Um... how do I love my body?

It's rebellious to tell beauty standards to f*ck off... but when they're embedded in us it's not so easy...

I can tell you exactly how many Weight Watchers points are in a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. How many are in a crumpet. In a bag of Walkers Salt and Vinegar crisps. A small glass of white wine. A Curly Wurly (although there is some debate on that… but I won’t get into it here.) 

For five, or was it six, years I worked as a junior writer for Weight Watchers magazine. I’d write the swaps pages, you know the ones “eat this, not that”, often themed around Christmas, Easter, even Halloween. I’d seek out lower point alternatives to ‘treats’ and I’d grill our real-life case study stories on how they lost weight. Often these were women who, at their ‘before’ weight and size, were still smaller than I was, sitting there, in my 14-16 body, hearing how they’d ‘ballooned’ from a size 8 to a 12. 

I’m not telling you this to take down those women; how we feel about our individual bodies is complicated and personal. I’m also not writing a critique of Weight Watchers or its programme. During my time at the magazine (which, on the whole, I adored) I met people who had lost weight and then found the confidence to leave abusive relationships, toxic jobs, friendships… Those who had lost ten stone, and found themselves going from not being able to walk around their block to competing in Iron Mans.

But I also met people who told me they were ‘scared’ to eat things when they weren’t 100% sure of how many points were in it. Those who would cry on the scales after putting on one pound. I learned how sensitive you have to be to interview people about their weight. How tangled and twisted our body image is with so many other aspects of our lives. How vital a role it can play in our sense of self, in how we conduct our daily routines. In how worthy we feel we are of adventure, of love. 

How did this period of time impact my own body image? My own sense of self? I don’t follow the programme and I haven’t written about Weight Watchers in years, yet those points to random items of food remain firmly lodged in my brain. I’ve forgotten so much - joyful and silly memories; the vital statistics that will help me win a debate in the pub and yet, I’ll pile a crumpet onto my plate and suddenly bam its value will pop into my consciousness. 

I’ve been thinking of that job recently as, of course, it’s January. Which, typically, is ‘diet season.’ But, over the past few years, it’s also morphed into something else. A month where think-pieces about diet culture’s damage dominate. On my own Instagram feed (and I’m are this will be down to my algorithm) I’ve seen plenty of posts slagging off diets, but very few advertisements for the diets themselves. I’ve seen that quote “the most rebellious thing you can do is to love your body in a world that screams at you that you shouldn’t” (which I believe is from Laura Bates) in various type-faces, on a variety of different pastel coloured backgrounds. 

It’s a welcome change. I hope it will make a difference to the generation before mine. But as part of my new pivot into examining rebellion I want to try to figure out what this actually means.

Do I love my body? Did I love my body during that time when - I suppose some could argue - my 9-5 was spent in the HQ for self-hatred? 

On the whole, I do think I’m alright body-image wise.

I run across beaches in bikinis, jumping off of cliff-faces into the salty ocean. I have sex with the light on. I wander through changing rooms in very little. I skinny-dip. I’ve even done naked yoga. Just a week ago I lay on the floor, wearing just a black nightie and a red cardigan, and my friend pretended - in front of 15 people - to perform a cow C-section on me (an odd example, but an example all the same.) The point is I don’t let any hang-ups stop me from living the life that I love. 

But…

I pick only the photos I look the ‘thinnest’ in to post on social media. I have three bags under my bed, full of clothes that no longer fit me, that I’ve kept as motivation to ‘slim down.’ I will pull them out, every now and then, to shame myself with. Recently, when researching feature ideas, I stumbled across forums for a ‘miracle’ weight loss drug. One that would cost me £400 a month. That had a pretty stark list of side-effects that included cancer, in bold letters. I still considered ordering it. 

I didn’t like typing that. One of the things that makes me hate myself the most is how hard I find it to love myself.

How impossible it can feel, some days, to be that rebellious character, that strong feminist. I swing constantly between completely agreeing with the anti-diet rhetoric while secretly, shamefully, wishing I was thinner. I once ordered a book rallying against diet culture and it showed up in the same package as a set of diet pills I’d purchased a few days before… 

Considering the eras I grew up in (first the heroin chic of the 90s, then teeny-tiny American Apparel Disco Pants and the big hair, skeletal frames of the ‘Zoe-bots’ in the early 00s) I should be kinder to myself. It’s really not easy to shake off decades of toxic messaging and, hey, I’ve done naked yoga, alright! I know an alternative New Year’s Resolution is to not diet and instead work on embracing one’s body as it is. I could try that, really push for that rebellion. But then I wonder, wouldn’t it be better to focus my attention elsewhere? To move away from the physical and, instead, work on the eternal? The things that I can love about myself when I’m 90, and everything has drooped and even my bones aren’t ‘what they once were.’ 

After Weight Watchers I went onto work for other women’s magazines, eventually landing a role at Cosmopolitan, working under Farrah Storr, undoubtedly one of the greatest magazine editors of all time (and who I learned a great deal from, I’m sure you already subscribe to her Substack but if you don’t, it’s here.) I was there when Farrah put Tess Holliday on the cover. It was a decision that caused worldwide controversy and people could not stop talking about her body, in an emerald swimsuit. Some people loved it, some people hated it, Piers Morgan said we were ‘glorifying’ obesity (bla, bla) our Twitter mentions for months after were full of debates surrounding it. For a while, everyone was talking about her body. 

But, if I remember correctly, it was also a decision that, initially, had nothing to do with her body whatsoever. Tess is an incredibly inspirational person with a life story everyone should read, but which, I suspect, most of her critics didn’t bother to. That’s why Farrah wanted her on the cover… because she’s a cool person with lots of hugely interesting things to say. 

This has always frustrated me. How when we’re caught up in arguments on body image and who should appear in adverts, on television, on the covers of our magazine, we’re completely forgetting that we are all more than our bodies, more than our outer appearance. When we discuss what makes someone confident it’s usually them being ‘brave’ for accepting their ‘flaws’ and wearing the damn outfit anyway. Or, it’s because they look how we expect someone who is happy in their body to look (“how can she have insecurities when she looks like that? She’s gorgeous” sort of thing…) Rarely do we consider that those who are truly confident are that way because they love themselves from the inside out. They know their attractive qualities extend beyond what they see in the mirror. 

Looking again at that list above, of the things that showcase my love for my body (sex with the lights on, the faux cow C section, you remember…) they’re all actions I’ve taken confidently because of my personality, not the figure that carries it. I know that I am a fun, nice person to be around. That I’m someone who seeks out pleasure in almost all situations. I should stop this inner tug-of-war to both love how I look in photographs while also erasing the ‘be skinny or else’ messaging of my past as that’s a time-consuming task. I should instead spend my days doing and being all of those things. Fun, happy, interesting. The qualities that will allow me to feel confident in my own skin.

I don’t think it will be easy. But I guess, the most rebellious acts rarely are…

What do you think? How is your relationship with your body? When it comes to body image what do you think counts as true rebellion?

Also, just in case you missed it, this is still a grief-focused newsletter, I just - for my mental health - can’t write about grief every week so, every now and then, will also be writing about rebels and rebellion.

This is the cow c-section by the way…