I want

this dress.

Gaby Sidibe at the Golden Globes

Also, I want to see more redcarpeting done by more people of different sizes and shapes. How cool would that be?

This morning I saw one of those trainwreck ‘best and worst dressed’ discussions on breakfast television and they put up a pic of Gabourey and I though okay, here we go…and the snarky little man said in his snarky little accent you know what, not everyone is a size six and that dress rocks, she looks awesome. I don’t care if he was just saying that to be PC because I bet there were a few fat kids eating their toast in front of the TV who needed to hear it this morning. Hell, a few fat 31 year olds too.

An unkind cut

The Guardian newspaper ran an article in November about the alarming rise in labiaplasty.  I had read that anecdotally, requests for cosmetic surgery to correct ‘problems’ with one’s vulva have increased exponentially in tandem with the pornification of our culture – the British figures would appear to support that assertion.

A study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology last week revealed that, over the last year, there has been an increase of almost 70% in the number of women having labiaplasty on the NHS. There were 1,118 in 2008, compared with 669 in 2007 and 404 in 2006.

There is no way to know how many girls and women had the procedure performed privately – but presumably the total figures are considerably higher. In Australia, the figures are also in the thousands. Thousands of women and girls who have subjected their most tender parts to slicing and trimming for mostly cosmetic reasons.

There are some women who suffer physical pain and discomfort because of the shape of their vulva (generally the length of their inner labia), and this can at times be quite severe. The fact that there are surgeons skilled in genital surgery is a boon to many of those women, and I certainly don’t begrudge them the chance to improve their quality of life.

But the reality is that the majority of labiaplasties are performed purely for cosmetic reasons. Yes, even our ‘private parts’ are meant to live up to the airbrushed standard.

And that ‘standard’ is indeed airbrushed. As Mia Freedman discussed in her recent blog post on this issue, even magazines targeting women routinely airbrush female genitals. And not just because they want to, either. Freedman explains

When I worked in magazines I got worked up for quite some time about the censorship requirements around vaginas. Unless anything has changed since then, the basic situation is that any magazine featuring a picture of a naked woman, had to digitally remove anything visible outside the ‘single slit’ of the vaginal lips. So any stray bits of labia or clitoris had to be airbrushed out. Because it was deemed OFFENSIVE …

The now defunct magazine Women’s Forum first brought the issue to my attention years ago and Cosmo then took up the cause with a campaign protesting it. What a shocker. And nothing changed.

To this day, any magazine showing any ‘genital detail’ must be sold in a sealed plastic bag. Like pornography. And I’m not talking about explicit legs akimbo shots, just shots of a normal girl standing up with her legs closed. She must look like Barbie or the airbrush will be deployed to make the censors happy and protect our sensitive eyes from OFFENSIVE VISIBLE LADY PARTS.

Many Australian women are unaware that these censorship guidelines even exist. I certainly was.

Like most straight women in our society, I’m not in the habit of looking at other vulvas. We don’t do much communal bathing in our country, so unless I do become a birth doula one day, chances are I won’t be getting acquainted with too many examples other than my own. And I’m not alone in that. So is it any wonder that girls and young women increasingly consider the bodies they see in pornography to be ‘normal’? Is it any wonder that their own genitals, if they differ markedly from that version of ‘normal’, seem somehow wrong? Compounding this phenomenon is the popularity of waxing – another legacy of pornification which means that genital variations are now more noticable than in more hirsute times.

There are a number of Australian cosmetic surgeons who advertise genital surgery services online. Their websites promised enhanced comfort and self esteem. Conversely, my googling didn’t lead me to any surgeons openly touting penis enlargement surgery – on the contrary, it is very easy to find sites decrying the practice as unnecessary, unreliable – and of course, reassuring men that a satisfying sex life is not dependent on their genitals living up to a porn-star standard. I’m not claiming that penis enlargement isn’t big business (pardon the pun) but the drastic option of surgery is something that is falling out of favour, right at a time when more and more cosmetic surgeons are acquainting their scalpels with women’s genitals.

Aside from the obvious pain and discomfort immediately resulting from surgery, women having labiaplasty do run the risk of future problems.

