By Jodie Gravett

*CW: suicide, unhealthy eating habits, drug abuse*

 

Everybody knows that society forces impossible expectations upon us, so why do we all continue to try and fit into the shapes that the world around us tells us that we should fit into?

One of the worst of these expectations comes in the form of diet culture and ideas of how our bodies should look. This is just my personal experience with weight loss, unhealthy diets and impossible expectations. Through self-reflection, I have come to know two things:

1. THERE IS NO LIMIT TO HOW MUCH SPACE YOUR BODY CAN TAKE UP IN THIS WORLD

2. YOUR WORTH IS NOT – AND NEVER WILL BE – MEASURED BY A SET OF SCALES

How can I be loved?

I grew up with the idea that fat is bad. I remember being told I had puppy fat when I was about ten years old, but ‘not to worry’ because I’d ‘grow out of it.’ I remember feeling relieved at the reassurance that at some stage my body would take up less space.

At fourteen, I tried the Special K diet. Supplementing two of my meals a day for a bowl of cereal, I didn’t realise at the time how many nutrients that meant I was losing out on (what about fruit and vegetables, for fuck’s sake?). 

By the time I was sixteen, bowls of cereal had turned to Slimfast shakes. An almost pure liquid diet for a growing girl who’d just started her period and who was dealing with puberty. Females need 14mg of iron in their diet. Slimfast shakes contain around 4mg of iron. Unless I was eating kidney beans and spinach for dinner every night, it is highly unlikely that my body was getting the amount of iron it required. Of course, at the time I had no clue about nutrition. To be honest, I didn’t care. All I cared about was losing a layer or two of fat. Healthy didn’t win you the man: beauty did.

I packed those Slimfast shakes for school each morning, taking care to peel off the plastic wrapping so that when I was confronted by my schoolmates about what I was drinking, I could make up a lie about it being a homemade milkshake my mum put into recycled bottles. Nobody should have to spend their school days lying to their closest friends because they are embarrassed about wanting to be the only thing they were taught mattered: small. It is a disgrace that the world projects these ideals onto us from such a vulnerable age and then tells us that we have to act like we aren’t striving to reach them.

As long as you take up no space

I wish that I could say that it didn’t take a handful of mental breakdowns, dozens of unhealthy dieting attempts, several heartbreaks and an attempted suicide for me to learn that my body is beautiful just the way it was. It wasn’t only my desire to be slim that caused these predicaments, but it was certainly part of it. 

Looking back now, I can clearly see that I was at my slimmest when I was at my least healthy. During my time at university, I never exercised – unless you count the MDMA-induced ‘dancing’ in the clubs – I lived off of meal deals and a couple of hours sleep sporadically spread out throughout the daytime hours. My nails were brittle, my skin was sore, dry and acne-prone, and at one point my hair started to fall out. I lived for nothing except that moment of ecstasy after you’ve inhaled a class A and the romantic ‘love’ of any human body who dared to touch me. I was a mess. But I was slimmer than I’d ever been. I remember thinking that meant that I was somehow more worthy of those moments of love and ecstasy. 

If being smaller was so important and I had achieved that ‘goal’, how come I ended up in a hospital bed? It’s because the size of your body doesn’t matter. It never has. We are forced into thinking that achieving these unattainable ideals comes with happiness, success and self-love, but it doesn’t. The space you occupy in this world does not dictate your happiness or your worth. No matter what the scales say, you are worthy of love and happiness.

Fuck you, Instagram

When we use social media sites such as Instagram, we have to keep in mind that what you see in a picture isn’t the full story. I am 100% guilty of taking about thirty pictures on some days before I finally take one that I am confident to post online. But whose ideals am I comparing these snapshots to? I don’t remember deciding for myself that a certain silhouette was worth posting over others because I wasn’t the one to make that decision. Every time I post an image of myself, and every time I see an image of another woman, I have to try extremely hard to check myself and remember three very important rules.

1. Never compare your body to anyone else’s. We were all born with different structures and have dealt with different traumas, and our bodies need different things. Ultimately, they won’t look the same.

2. The so-called ‘perfect’ photo I am seeing comes with outtakes – most people are not happy with how they look in the first few photos they take of themselves. 

3. These ‘outtakes’ are just as beautiful and worthy of love as the photo deemed good enough to post on social media. All bodies deserve love. Whatever the shape or size of it, bodies are impressive AF, and it is ridiculous to think otherwise.

Even though I know I have come a long way from that little girl who prayed her puppy fat would disappear, I still have a long way to go. I have many days when I compare myself to others, where I look in a mirror and wish the reflection staring back at me had smaller hips or bigger lips. But I am also someone who, on more days than not, can remind herself of what her body does for her, can be proud of the way her body has protected itself against trauma and has ultimately come out stronger. I am a woman who can now see that I deserve to take up as much space as I please. 

1. THERE IS NO LIMIT TO HOW MUCH SPACE YOUR BODY CAN TAKE UP IN THIS WORLD

2. YOUR WORTH IS NOT – AND NEVER WILL BE – MEASURED BY A SET OF SCALES

Keep saying it, keep writing it, shout shout shout it, scream it if you have to. It is a lesson that we need to start teaching ourselves and a lesson that we need to teach to every young girl in particular. Otherwise, we will be allowing them to continue damaging, hurting and in some cases destroying themselves to fit ever-changing and unattainable ideals.