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Been laying here trying to work out how to put this for over an hour. I have spent the last week feeling absolutely crap because of comments from friends about weight loss, body image, hating their bodies, BMI and even a comment made about MY BODY and MY fitness and their own
thoughts on my health pertaining to my diet. No one meant harm by anything said and they were all flippant remarks.
I have never had an eating disorder however since I was very young I would say I have had a very disordered relationship with food, my body, movement and have also
I have never had an eating disorder however since I was very young I would say I have had a very disordered relationship with food, my body, movement and have also
definitely always had body dysmorphia, something I am only realising the extent of now in my late 20s. I can now see in hindsight things I was told/did/thought completely skewed how I perceive my own body, and I think this is with my forever now.
I have also, this past fortnight been BOMBARDED by ads on YouTube from a company called Noom. If I don't skip the ad fast enough it says something like "All my friends asked me why I've not lost weight when I've been doing so much exercise" and this is VERY triggering to me
because my fitness journey I'm on is not one for intentional weight loss. My mental health cannot withstand that. So I'm doing it with strength, progress and endorphins as my goal. And the reason that Noom ad is triggering is because whenever I talk about my training/running
there are people who ALWAYS bring it back to weight loss. It makes me feel inadequate, selfconscious, paranoid & ultimately reminds me that people can say they're proud of you, but unless you're physically shrinking they're always going to think you should be doing more & better.
And then yesterday I heard the tragic news of Nikki Grahame dying of anorexia that she battled since she was a very young girl. And I just think...I'm not surprised. Because I DON'T have an eating disorder yet this past week I've felt awful because of flippant comments about my
body, food & exercise from friends & family. And not even just about me, but comments about their own bodies, but in my presence, that I then obsess over because they're smaller than me so if they think they're too big to be happy/healthy then what must they truly think of me?
So all this is to say there is a massive problem, yes with the murderously underfunded mental health and eating disorder support services, but also with people thinking that it is normal/acceptable to make a single comment uninvited EVER about a person's body.
Something has gone very wrong in society that it is now normal to ask me about how my running's going and then when I say it's going well that the next question is "So have you lost weight?" WHEN I'VE NEVER SAID THAT'S WHY I'M LEARNING TO RUN
Q: How's your training going?
A: Really well thanks, I upped my weights this week from 9kg to 11kg, I'm really chuffed and feel really strong.
Q: Are you noticing weight loss yet?
(actual conversation)
A: Really well thanks, I upped my weights this week from 9kg to 11kg, I'm really chuffed and feel really strong.
Q: Are you noticing weight loss yet?
(actual conversation)
And I won't share the multiple comments my friends have made about their own bodies the past couple of months to me that have just...destroyed me, tbh.
I don't even have a way to end this thread of a moral of the story or anything wise. Just going to say yes we have been failed by a fatphobic society and dire underfunding of support services, but on top of that we are also perpetuating it. And it is killing people.
Nikki Grahame and everyone with an eating disorder deserves better than this. And those of us who don't (against all the odds, tbh) have an eating disorder deserve better too. We all do.
