If my body could speak, It’ll probably recoil each time I try to touch it because it would have gotten used to the fact that each day, I probe, poke and disrespect it.
If my body could talk, It would most definitely hate me because I do not give it the appreciation it deserves,
Maybe if my body could speak, I’d hear it cry each night, hoping that I’d water it and watch it grow without contempt.
If my body could speak, It would definitely hate the fact that each day, I fail to see the things it does for me.
If my body could speak, it’d hope I’d be better at loving it.
They usually said a problem shared is a problem solved but Rachel had never understood the logic behind that statement until she experienced it firsthand. Rachel is a 22 year old woman who had always been on the chubby side not until four years ago when she and her family moved to Manhattan. She was 18 then, ready to start her new life as a citizen of America and the best thing about it was the promise of new and interesting friends at the high school she would be attending.
The first day of school was the absolute worst for her. After all of the excitement, the rambunctious planning and the intense scouring of the school website, Rachel had felt too ready for her first day but she would later come to hate it and herself. Everybody called her fat that day and the following weeks on. Normally, being called fat in Nigeria would not be considered and insult but not in Manhattan. Apparently, being fat was a crime so every teenager there aspired to attain the perfect figure like that of Naomi Campbell. Constantly, she was made fun off, called a fatso, called ugly, tripped and made look stupid. Sometimes, she wondered whether it was only because she is chubby that she was made fun of like that or maybe it had to do with the fact she is Nigerian. Slowly, she began to feel ugly, worthless. She cried a lot, felt like a complete looser and hated her body. The worst part was that she had still not made a single friend. No one wanted to be friends with the ‘looser’. One afternoon after school, Rachel wanted to shop for a new pair of jeans. She walked into a store called forever 21, the petite girl at the counter who was filing her nails glanced up at her and then blurted. “I don’t think we have your size bun” Rachel stopped short in her stride. Those words felt like a slap to her face. Was she that fat she asked herself? To her fat was now an insult, a sin so at she sprinted out of that store, she decided that eating was no longer a thing she did anymore. If being slim was what she had to do to be liked, she would it at all costs.
She started dieting, eating less and less every day, sometimes nothing at all. No one noticed, no one asked. She started to lose the weight alright. By the end of that semester, she had lost 10 pounds. She was still called fat, still called made fun off so she pushed further. Browsed about anti appetite medications and purchased them with a fake prescription. She drank only water most of the time, sometimes she allowed herself a little serving of cucumber because she had heard that it helped shed fat. Her mother never asked why she skipped breakfast, lunch and dinner weeks in a row, her father never did either. Every day she monitored her progress and with every meal that she forced herself not to eat, the more weight she lost. If she ever felt hungry, she tamped it with a few pills of anti-appetite medication.
On her very first Christmas in Manhattan, she didn’t eat the turkey or do the things she initially planned. When they gathered at the table for Christmas dinner, she tossed her food around her plate, feigned being full and dashed upstairs and forced herself to throw up the little she had consumed. She lost more weight and with every pound she lost, she lost her strength. She was exhausted more often than not, tired always but it never occurred to her that it was all the food she didn’t eat, all the pressure of losing weight that was killing her. What she noticed though was that people stopped calling her fat. She got asked to homecoming, someone greeted her in the hallway, and someone asked her for her pen in the chemistry lab. With every new achievement, she pushed further. She didn’t notice how much she deteriorated until her mother finally noticed. She called her up to the master bedroom, where she sat with her father. “Rachel, you’re becoming a lot slimmer oo, hope you’re okay?” she said. Her father said nothing. “I’m alright, I’m just growing up, and I’m losing the baby fat like you said I would.” Her mother often said that when her aunties teased her. Now she used it with her mother because she was certain she’d buy it. “You’re sure you’re not sick nkem” her father asked. “I’m fine daddy” Rachel lied. Her parents didn’t enquire further. Weeks later during gym class, she collapsed. That day, the raucous that enveloped the school would be the only thing Rachel would see before finally giving into the cozy darkness and being shipped off in the back of an ambulance.
“She is anorexic” the doctor would tell her parents who would vigorously forbid it. Later as they came to the realization that truly their daughter was anorexic, they would hate themselves for not noticing sooner. Her father would grow in on himself, speaking less and less. For three weeks Rachel was unconscious. She was dehydrated, had insufficient iron, low blood sugar, and a whole lot of other complications. These were the symptoms of anorexia as her mother goggled. Her parents cried a wholesome, her mother especially blamed herself. After the third week, when she was finally conscious, she was given actual food and eating it was terrifying. There was an internal battle, all the hurtful things people called her and her anxiety associated with being fat resonated and mocked her that in the end, she ended up having a full on panic attack. This sort of behavior was new to her parents therefore they had absolutely no idea how to handle it. This was her very first incident with being anorexic and having an eating disorder. She’d go through series of therapy, relapse, go in again and still relapse. In the space of three years, she was unable to maintain a particular weight and body size because she kept on going back, trying to conquer and outrun the anxiety of being fat by not being fat. Her mental health deteriorated, she didn’t graduate high school in time either. The worst part was that none of the supposed friends she made came to support her, to see her, to ask how she was.
