My 21-year-old daughter and I recently sat down to have a conversation on health, weight, and society’s less than helpful approaches. We started with the question of “How do you have a helpful outlook on health?”
I am so thankful to our younger generation, the continuing work they do to process life and seek well-being and wholeness. And I am grateful to my daughter for graciously and generously sharing her thoughts with me! Annika’s thoughts are italicized and indented, for ease of reading.
You can follow Annika at https://www.instagram.com/sherbert.shenanigans/
Unhelpful approaches:
You were talking about the fact that sometimes people make comments that aren’t really helpful. What are some of the comments you think about that haven’t really been helpful?
Backhanded compliments! The biggest one I remember getting a few years ago was, “Wow! You look so much better now. Or you look so much healthier now.” Does that mean I didn’t look good before?
Also, what they didn’t know was that I was actually going through a really hard time and had developed significant anxiety around eating and drinking.
I think of a situation recently where someone said, “Wow! You’re so small! What happened?” I didn’t really know how to respond. It was just awkward! I didn’t know how to answer.
Or like what we talked about a few weeks ago – comments made about you to me. That Dad must have been so ecstatic that you lost weight. It put me in a really awkward situation that I didn’t know how to address.
Yeah. For starters, Dad has always been supportive of me, no matter what size I was. In our almost 30 years together, he has not once made a comment about my weight – not when I was larger, and not when I lost weight. I really appreciate that, because I know he absolutely loves and accepts me for who I am, no for how I look.
And that one I find really hard because we’ve worked really hard NOT to talk about weight in our house. We’ve focused hard to focus on the fact that each one of us is made differently. Some of us have more muscles, some of us are shorter, and some of us are taller. Just really normalizing EVERY body.
And then to have people from outside our house draw attention to it, it feels uncomfortable for all of us.
Yeah, because we don’t know how to handle it because that’s not our norm. Obviously, how we were raised in our house isn’t the norm. But it should be! Not to toot our own horn, but we wish it were the norm in other homes as well.
So comments are often unhelpful.
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One of the other things we were talking about is that some of the other things we see in society – that we read or see or hear – that to so many people seem normal, are also not helpful. Things like, “Oh no! I need to go on a diet!” or “I can’t eat that because today is not a cheat day.”
Or even how it’s so normalized to have these quick-fix pills that you can take to fix things. They’re even on kids’ channels. I remember as a child at around 5 see on TV the idea of people being fat. I didn’t understand it, but I had seen it, so I said it. Kids see things and think it’s normal and repeat it.
Or a big pet peeve of mine is one you touched on in an earlier conversation – if you’re overweight, you must be unhealthy.
Or that you did something or that it’s your fault. That’s not the case. There are women struggling with PCOS, and one of the most common parts that comes with it is weight gain.
Or maybe people are on antidepressants and gaining as a side effect of their medication. Or genetically, you might carry weight and struggle to lose it. Everyone is different.
There’s not necessarily a ‘you did something to deserve it’ reason. It’s not addressing the real issue.
I think, too, that it’s a really visible piece, so people jump on it. Would we go around looking at people’s bloodwork and say, “Oh, you’ve got really high cholesterol! You are really unhealthy.” Well, no, because we recognize that is not helpful nor our business.
Yet, somehow, when it comes to weight, everyone seems to think it’s ok to comment. This is actually a form of bullying, I think.
As well, sometimes people who are thin have unhealthy cholesterol levels and people who are heavier have good cholesterol levels. Someone’s weight does not translate to having health issues, just as someone who is thinner is not automatically healthy.
But we make these associations that because you are bigger, you MUST have these physical complications – have diabetes, be more at risk of heart attack, because that’s what we’ve been told.
Exactly! I remember last year, hiking every weekend with one of my friends for about 6 months. We’re both bigger people. My heart health stats were above average. But people tend to look at my body shape and make assumptions. Hiking as a plus-sized person can be a little intimidating because of the judgement.
Helpful perspectives on health:
If we were going to have some helpful perspectives on health, what would they sound like?
Compliments and comments wouldn’t focus so much on how you look. Like what we’ve done in our house. How it makes you feel. That might just be the body neutrality way we’ve taken things.
You don’t have to love every single part of yourself, because that’s really hard to achieve. But you can appreciate the journey you’re going through and what your body does for you, while holding space for those feelings.
It wouldn’t be necessarily be, “Wow! You look so healthy because you’ve lost weight.”
It could be something like, “That outfit really suits you! It totally brings out your personality.”
That colour looks great on you. It matches your eyes.”
“I love the look you’ve put together with that outfit. It really suits you.”