As with any surgery, labiaplasty is potentially risky. Dr Sarah Creighton [a consultant gyneacologist in London],says that there have been no studies into the after-effects or possible complications of labiaplasty, nor has there been any research into the impact on childbirth: she suggests that women who opt for this procedure might experience the same problems while giving birth as women who have undergone ritualistic female genital mutilations.

I can’t help but wonder how many women who opt for this procedure are fully aware of the implications for childbirth. Presumably, many of them are young and have not yet embarked on motherhood, or indeed decided whether or not they even wish to. In any case, the reality is that should they give birth in the future, a scarred labia will probably not stretch and open in the same way as undamaged tissue will. This is likely to impact on (or even destroy) their ability to birth without significant medical intervention. To me, that seems high price to pay – and a cost that I hope cosmetic surgeons are disclosing along with their $4000-$10 000 invoice.

Despite perhaps having some shared origins in the pathologising and commodification of female bodies, I don’t think we should conflate labiaplasty procedures with ritualistic female genital mutilations much further. These are obviously very different experiences and issues.

But what is very clear is that girls and women need us to teach them more about themselves. Generations on from women first being urged to examine themselves with a hand mirror, we’re still not getting it right. Body diversity extends beyond skin colour and weight, and body image concerns can be found below the belt.

The biggest loser is health

A while back I wrote this post about body image and fat, asserting that The Biggest Loser is a giant con, perpetuating the myth that healthy always = thin and that healthy habits like regularly exercising and eating your vegetables cannot coexist with a fat body.

So I was not at all surprised by this New York Times article (via Feministe).

The Biggest Loser is not inspirational or aspirational or motivational, it’s mythological. And it’s dangerous. Until we start seriously seeing the promotion of health over an aesthetic ideal, the ‘weight loss’* industry will continue to benefit hugely from damaging the health of the vast majority of dieters – who are, let’s face it, the vast majority of women and a good portion of men.

*’weight loss industry’ would be more properly called the ’lose weight and regain it plus some’ industry but hey, why quibble when there’s billions of dollars at stake?

Are thin thighs really worth dying for?

What kind of screwed up world makes a healthy young woman hate her body so much that she pays people to mutilate it and loses her life in the process? Oh yeah, that’d be ours.

Death after ‘fat’ surgery

PETER GREGORY  link here.

Lauren James died after liposuction.

LAUREN James was 26 years old and full of life when she had liposuction on her legs and buttocks on January 19, 2007. Three days later she was dead.

On the night she died she told her boyfriend, Simon Dal Zotto, over the phone that she loved him, after she collapsed at her family’s Kew home.

Within hours Ms James was dead, despite the efforts of two teams of paramedics. Coroner Paresa Spanos is inquiring into her death.

In a statement read to the Coroner’s Court, Mr Dal Zotto said he asked Tam Dieu – who had performed the operation – on the fatal night if Ms James should go to hospital.

He said Dr Dieu told him her pain and swelling was normal, and to give her a painkiller and see how she went overnight.

Sean Cash, for Dr Dieu, suggested in court yesterday that Mr Dal Zotto said Ms James was comfortable when the doctor asked that night how she was.

Mr Dal Zotto replied: ”I wouldn’t have said that.”

Earlier, Mr Dal Zotto, who was tearful in the witness box, said Ms James had been bleeding, blistered and in pain after surgery at Caulfield’s Centre of Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery.

He told his counsel, Robert Harper, that he had asked about hospital because he was worried, and had not taken her there because he trusted what doctors were telling him.

Ms James’ grandmother, Margaret Braley, 85, was in tears as she took the oath yesterday.

Mrs Braley agreed with Gary Hevey, who is representing her family at the inquest, that she had a heart attack after Ms James’ death, and had a pacemaker fitted as a result.

She said in her statement that Ms James bled after the surgery, but a doctor had said it was OK because it would relieve the swelling.

Yesterday, Dr Dieu said in a statement that Ms James, a real-estate valuer, who weighed 65 kilograms, and was 169 centimetres when measured shortly before the surgery, had received information about complications of surgery and general anaesthesia.

She had had breast augmentation almost eight years earlier, was a social smoker, went to a gym and was recovering well when telephoned by a nurse on January 20, he said.

The death rate from liposuction had been quoted at one in 5000, the statement said.