The last straw that almost consumed her was 10 months ago. She almost died. Everything took a drastic turn. Her father wasn’t doing well. He shriveled and became this shell of a person. Her mother was consumed by worry, she no longer watched her soap operas and laughed loudly, instead she researched diet plans for anorexia victims. That night, for the first time in years, Rachel could see that she was self-sabotaging, that what she was doing was destroying not just her life but the life of her family as well. as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, and saw how much she had lost, how malnourished she looked, how ugly she looked, she made a conviction that this game, that her head kept playing with her, the voices in her head that tore at her telling her that she would never be enough until she was thin, would stop. She would end it, she would get better.
As she stood on the vestibule in the Manhattan sun, staring at the huge but homey building where she would be attending therapy with a group, she smiled. She had come this far and she wouldn’t look back. This group was not the regular kind; it was a group for people who had been through the emotional abuse of body shaming. The room held a woman with huge breasts, a man who was fat without it being a sin, a woman whose face looked like it had been burned, a really thin guy and a vertically challenged girl. In that room filled with beautiful misfits who shared their experiences, Rachel couldn’t help but feel like she’d found home. All of the self-harm, the self-loathing was on a road to its end and as the circle reached her turn, she stood, breathe out and said the things she’d learnt even if she could have learned them sooner, she was grateful to have come this far. “My name is Rachel Adams, I am an anorexia survivor and a victim of body shaming but I have learnt that the self-harm is not worth it. Letting myself be subjected to such emotional abuse, and feeling worthless destroyed me. In the end, body shaming should not be tolerated by anyone. To be loved, is to love yourself first, whether or not the way your body is fits into the standards of a group of people that don’t matter and as much as body shaming can break you, I have learnt that I shouldn’t let it. These people don’t understand what their actions mean so my advice is this; body shaming will always exist, but don’t let it matter more than you. Don’t let the people carrying this act out break you because in the end you deserve better.” This she had learnt and would live to tell.
Six in out of ten people are body shamed every day. During a survey organized by bustle magazine, 69 percent of women confessed that body shaming has been a thing that happened to them at some point in their lives. Personally, I believe that the one thing that has influenced the way most people see themselves, the way most people associate what being pretty should be is the fashion industry. Now whether most people agree with me or not, the fashion industry has indirectly taught us that the only kind of pretty is slim or thin. The most important lessons that our society has failed to teach us is how to love ourselves. Irrespective of the way your body is, please love yourself. You cannot grow away from the I am not good enough mentality if you don’t learn. It’s hard to see how wonderful you are when you think this way but I’m telling you, the way your body is doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are living your best life, you are a beautiful soul whose heart thinks of good, you’re kind and smart and funny and anyone who doesn’t see you for what you really are does not deserve a spot in your life. Go diets, work out, stay fit because of you, not because of what society says or what other people think, do it for you. Young women and men are taught not to love their bodies and yes, I mean it when I say taught. When we’re younger, we never worry about that fat, we don’t poke at ourselves and decide that we hate ourselves. It is so wrong and the amount of pain it causes is something that is insurmountable. Yes some people may criticize your body or the way you look but you don’t need to let it get to you. Body shaming is something that’ll always exist so it’s up to us to start the campaign alongside others to end this inhumane act. And to those who think they aren’t body shaming when they mock the stretch marks on another person’s body or talk about the how fat someone else is, or how thin or how short, think twice. Body shaming destroys a person emotionally and psychologically so please stop. Finally, to those who have been and are still going though this type of abuse, here are movements that will encourage you to push on.
The less is more campaign on instagram has helped thousands of souls recover and learn to love themselves. It’s easy to find, just search for it on instagram or you type in @ rawbeautytalks instagram handle
The dove campaign for real beauty has recently surfaced on instagram. It has touched and encouraged women especially feel like they should feel, beautiful. This campaign is currently on going and is on the Dove instagram handle.
The STYLELIKEU campaign has charted a new course of history by not only incorporating slim women to model clothes but women of all sizes. Again, it’s readily available to anyone who knows what instagram is.
Melissa Fabello became a body image activist after her recovery from an eating disorder which spurred on due to an abusive relationship. Now she spreads the gospel of loving your body and preaches it because during her recovery those was what got her through. She does this with the help of her YouTube channel. She’s easy to find and ready to uplift always. I speak from experience.
To everyone in the world who eventually reads this, your body doesn’t deserve the self harm and neither do you. Let’s campaign against body shaming and body image discrimination.
Faith Markson's Blog 