differently about how it grows and contracts. Different about the way that I eat and the negative aspects of diet culture. I want to be intentional about acknowledging the lessons learned and the trials that my body overcomes more than a change in pants size. 

Before I dive deep into this, I want to be fully transparent with you about where I stand right now. I currently follow a diet for my meals and the way that I eat. I think that this is the healthiest I have ever eaten and the most mindful I’ve ever been about giving my body real nutrients. When I am mindful and purposeful about having well-balanced meals I feel amazing. I feel energized and clear-headed. I don’t feel stuffed or weighed down after eating and I don’t feel restricted. I still eat candy and pizza, Chinese food, and drink wine. 

Now, I’m just more informed and mindful about what I’m giving my body and making sure to give it the fuel it needs to be successful. 

Moving forward, that’s how I will talk about food and the way that I eat. I will talk about the way that it makes me feel and not about how it makes me look. I will talk about having a clear mind and a light heart and not mention pants size. Not because I’m ashamed of my body or what I look like but rather because I value my body that much. Because when I look at society and I take an inventory of my speech and my comments, I am hurt by the things that are said and the things that I see. 

I took a series of polls on social media last night and 76% of people who took the poll said that society impacts their self-image in a negative way. 75% of people said that social media does not have a positive impact on the way that they view themselves. 88% of people said that they compare themselves to people online. 

The things that we’re seeing are not adding to our lives, they’re hurting us. So it’s time to stop hurting ourselves. It’s time to stop consuming content and listening to voices that reinforce unhealthy habits. It’s time for me, time for us, to get back to truth. And the truth is that the least important thing about me is how I look. The least important thing about you is how you look. 

The least beautiful thing about a person is what their body looks like. Not because their body is ugly, it is gorgeous and perfect and wonderfully made but their soul is more beautiful. Their heart holds endless depth and light, their personality fills a room and captivates those around them. The body is a vessel for all of the beauty that we hold. The body is beautiful but not as beautiful as what it carries. 

This is not to shame anyone. This is not a critique of people who show their bodies on Instagram, I have done it. Scroll through my IG and you’ll see a “before” and “after” picture, you’ll see pictures of me in crop tops and bikinis, etc. If your page has the same, I’m not shaming you for that. 

This is a critique of diet culture. This is a critique of a society that is too vocal in regard to women’s bodies. This is a critique of a narrative that tells us that if we want to be beautiful all we need to do is lose a few pounds. What I am doing is trying to reframe our minds to realize that what our bodies look like is not a factor in how beautiful we are. 

I will never post a before and after again because for me that plays into the negative aspects of diet culture. This idea that we need to strive to be smaller, to exist in a world where we inhabit less physical space, that fat is ALWAYS something that needs to be lost. I will still post pictures in a swimsuit. I will still post pictures in crop tops because I love them. I will still post pictures of my body because it’s the house I occupy but those pictures will never be about weight gained or weight that I’ve lost. 

Those pictures and the captions that accompany them will be about me, a person living in a healthy vibrant body that I love. I have never loved my body more than I do right now. The more that I rid myself of unrealistic health standards and societal norms about bodies the more I love myself. This body is the vehicle for my passion and talents. This body has been with me forever and has never failed me, yet for so many years I failed it with the language that I used to talk about it and the tactics that I took to make it thinner. 

I want to spend the rest of my life treating my body better. The rest of my days using words filled with grace and love when I reference it. I want to be mindful about not attaching my self worth to how thin or how thick I am but rather how well I love and how I care for the other humans that occupy this earth with me. 

May we always remember that the most beautiful parts of ourselves are not visible. 

With love, 

Xo - N

Beautiful is the body; a poem and a story.

I’m amazed by the way that bodies change

Hardening and softening

Muscles growing from weights lifted

Skin expanding from babies being created and formed

Waists slimming and filling out through different phases of life

How amazing the body is

With the way that it endures trauma yet isn’t destroyed

Is bruised and broken yet still breathing and existing

How amazing is the body and the way that it is built

Carrying us through our day

Lifting up our children

Tiny muscles coming together as we move and navigate the world

What a fantastic gift we’ve been given

These bodies of ours

May we acknowledge and celebrate them

For the ways that they expand and contract

The ways they protect and guard

For all that they do

These beautiful bodies of ours.

My body has changed a lot during this COVID season. It evolved and adapted with the circumstances. It expanded and contracted, skin stretched and then retreated back to how it was before. All in an effort to keep me protected and keep me safe. My body knew what it needed to do in order for me to survive. When my brain checked out and my reason followed, my body stepped in and held me up and guided me back to me.

When we began to feel the impact of COVID-19 and talk of quarantine started I was excited about the idea of working from home and being in the house. As an outgoing introvert, I enjoy time with others but I love time alone. It refuels me and keeps me centered. I did not expect or anticipate the anxiety that enveloped me when quarantine became a reality. You know those panic buyers? The people that loaded their grocery carts with cans of corn and toilet paper and flour? I can empathize with them. I was almost one of them.

The first week of quarantine I became fixated on the idea of always having an abundance of eggs in the house. I eat eggs every morning and the idea of running out of them ignited a panic within me. I don’t use that word lightly; I genuinely mean a true panic. The thought of it would make me feel deeply anxious. To make matters worse, one day I went to the store to buy some and the shelves were empty. I left my cart right there, in front of the display and went to my car and cried. I was so upset and shaken that I nearly had a panic attack. If you know me well than you know that it’s not like me to react in that way about something so minuscule. I wasn’t feeling like myself, I felt so overwhelmed and filled with dread. It took a few days before we could get eggs but we never ran out, we never even came close. This is only a snapshot of weeks of intense feelings of anxiousness.

I look back at that time, which was only a few months ago and I feel so grateful for the way my body filled the gap that my anxiety created. It was so beautiful and unexpected and necessary.

Now that I’m on the other side of that dark season, I am very mindful of the way that I treat and speak about my body. This body that carried me when my mind couldn’t orient me. This beautiful, strong, body that fed me and made me move when anxiety and depression told me that staying in bed all day and not eating was a better idea. This body that allowed me to melt into a hug and a kiss from my partner and really feel it when my mind seemed so far away.

I love my body but more importantly now, for me at least, I trust my body. I trust that when I’m in a healthy place my mind and body can work together and when I’m not, that the strongest part of me at the time will step up. What a beautiful revelation to have, right? That when darkness seems to be encroaching around you that light will shine from an unexpected place.

I feel stronger now. I’ve talked to my therapist and she gave me some tools and now I feel more equipped to handle life. Thank God for therapy. If something like this happens again I’ll have the resources and experience to navigate it. I don’t feel shame around the fact that I struggle with anxiety. Soon I will write about mental health in the Black community and the importance of being vocal about it and normalizing it. I am hoping that anxiety will not be a lifelong challenge for me but it’s here for now.

I haven’t experienced waves as strong as the first week of quarantine but it lingers near like a low tide. At times it cripples my reason and at others it is simply a distant concern. As talk of a second wave intensifies so does the roar of this illness but I’m keeping it at bay. Tough is the anxiety but beautiful is the body that holds me down as I navigate it. Beautiful is the body that gives home to this soul that keeps me sane when things get scrambled. I’m amazed by the ways that bodies change, hardening and softening but I’m even more amazed by the way that when we’re lost, they carry us home.