The hearing continues.

The two things that struck me most about this: Lauren James was so young (and must have only been about 18 when she had her breast augmentation) and the death rate from liposuction is one in 5000.

Seriously? There are not many things I’d save up thousands of dollars to do voluntarily that have a known death rate that high. Sure, if I needed life-saving or health-saving surgery with those odds I’d go through with it. But to risk my life to suck a little fat out of my thighs? No thanks.

What is cosmetic surgery but a whole lot of slicing, bruising, mutilating and bleeding whilst passed out on a big cold slab of kyriarchy?

Pretty pushy (reply turned post)

One of the things I’ve learned from blogging is that the interest a post generates is unpredictable. I have a pretty low traffic flow here, but there are a few search terms that keep getting me hits. (Salma Hayek’s breasts, anyone?) And there’s one post of mine – barely even a blip to begin with – that’s attracted more comments than the others. It’s this one, about a product called Pretty Pushers.

The comments I’ve let through are there for all to see. I’m sure if the commenters I deleted could spell ’humourless feminist’, that’s what they would have said. Anyway, I’m a little bemused by the fuss so I thought I’d address it head-on by responding to this comment from Mary:

I am the owner and sole creator of Pretty Pushers. I am a woman, mother, wife, and currently pregnant with our second child. I am disturbed and shocked to read some of these posts which put such a negative blemish on this company. I took my own experience in labor, along with hundreds of stories from other women to put together the ideas for our products. Just for you, CK and Spilt Milk…I of course took a dump on the delivery bed among other things…who doesn’t? That’s the whole point….our gowns are pure cotton and with few seams…hence DISPOSABLE. You throw it out when it’s full of shit, blood, and sweat. Isn’t that better than wasting gallons of hot water and harsh chemicals on cleaning it…and then being worn again by others? Along with the other frills in the box…you use them once, and then recycle the packaging. Why all the nonsense comments on the lip gloss? Don’t most women carry that around in their bag/pocket in some form on a daily basis anyway? It’s just something to do….some labors are extremely long….why not have a little gift set to open? I’m sorry to anyone that is so deeply offended by this product! I am a huge advocate for women and feminism…I had a midwife and doula for the birth of my first child and received much acclaim for the labor gown that I had made for myself! It is WAY smarter than the classic mundane hospital gown that was probably created by a MAN, as it is the same one worn by MEN. The box is shaped like a pregnant woman…what could more celebrate the pure miracle of the occasion? I am sorry this has been so mis-interpreted by some women. We are very happy with our products and have had many pleased customers. We continue to produce better, smarter, more environmentally-friendly products for women in labor who would like to have a choice beyond the typical provisions.

1) As a woman, mother and wife myself, I’ve got to applaud someone who’s found a niche in the market and started up a company. Women in business = generally a good thing. But being a woman, or even ‘advocate for women and feminism’ doesn’t automatically make all of one’s thoughts or actions feminist. I mean, seriously.

2) I also applaud any company considering the environmental impact of their product, even though I made no mention of that in my first post. Kudos for that.

3) But, I dispute that a hospital gown that has been worn by others is ‘unhygenic’ as stated on the PP website (it’s germ-phobic thinking like this that drives people to disinfect their house to the point of growing super bugs.) I also wonder whether the environmental impact of the production + packaging + shipping + disposal (bearing in mind that not all consumers recycle) of this product really is less than that of including one more hospital gown in the industrial wash. But I am prepared to stand corrected if data shows that it is.

4) I actually think the idea of having a labour gown made for a pregnant woman’s shape and to allow for comfort and movement is a great idea. I really do. When I first posted about this product I did so without thinking through the relevant cultural differences. In Australia hospitals don’t generally require a labouring woman to wear a gown. We mostly wear what we want to - usually a big old t-shirt, or nothing. I think this is vastly preferable to being expected to wear what is basically a uniform associated with illness – especially since most women get to a point in their labour where they feel that clothes are uncomfortable and tear them off – and also since baths and showers are such popular methods for pain relief in the first stage. I do know of women here who have had surgical births and wore their own colourful hospital gown. I can imagine it’s cheering, to have some say over attire, for those to whom that matters. And I’m all for choices in birth.

