Guest post by Mara Glatzel
Having conversations about our most closely held secrets is not easy, and often discussing our bodies, sexuality, or our relationship with food falls carefully into the category of impolite dinner conversation. However, more and more often these private struggles are being made public online – an arena where both beautiful, supportive communities can be created AND a platform for people hide behind the comfort of their own computer screen, silently, or not-so-silently judging the individual sharing. These polar opposite reactions to our words can be equal parts devastating and heart-warming, permitting us, the writers and the readers, and opportunity to dig deep, reassess, and get very clear about what is that we are say, why we are saying it, and who we are writing for.
We cannot talk about our own body image struggles without discussing privilege, but this does not mean that we cannot own our own stories. Each and every one of us are a compilation of our own personal histories, and that includes both detrimental and protective factors. Too often in the body-loving blogosphere, we see people pitting themselves against one another or discounting the experiences of others.
I am fatter that you are, so you have no reason to talk about feeling fat growing up.
You aren’t fat enough to be fat-positive.
You are too pretty to struggle with an earth-shattering lack of self-worth.
If I’d had what you had growing up, I wouldn’t complain.
When we make statements like these, even in the private confines of our own minds, we are collectively missing the point.
Will a person who is naturally thin but hates their body have the same experience as someone who is obese and hates their body? No, definitely not. Someone who is naturally thin is protected from the weathering effect of being told that you are fat, ugly and worthless on a daily basis for the duration of your life. That is a fact, but that doesn’t discount the experience of someone who is deeply uncomfortable in their own skin, no matter what their size.
We are here to shatter the thin ideal, shoot holes in the patriarchal designations of what is and what is not beautiful in this country, and help people learn how to love themselves, no matter what the size of their body.
The sad truth is, an overwhelming majority of men, women and children in this country are bombarded with messages of being unworthy and unlovable on a daily basis. Many, many people hate their bodies, and yet, it is still contentious to talk about struggling with your body image when you are stereotypically attractive or privileged in that way without being disregarded entirely.
And yet, we must own what is ours. This comes part and parcel with being self-aware, transparent, and counting your blessings where you have them.
I, for example, want to be honest about the fact that while I have been obese since age seven – I am partially shielded from scrutiny based on the fact that I am White, pretty, and educated. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t felt pain, or that I haven’t spent many, many hours utterly consumed by my disordered eating. It just means that my experience isn’t going to look exactly like your experience.
When we dissect stories in an effort to either align ourselves with one another or knit-pick at differences to put a chasm between us and the undesirable, we are wasting precious time that could be spent banding together.
When we tell our stories, out loud, for others to hear, without shame or fear, we unconsciously give others the permission to do the same. We create a community of voices around lived experiences of impaired body image and self-esteem, and through that community we are able to collectively heal.
Mara Glatzel is a self-lovecoach and author of the bodyimage + authenticliving blog, Medicinal Marzipan. If you enjoyed this post, catch up with her (almost) daily body-loving antics and general rabble-rousing on facebook, twitter, or shoot her an email.
This is so true. I know I have friends who are skinnier than I am, and I struggle with realizing they may have as many issues as I have about my body. I do not know their own life experiences, or what may have been said to them to feel that way. Media does not help, by putting down both ultra thin actress and larger actresses. It is a double edged sword.
It IS a double-edged sword in the media, often with people having to subscribe to unmanageable lifestyle choices in order to maintain a body that falls within the ever moving “acceptable” range for what is a “good body” in our culture. It can be really hard to see people who are thinner than us say disparaging things about their bodies without feeling badly about themselves, but, as with almost everything, this is about THEM and likely they aren’t even noticing you.
Thank you so much for this post. While on the one hand I know I should count myself fortunate in that I’m average looking, average weight, average, average, average in every which way inside I’ve fought with horrible self-esteem and a complete lack of self-confidence for years. The path that each person walks is unique and what an individual’s exterior looks like rarely reflects their inner turmoil.
Your welcome Janette! It is so true – someone’s exterior rarely indicates how they feel within their skin. I try my hardest to keep this in mind, but it can be difficult without a visual reminder of the type of people we “expect” to feel badly about themselves. xo
Thank you for this. It’s an awkward position to find yourself in, knowing that you are generally considered attractive and thin, but feeling horrible about yourself nevertheless. Add in to that the fact that, at least in my case, you start beating yourself up with ‘not having the right’ to feel so bad about your body and your self, and it’s really a pretty ugly situation. It took a lot of therapy before I was willing to admit that I had a right to my pain and that I don’t have to judge my worthiness to feel it based on other people’s experiences. Being able to claim it, to admit that I was in pain, has helped me to accept myself. It’s a work in progress. But this rather pretty and thin woman is grateful to you for reminding me that I am the sum of my own experiences, not of anybody else’s experiences.
