The Body As Politic

When I was in the 5th grade, and 10 years old, a visit to our family pediatrician resulted in an event that lingers in my mind to this very day.  She told me that I was “too pretty to be chubby.”  What followed were a series of family diets - none able to combat the food dysfunction already well-built into our family DNA - and, for me, a growing distrust and dislike of my body.     

In the aftermath of the visit to the doctor, I remember having the feeling that what I saw in the mirror and what she saw when she looked at me were two vastly different images.  She saw a pretty face with an un-pretty body.  After that appointment, that is also what I saw.  Since then, even with the help of loads of therapy, I cannot see my body with any sense of accuracy.  For the most part, I strenuously avoid encounters with my appearance, having long ago perfected the talent of looking in a mirror but not seeing myself.     Education in feminism has ensured that I now understand the many ways that women’s bodies are a public commodity in a fashion that does not occur for men.  From hair color to the shape and style of our clothing, women’s bodies are never fully their own.  All women’s bodies - thin or not - are subject to comment and regulation in a way that never occurs for me.  The media, strangers, medical practitioners, friends, and family offer “helping” commentary that is almost never helpful and is more often cruel.  It is hard for many of us to develop any veneer of protection to these pressures.     

With the help of good therapists, I learned to tamp down anxiety about my appearance and to never present a public face that rejects limits on the right of my body to exist, to take up space.  I started this as a fake-it-’til-you-make-it strategy and, many years later, it has worked fairly well.  Movement - a run on the elliptical or a walk in the woods - and pregnancy helped me to be on friendlier terms with my body.  I no longer regard it as my enemy.  I would love to actually value and appreciate my body on a consistent basis, but that remains a work in progress.  I have always been able to value my mind, and when others have actively underestimated my intelligence, that dismissal never affected me.  You’d think I would be able to accord my body that same protection, but I have not been able to consistently do so.     

At this point, it’s been a 43 year project to value my body as I value my mind.  I know now that it’s the project of my lifetime.  This work-in-progress is vastly aided by the growing body positivity and health-at-every-size movement and I am grateful for that help, which has been essential to my continued faith in myself.  This post, a declaration of human vulnerability in a realm where I am the most protective of myself, is another step in that direction.  It’s a reminder to 10 year old me that my value as a person is inherent and not a function of anything other than my human existence.