5) To be frank, I posted about this originally because I had an outraged reaction to the product’s website, not so much the product itself. (An empowered, feminist, birthing woman might well pack her labour bag with a comfy gown, some lip gloss for moistening dry, sore lips, a headband to keep the distraction of sweaty hair on her brow at bay, and some massage oil, candy pink packaging aside.)

But the marketing for the ‘Dressed Up Delivery’ set describes the typical look of a woman who’s just given birth as a

horrible monster

Post-birth, most women are sweaty and mucky and exhausted looking. Most (not all) are also elated. Most show raw emotion on their faces and the evidence of great physical effort. Not unlike photographs of sports people right after a coveted win. There is no place for imposing patriarchal standards of feminine decorum and beauty on women – especially not at that moment in their lives.

The marketing of PP says that women

deserve to look your best while you work your hardest

Hmmm. Again – who deserves to look how? Why have looks got anything to do with birthing? Is this all a way of saying that there is no excuse for failing to be a pretty picture to be looked at - even childbirth? Or is it another way of encouraging women to fear the visceral nature of an event where bodily fluids and loss of control are par for the course? Whatever the subtext, I happen to believe all women deserve to look HOWEVER THE FUCK THEY NATURALLY LOOK when they are having a baby. And, um, they deserve a break from having people tell them they should care about how they look in the photos. For once.

Employing marketing which supports the notion that women are there to be judged by how they look, not what they do and who they are, is not advocating for women and feminism.  And it isn’t pretty.

Behold! The horrible monster!

I’d like this one on a t-shirt

I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don’t like myself, there’s no reason to even live the life. I love the way I look. I’m fine with it. And if my body changes, I’ll be fine with that.

- Gabby Sidibe, from here, via Feministe.

An open letter to Kyle Sandilands

Trigger warning: This guy really needs ‘trigger warning’ stamped on his head.

Dear Kyle,

Congratulations! I’m doing just what you want me (well, not me specifically, but everybody like me who, you know, talks or writes or holds any kind of opinion at all) to do. Oh yes, I am actually devoting a moment of my time to not only think about you, but to mention your name. To other people. Wow. I’ve played right into your offensive little sausage-fingered hands!

I hope you enjoy the moment.

After all, you’ve given us so many moments of enjoyment. We were thrilled to bits when you had a fourteen year old girl hooked up to a polygraph live on radio so that you could ask her your sleaze-ball questions about her sex life. Even more titillating for the nation when she revealed, live on air, that she had been raped. It was a broadcasting triumph, especially when you plowed on with the sex questions, apparently undeterred that your subject was a child who had clearly stated that she was distressed. Ah, how entertaining it is, to put minors under duress and probe them for voyeuristic treasure.

Yes Kyle, you’ve done so much for us. Enough, surely?

So imagine my surprise when you bring us even more wit and an even softer target. Magda Szubanski is fat, and she’s in the public domain, so piling shit on her is practically mandatory in your line of work. Especially since, as predicted, the groundswell of support for her weight loss is starting to stagnate. Not only that but everyone knows how much fun it is to pick on fat women! I mean, they’re women! And they’re fat! What could be funnier?

Oh.. that’s right. Plenty of things are funnier than women! who are fat! but only one is funny enough to guarantee your stubbley little smirk a place on the front page of the tabloids: concentration camps. Wow! Hil.ar.i.ous. And, you wily little coyote, it couldn’t have been more inspired to direct this particular jibe at someone with Polish heritage, whose father was a WWII resistance fighter and whose grandparents risked their lives harboring Jews during the war. I mean, anyone would think you were trying to offend the maximum number of people and cause the greatest uproar possible.

Of course you weren’t, though. You’ve been in the media today saying that you’ve tried to contact Magda and that you didn’t mean to cause offense to her, and we believe you. Generally, if someone talks about how hideously fat I am and how I’d benefit from some good old fashioned starvation and torture, I assume they want to be my friend! It’s such a delightful thing to have a joke between friends, yes?

I really have to applaud you; never once have I heard even a minute of your radio show and I didn’t watch you on TV (when you were on, before those nasty execs took you off air for trying to have a deep and meaningful with a young girl) and yet here I am, writing to you. Thinking about you. Saying your name.