I moved from a low-income, single-parent household to an expensive, elite private women’s college. Their financial aid package was amazing. It cost me almost nothing to go there, financially. And that is, in part, because fewer than 30% of the women who attended when I was there were on any kind of financial aid, and that number includes women who were given only work study jobs, no grants or loans. Yes, these women had financial privilege that I had never imagined. But many of them had also experienced childhood sexual molestation, just like me. Many of these women were scared of sex, just like me. Many of us avoided wearing clothes that fit or looking in the mirror, just like me. Depression, anxiety, body hatred-they didn’t care about our parents’ income. I am so glad that I learned that lesson, and so glad that we shared our stories with each other. The whole experience (almost) eliminated the chip on my shoulder I carried about being a scholarship kid.
Oh Anne-Marie, as someone who went to a very prestigious boarding school as a scholarship student – I REALLY appreciate this comment. Thank you.
Thank you again, Mara for writing this post. I always think of Brene Brown talking about comparative storytelling; and that many people keep their painful stories to themselves because they don’t think they are “bad enough”. They might not feel that their story of body hating stacks up against another woman’s story who was ridiculed in 7th gym class for being overweight. So, she stays silent and ashamed of *that*. I know I’ve been one of those women who stays silent and ashamed. That shame of not having a “bad enough” story kept me sick for years.
Thing is, no one person or culture can dictate how we feel. “You should feel good about yourself because you’re thin!” I head so often. Hearing “You should feel….” is so confusing for someone who is swimming lost in their own confused mind of self-loathing.
So true, so true. We all have our issues, we all have our baggage. The good and the bad both give us a foundation, and it can be so hard to focus on the good but learn from the bad. We aren’t kind enough to ourselves, and we forget that everybody is fighting some sort of battle that we don’t know about.
Great post! Thanks for writing
This is one of the best posts I’ve read in a long time. It has validated my crazy feelings and worries about the way my body looks or curves even though I am white, pretty and a normal weight. I’m lucky enough to have the body type and enough self-esteem to know that I am pretty, my body is healthy and perfectly normal. It has also reminded me how I have been privileged to be those things compared to people who have had it worse. Even though I believe I’m a relatively positive commenter for those larger than I am, this post will make me think carefully about what words I use. Mara, I hope you get this message out there and maybe if we work together we can get this on tv instead of bony models, obese life curiousity shows and judgmental celebrity weight commenters.
Love this. I’ve often thought it speaks to just how strong the currents of body hate run in our society, especially when you consider that it seems like no amount of privilege can fully inoculate a woman from feeling the full effects of its force.
I felt fat at my most fit- 17% body fat I was a college athlete. After my sport was over I gave up- was tired of all of the attention I got for being attractive and made myself fat.. health issues helped me along with the fat project as well.. I have recently found myself again.. have lost 100 pounds and appreciate my body now- all the things that would have driven me batty about my body before- now I love!! My hubby helps- being 40 helps!! Feeling my beauty for the first time is wonderful!!
I am an average size person, but have many friends larger than I am. For the longest time, I only had friends larger than me because I didn’t feel comfortable or attractive around women thinner than myself. A friend of mine had gained much weight due to thyroid cancer. She gave me some of her old clothes. One comment she made was, ‘can you believe I used to feel fat when I wore those’. Of course my mind is saying YES I DO, but I don’t say it out loud because she has gained so much weight. Twice at work I had heard different coworkers make comments like (not towards me)…you think your back hurts, tell me again when you have gained 100 pounds. Does a slimmer person’s pain hurt any less ? So, I’d say…skinny people feel pain too.
There was a couple of those jokes on facebook, I know designed to make bigger women feel better. “real men like women, dogs like bones” So I’d say, this means I have to get stuck with a dog?! I do not have the body that I want, but I am comfortable in the one I have. Everyone has likes and dislikes about themselves. Some judge on size, some judge on income, some judge on skin color…it is all wrong…it is all judgement! I reach out with hugs to everyone out there, of all sizes, colors and incomes. Love you for you. What you may think is a flaw, someone else may think is a jewel. Don’t be so hard on yourself, and try not to worry about what others think…especially the media.
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