Ways of complimenting if you really want to focus on the look, but in a healthy and helpful way.
Exactly.
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I also think of why we do things. Do something because you love doing it, not because you have to. I know people always said to find something you love doing. For years, I couldn’t figure out what that was that I loved doing. I didn’t love any of it. And then I realized I didn’t hate walking.
During Covid, I discovered that I actually really like walking. So that’s become my thing. It’s different things for different people.
Definitely! I know one of my friends was like, “I HATE running. I hate how I feel. I hate it all. But I do it because it’s good for my health.” You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Running isn’t my top, favourite thing to do. I do it in certain seasons and for my own reasons, but it’s not the thing I do for most of my activity. I much prefer walking and listening to podcasts and riding my bike.
It can hard finding an activity that you like. There’s nothing wrong with trying something and finding that you don’t like it. You don’t have to continue it.
I always think, too, that you need to find ways to make the thing you do enjoyable. For me, I like walking because I either walk with people and talk and enjoy conversation, or I walk to a place so that I feel like I have a purpose. I might be walking to the post office to mail a letter, walking to Starbucks to chat with my baristas, or going to the library to drop off a book. Wherever possible, I walk, and that works for me.
The key is doing something you enjoy or having a purpose for it that resonates with you.
The other thing I think of is not just focusing on weight. Focusing instead on living in a health way.
And if you are focusing on weight, doing it in a healthy manner.
Right. Instead of joining a diet program, work with a nutritionist who can help you figure out what parts of your diet you can improve. Find an activity that you like doing. Get help from a trainer if you want to learn how to use equipment properly.
Don’t be afraid to try something. And have reasonable expectations.
I follow some different nutritionists online and one of them was reacting to a video of a girl who said, “This is how I lost 20 pounds in 20 days.” The nutritionist’s response was, “You definitely did not, and if you did, that is extraordinarily unhealthy.” She’s reacting to a video on TikTok.
These things are out there and people are trying these things. It doesn’t set healthy expectations and mindsets.
People are so hyper-focused on “I’ve got to do all this and then I’ll be like this girl on TikTok who lost all this weight so quickly. And I’ll get all the things I want.”
I feel like, whether it’s intentional or not, there’s a lot of internalized fat-phobia ingrained into our society. For example, in RomComs, the skinny girl is the one who always gets the guy, gets the dream job, gets the dream life.
There’s the movie with Ryan Reynolds where he’s fat. He really likes his female best friend, so he confesses his feelings to her and gets rejected because she’s with the hot jock. After high school, he loses all the weight and gets super ripped and has great abs and stuff. After that, he gets all of the things that he wants in life. It’s giving us a narrative that to get what you want in life, you have to lose the weight.
I always think of one of my friends who is beautiful. I’ve seen her throughout our friendship at many different sizes. The thing that has always struck me about her is that no matter her size, she has carried herself with grace and confidence. She always dresses in ways that suit her and look beautiful on her. I have never heard her say anything about her weight.
I respect and value that about her, because I’ve often looked up to her and thought, “I want to be like that. No matter where my body is at, that I dress it well for my body and that I live, being a gracious and kind person, not someone who is all caught up in the things I can’t do “because I’m too big.”
I love a line I've heard, "My weight is the least interesting thing about me."
My friend said, “I can’t wear crop tops because I’m bigger. They don’t look good on me.” What are you talking about? If you like it, you can wear it.
So that’s probably another helpful outlook on health… wear clothes that you like, not clothes that people tell you that you can wear.
That’s on my goal wall for 2023: Wear what I want and what I like. I love crop tops, so I bought a whole bunch last year. I never really wore them. Now I do, because I love them. I know there are people out there who won’t like how it looks on me because I’m bigger or for other personal reasons (like it shows skin), but I really like them and I really like how they feel. That’s all that really matters at the end of the day.
Thanks so much, Annika, for sharing your thoughts with me and being willing to co-author this blog post!
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If you are struggling with some of these challenges, know you are not alone! Reach out to a counsellor who can help you learn to treat your body and yourself with as much kindness and compassion as you hold for others.
Questions for thought:
We’ve all heard the expression, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” We likely all agree that is true, and were even taught that in some way as children. However, for many people, that doesn’t extend to seeing someone’s physical presence. In fact, it’s often exactly what we do when we look at someone’s physical body. In what ways may you have prejudices about shape and weight that influence how you view someone?
What messages have you accepted from society as ‘normal’ that might actually be quite unhelpful?
How do you find yourself speaking to yourself about your body? How could you extend kindness and grace towards yourself?
Do you find it harder to be kind to yourself than towards others in your health journey? Why might that be? How could you speak more kindly to yourself?
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