Thing is, I’m going to stop now. I’m done. And pretty soon we all will be. You can have all the peace and quiet you want because there is nothing, not one little tiny thing, that anyone in this country with any kind of sense wants to hear from you.

Ever again.

Please, no fighting (your thighs) in front of the children…

So I’ve finally gotten around to reading Screw Inner Beauty by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby and yes, it’s awesome. I want everyone I know to read it – especially the non-skinny people and most especially the parents. (And yes, people-who-read-this-and-know-me-in-person, I will happily lend it to you if WHEN you all come asking me for it.) Anyhoo, as I made pretty clear in this post a while back, I have a few issues with prevailing societal attitudes towards fatness and I’m sick of the diet diet DIET YOU FAT LOSER mentality.

Now if I’m brutally honest, I’ve not been feeling so great lately. I’ve been gaining weight. In itself that’s not an evil and I’m beyond beating myself up over how I look (waaaaay beyond). But right now I feel lethargic and slobbish and a little too familiar with the biscuit tin. I know if I stopped bribing the boredom and angst to shut up with sugar hits and started eating more of what might actually improve my functioning and, like, moved a bit more, I’d probably feel better. So… here’s to working on that. But you know what? This lethargic phase hasn’t been all bad because I learned some things. Like, I still love myself this way. It’s damn easy to be all warm and fuzzy about self-acceptance when you’re lighter than you’ve been in a while and edging closer to what the magazines tell you to naively aim at but it’s another thing entirely to look at yourself and think ‘whoa, you just got a whole lot bigger’ and still be able to say ‘meh – I’m still the same awesome person I was for the last couple of dress sizes.’  Not that I can always say that or that it’s always easy but the will is there, k?

The other day I was shopping for jeans and I overheard some women talking. One of them was shopping for an outfit for a function and she had a friend along to advise. It wasn’t going so great. She was having trouble with sizes and styles and I guess just experiencing one of those shopping days that makes you want to crawl into a dark, dark cave and live among a tribe of tracksuit wearing troglodytes. I know, because I was having the same kind of day. Anyway, whilst trying on what was obviously one of many ill-fitting outfits, she complained to her friend that everything just looked crap on her. And then she said it: maybe I should just stop eating. Maybe, if I just didn’t eat anymore, something would fit me.

I wanted to call out over the cubicle wall that maybe if they just made more clothing that fit a range of body shapes and sizes we could all spend less time struggling in poorly lit cubicles and more time taking long walks or, you know, eating watermelon sorbet. Luckily she’d chosen a good friend who reassured her she was fine and that they’d find a better dress (not body) soon.

Anyway, this whole thing got me thinking about two questions: one being why the hell do we still think WE should diet to fit into clothes instead of, you know, getting clothes that fit US? and the other being why the hell do I, a fat woman with whole bunch of other neuroses, seem to mostly be able to resist the tendency to loathe myself out loud?

I can’t answer the first one except with sputtering, apoplectic type noises.

For the second, I think a small clue lies in my upbringing. Sure, my biological mother is fat-phobic and has done charming things like greeting me after years of separation with the words ‘my, you’ve gained weight haven’t you.’ Yeah, mum, it’s called puberty and by the way THANKYOUVERYMUCH. I also went to boarding school and learned a lot about adolescent self-loathing and body criticism there. But there was one part of growing up where no one could be bothered with any of that shit and that was in my family home.

It occurred to me when I was reading the chapter on families in ‘Screw Inner Beauty’  that I don’t hear my (half)sisters complain about their bodies. Sure, they mention sometimes that they’ve gained or lost weight and they occasionally rib each other about bust size because that’s a running joke from adolescence. But when they talk about their bodies, they use neutral-ish descriptors and they do not ever say crap like ‘I hate my thighs’ or ‘I wish my arse wasn’t so big’. I don’t remember them doing this even as teenagers. In fact, they often say positive things about their own appearance and each other’s – and mine.  As women in their early twenties this seems like kind of an achievement. So why is this so?

