Part II of My Body Love Journey, and the Transformative Power of Non-Diet Approaches to Living Well

Here we go: part two of my journey into more fully loving my body.

I want to preface this with a warning that I do discuss weight in this entry (no specific weight numbers, but I do talk about the scale and general numbers of pounds), just in case that’s triggering for anyone reading.

One day this past summer, I posted on Facebook about my experience with my larger belly being confused with a pregnant belly:

“I'm wearing a long-ish tunic today, that ties in the front. And twice today, while at work, trying my best to be a chaplain, people have asked if I'm pregnant.”

This happened a few times prior to the most recent experiences, but it was during the 11 months that I worked as a hospital chaplain that it happened most frequently (I have yet to figure out what about the hospital environment or my presence there influenced this). 
For the record, I'm not pregnant. I have no issue with people who are pregnant. I want to be pregnant some day. But whether or not folks know this about me or anyone else is not really up for public conversation with random people, as far as I'm concerned-- not to mention for women who may want to become pregnant and are unable to, or who may have suffered loss in this category. There's just too much story there, too much particularity about each person's unique history and relationship with their body, for others to make quick assumptions and then vocalize them with such tactlessness. I think it cheapens how we approach one another as human beings.

Prior to my sharing the hospital pregnancy comment publicly on Facebook, these incidences were kept to myself and to my husband, my mom, and a close friend. On one occasion about 3 years ago, I was walking home in an empire-waist dress down the street I lived on in Boston, when a neighbor passed by and said, “How far along are you?” I was flabbergasted, too shocked to even respond with anything more than a muffled “excuse me” as I stared down at the ground and walked as quickly as I could to my house. I spent the next three hours in tears of disbelief, anger, and confusion. “I guess I look fat in this dress,” I thought to myself. “I must have gained a lot of weight recently,” and, “I can’t believe that guy just came out and asked that.”

The feelings of shame were so palpable that even a reassuring text from my mom after relaying what happened could not soothe me to an extent that helped me let it go. I vowed to, for the umpteenth time, eat less sugar and exercise more, so to prevent such uncomfortable events from happening again. I also began avoiding the scale (and coincidentally grew to fear going to the doctor because of the scale) because it sent me into similar spirals of guilt and shame. Beginning a yoga practice last summer began to heal some of the intensity of those feelings about my body, but the more recent journey into making peace with food and my body imgage did not truly begin until this summer.

It is only since I shared the last occurrence of another’s confused comments about my stomach that I have come to understand three transformative things: 1) Others’ comments about mine or anyone else’s body (namely women’s and femmes’ bodies)  are less about me and my relationship with my body, and more about our culture’s obsession with policing bodies, layered with a society that justifies the entitlement people often feel to make assumptions about another’s life experience based on what appears or is perceived to be outside the “normal.” I'm still trying to understand our culture's revulsion to large bodies except for large pregnant ones, and why a woman's journey during pregnancy suddenly becomes up for public comment or response. 2) I nor anyone else has anything to be ashamed of, no matter what our bodies looks like. As I said above, the stories our bodies tell are precious and personal ones. 3) To be fat is to live in a larger body—it is not a knock on one’s moral character. I've learned that many size acceptance-oriented folks have different relationships with this word, but it has been helpful to me to strip so much of the layered judgments that have been added to it: namely, the idea that being fat is something to dread/fear or be morally reprehensible for.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to my dear friend Kate Froehlich (an amazing woman who organizes protests like this recent one in Boston). Kate reached out to me after seeing my post and pointed me to a world of resources related to body positivity, and the critical work that many “anti-diet” dietitians, nutritionists, researchers, and activists do to dismantle diet culture and to spread the message that size does not equal health.

A recent HuffPost article, Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong, became the catalyst for my decision to write this all down in my blog. I’m not inclined to summarize all of the article here and I encourage you to read it if you haven’t, but its main focus is on how the medical community in particular doles out weight-focused advice to its fat patients, even when research continues to pile up that indicates a very small percentage of people who actually diet to lose weight are able to keep it off for the long haul. The article highlights stories of fat patients who have experienced weight stigma in the medical community—another factor that actually contributes to poorer health outcomes, according to many of the researchers I’ve read.  One such example from the article: 

"Ask almost any fat person about her interactions with the health care system and you will hear a story, sometimes three, the same as Enneking’s: rolled eyes, skeptical questions, treatments denied or delayed or revoked. Doctors are supposed to be trusted authorities, a patient's primary gateway to healing. But for fat people, they are a source of unique and persistent trauma. No matter what you go in for or how much you're hurting, the first thing you will be told is that it would all get better if you could just put down the Cheetos." 

I am not a medical researcher, physician, or scientist, which makes my ability to converse with this article on those terms less feasible. Speaking from my own experience, however, reading this piece was a breath of fresh air. It is an incredibly timely synthesis of the meaningful pieces of the Health at Every Size/Intuitive Eating models I’ve been learning about and beginning to implement in my own life. After years of avoiding it, I now feel more equipped to go to the doctor without fearing the scale, and armed with some tools for self-advocacy and self-compassion that I did not have access to before because, like many of us, I have been buried in toxic ideas about what my body “should” look like, that the number on the scale is directly linked to a chronic illness that I may or may not have ant any moment, and that my body is a machine to be controlled. One disclaimer to note here: I am aware that there are folks in larger bodies than mine and with different body experiences who deal with weight and body trauma to a greater extent than I do. I by no means intend to say that my experience is deserving of more attention than these-- I simply share from my personal life experiences.

I am refreshed by perspectives that encourage me to take care of myself from a weight-neutral approach; to work on physical health that incorporates mental health at its very core. Fiona Willer, one of my favorite weight-neutral researchers, discusses the five core aspects of her weight-neutral practices as a dietitian: a focus on honoring the body’s hunger cues, accepting all foods, using the body’s own wisdom--not an external diet--as a means to nourish; gentle nutrition, and joyful movement. 

Understanding food and its relationship to culture, justice, and the earth is an important commitment in my life, but until intentionally exploring this road towards body love, I often neglected to integrate body positivity and justice for all bodies into my relationship to this commitment. Now I can't turn back: if I believe in all humans' right to participate in food culture that is meaningful to them and their traditions, to access fresh, nourishing foods at affordable costs, and for those foods to be grown and distributed in ways that treat humans and the earth with justice, then I must also embrace justice for and equal treatment of all bodies. This must begin with my own experience of my body, which is sacred and worthy of love and care. 

All of us have different entrance points and experiences related to our bodies, colored not only by our own perceptions but also those of culture, gender norms, and the industries that often invisibly impact our daily lives. Some of you reading will vehemently disagree with the models the “non-diet approach” to health and body care works with, but I hope to others of you such models and ways of being might offer a way of abundance, self-love, and agency, as they have to me. The journey towards loving my body, and our collective journey as communities to love all bodies with justice and compassion, is ongoing. I am grateful for friends and teachers who invited me more fully into this freeing world of body liberation and health without weight and body stigma. May we all know our worthiness and the worthiness of all shapes.

I'd love to share resources, people and ideas that have been helpful to me. I'd also love to have conversation about this with interested folks. Holler at me if you're so inclined!