Seems pretty likely that it’s because their mother, J., unlike my mother, doesn’t bother to torture herself for not looking perfect. She. Just. Doesn’t. When I visited my incredibly thin and fashionably tanned mother did I hear constant whining about thighs and calories? Hell yes. Did my sisters ever hear this from their mother? No way. At our place bodies were for doing stuff: lifting lick blocks off the back of the ute, going to gymnastics class, making playdough animals, lounging in front of the fire eating golden syrup dumplings. They were not a collection of parts which could be graded and assessed according to factors like size and weight and smoothness.

Remind me next time I see J to ask her how she managed to avoid the seductive pull of all that body hate and how on earth she fitted in with other women when talking the language of diets and thighmasters is practically compulsory in some circles. And while you’re at it, remind me to give her a hug and thank her for showing me and my sisters what a healthy relationship with your body looks like. I bet one day Little Bean will thank her too.

International No Diet Day

Yesterday was International No Diet Day. I’ve been working on this post for a little bit, but then took a mini hiatus, so I didn’t get it ready in time. I’m so bad.

~~

I made the mistake of watching some of The Biggest Loser this year. It started as a bit of an in-joke with The Fireman on a Friday damn-let’s-just-order-pizza night. The irony of watching a show designed to make any viewer lighter than a draughthorse feel self-righteous, whilst sliding fat-laden takeaway down our throats, is quite delicious. And I admit, there is an sentimental part of me that gets sucked in by the schmaltz that is the flipside to the show’s appeal: it’s okay to gawk at the fat rolls like it’s a freakshow because really we’re all full of sympathy for the contestants’ plight and admiration for their hard work. And it’s true that the trainers on the show seem to be genuinely concerned with improving the contestants’ outlook on life and their health.

But that’s actually the heart of the problem: what The Biggest Loser and actually the media in general does is conflate thinness with health. You only have to see five minutes of one finale show to confirm that in fact the series is not about health at all: it’s about looking good in a fake tan and new clothes. Success is judged by appearance rather than a health check. In fact, since the last leg of their ‘weightloss journey’ occurs at home, I have no doubt that at least a few of the contestants are cramming diet pills and possibly even more dangerous things into themselves in a desperate grab to be emaciated enough to win a helluva lot of money. Nothing healthy about that. But nevermind hey, because AJ says they look ‘hot’ on national television. Now that’s a self-discovery and lifestyle improvement for you!

It’s probably unfair to expect much more from a reality show on commercial TV. But it does grate a little that this stuff passes by largely without comment because most people genuinely believe that fat and health are mutually exclusive. Getting thinner is automatically a virtuous, and not merely aesthetic, pursuit. But the reality is that there’s little evidence to prove that fatness in itself is seriously bad for your health. Poor nutrition, chronic overeating and a lack of exercise certainly are. I’m not disputing that. Yet, research shows that unfit thin people die younger than fat people who are otherwise healthy. The risks associated with being underweight are high, and there is increasing concern that people of ‘normal’ weight are becoming complacent about heart disease because they wrongly assume that so long as they’re not fat they won’t get sick. We don’t hear much about this though because fat makes a sexy headline in places where it is implied that actual fat people being sexy impossible . (If you want to read more about fat=unhealthy myths I suggest a visit here.)

The thing is, I know you can be fat and healthy, just as you can be fat and unhealthy. I’ve been both.

I’ve lost a significant amount of weight twice in my adult life. Once when I was a uni student and so poor I ate less and walked more; once when I wanted to get my polycystic ovaries pumping out eggs and started going to the gym upwards of four times a week as well as following low GI eating guidelines. In neither case did I end up any smaller sized than what some people might refer to as Large Heifer. Admittedly, I wasn’t really aiming to get skinny but my intuition and common sense tell me that no amount of (safe) dieting and exercise would ever make me into a thin person. I am how I am.

Which is fine with me. Not so much with everyone else, apparently.

I went to the gym for a programme update a while back. The woman whose job it was to write up my programme had never met me before and she didn’t ask me many questions so all she had to go on was my appearance. And she was no mistress of deception: I practically saw a thought bubble with “Whoah, fatty!” popping out of her head as I approached her. And the programme she gave me was rubbish. Everything easy, everything the lowest weight, everything boring as hell. Because I’m fat, so I must be incapable of actual exercise, right? Needless to say I lost interest in that programme in about five minutes and that became one of the many excuses to stop going.

Next time I didn’t make the same mistake. I made sure that Erin did my programme – Erin who used to be my kick-arse personal trainer. Erin who knows I’m actually pretty strong because bracing the punching bag for me had her landing on her bum a few times. Erin who is stunningly beautiful and weighs about 45 kilograms but never once looked at me like I was disgusting or freakish. And the programme I’ve got now is so hard I did it once and was knackered for days. But it’s kind of fun, involves doing exercises I’d associated with superfit people, and is thusly good for my self esteem. (And I’d be doing it right now if The Bean hadn’t been too sick to take to the creche today. Excuses excuses!)

Now I haven’t written this post just to gush about a girl at the gym. What I want to say is that we simply need less of the Whoah, Fatty! and more of the Look, A Human Being. Not just from workers at the gym, but from clothing store assistants and people on the bus – and from doctors. For every doctor who bothers to take a patient’s blood pressure, general health check and history before declaring that they’re too fat to live, there are ten who don’t. Like the one who took one look at my friend and said ‘You’re way too fat for this surgery’ before he even introduced himself. Or consulted the chart to find out that she was 27 weeks pregnant.

I’m blessed because I have a partner who loves me whatever size I am, friends who are too interesting to harp on about diets all the time (is there anything more boring or self-indulgent?) and, at least these days, a healthy dose of self regard. I don’t let the body police get me down too often.

Not everyone is this lucky. And the most vulnerable of all are the young. I want my daughter to grow up loving her body, whatever it is like, for what it can do and not just how it looks. I want her to grow up with the confidence to go for a run or to play a sport, and the self respect to choose mainly nourishing foods, and the sense to know that eating a packet of Tim Tams because she’s premenstrual might not be wise but isn’t worth feeling guilty about.  How this happens in a world full of photoshopped images and Diet! Diet! Diet! messages, I don’t know.

I do know that I’m not happy about her childcare workers spending most of the kids’ lunchtime chatting to each other about how ‘good’ they were on the weekend and fetishising deprivation and self-loathing. Not happy at all. At least I know Bean was way too busy eating and ‘mmmm mmmm mmmm’ -ing to pay any attention.

Body and soul

I  recall pregnancy as a time of great fascination with my bodily functions. And I don’t just mean in the crude pee-in-a-cup-for-the-doctor and tell-the-midwife-what-your-discharge looks like kind of way. What I mean is that pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding have been transformative experiences for me because they have altered and enhanced my understanding of and yes, my love for, my body.

Most of us are divorced from our bodies for much of the time. We’re so busy thinking and therefore being that we forget sometimes to just shut up and breathe. We also treat our bodies like foreign lands, places we tourists visit for exercising, eating or having sex. The rest of the time we forget about them, or talk about them only as a collection of parts. Usually not in a nice way either, if truth be told.

During pregnancy, I was allowed to talk about my physical self and emotional self interacting. I was encouraged to celebrate what my body can do. I had the curious feeling that my biology was taking over in a new and emphatic way: when I felt tired, I couldn’t push on. My limbs steered me towards bed or couch. My body was not to be ignored.

I had not been in the habit of trusting my body: after all, it had taken two years to conceive this baby and a lifetime of perceived clumsiness and ugliness preceded that. But I learned that, contrary to what is popularly believed, our bodies are well-designed for birthing and that in the right conditions, hormones ease the mother into what would otherwise be a more distressing process. When the time came I decided to let my body have its way and my trust was not misplaced. For the first time in my life I was proud of something I had done, physically. I was in love with my body.

Breastfeeding mothers often experience an almost overwhelming sense of pride as they cradle the weight of a satisfied baby in their arms. I certainly did. I remember looking at Little Bean when she was a few months old and thinking I made her, I nourish her.

Nothing has been more empowering, for me, than the acknowledgement that what I really am is a female mammal. A mammal who is a mother, but also a student, a wife, a teacher, a writer, a feminist.  

Which is why it shouldn’t have taken so long for me to realise that the best anti-depressant I could find, for me, would be moving my body. A walk here, a gym session there, a yoga class every now and then and suddenly it feels like I have a beating heart in my chest instead of a deep void. I feel alive, not numb. Actual liveliness is a way off yet I think, but at least I can glimpse it again.

My body is heavy and wobbly and flawed. I love it, own it, though. Now.