Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Motherhood and Body Love

*Trigger warning: self-harm and eating disorder mentioned.* 


The year is 2006. I'm an honor roll student who's active in church, choir, volleyball, and various school clubs. I am an editor for my school newspaper, a go-to babysitter for neighbors, a regular fixture on my church's praise and worship team. To most of the adults in my life, I look like a responsible, accomplished young lady with a bright future.

No matter what my day holds--driving thirty minutes away for a voice lesson, spending two hours at volleyball practice after school, meeting up with friends at the library to work on a project-- every morning begins with a ritual: step on the scale.

It ends the same way, too. Every night, I step on the scale to make sure I haven't gained any weight since 7 a.m. that day. If I haven't, then I reward myself with a spoonful of peanut butter. If I have, it's water only, or something that's zero calories, like a few pickles.

Looking back, my heart breaks for that teenage girl. She was smart and beautiful and capable and talented, but she was insecure and hurting and self-conscious and paranoid.

My journey from an anorexic self-harming teenager to a strong and confident 30-year-old woman has been one I've shared with many. But now that I have a daughter of my own, I want to revisit some of the highlights of my struggle and healing because I am seeing them in a whole new light.

Almost everyone, no matter how beautiful they are or how "perfect" (by society's definition) their body is, has insecurities. Models will tell you this. Bodybuilders will tell you this. The people we look at and WISH we looked like also don't like things about their bodies.

When I was 17 and 18 years old, I weighed 30 pounds less than I do right now, and I am currently at a healthy weight for my height and body type. I still thought I was fat and unattractive because I viewed myself through such a distorted lens. The emotional turmoil I felt inside spilled out in the form of self-loathing and self-harm.

It is terrifying and devastating for me to look back and think about what I used to say to and about myself.

I look back on my teenage self-- no cellulite, tanner, thinner, no gray hairs or wrinkles, super white teeth-- and realize that being happy with my body wasn't as much about my actual body as it was about my attitude and values. I possessed a lot of physical traits that society and the world told me were "attractive," and I still hated my body. My attitude was wrong. My priorities were wrong. My values were off-base. 

I was starving myself; I was self-harming. I was going to Target to try on size 4 pants and still finding flaws with my body, peeling the pants off in disgust and determining to make myself throw up once I got home.
Hello, spray tan and 16-year-old self.  


Now I'm older. I'm paler. I have more gray hairs than any 30-year-old I know (it's genetic). I still get pimples. My stomach and thighs have stretch marks, my once-perky breasts aren't quite so perky anymore, and I have varicose veins on my legs. I definitely have cellulite, and my teeth aren't super white anymore.

But I am so happy with my body and so grateful for it.

I'm thankful my body can play volleyball and work out and run, if I so choose.
That my vocal cords can produce beautiful melodies.
That my arms can carry 18 bags of groceries in one trip and rock my toddler to sleep.
That my body has been able to create and sustain life.
That my ears can hear music and then my fingers can go to the piano and replicate what I heard.
That I can walk, talk, run, lift, and do so many things that many other people physically cannot do.
We all have different things we can be thankful for when it comes to our bodies.

Why do we care so much about appearance, y'all? And why are we still passing down these messages to the younger generation of women coming up?

It shouldn't matter that I'm not tan like society tells me I have to be.
That I have curves that make it impossible to buy pants.
That my stomach is soft and very "poke-able" (as my daughter, who pokes my bellybutton every day, can attest to)
That my hair is fluffy and frizzy 99 percent of the time.


Here's what I wish I could've told my teenage self:
1) Appreciate what your body can do, and don't take any of its abilities for granted.
2) Be more concerned about how you treat people than with how you look.
3) Having a healthy body is more important than having a beautiful one.
4) If other people start talking negatively about their looks, you don't have to listen to it. You also don't have to compliment them if they're fishing for compliments. You can reiterate to them that being healthy and kind are infinitely more important than living up to society's expectations.
5) Don't comment on other people's bodies.

Here's what I want to tell you, my dear readers:

1) What you might perceive as a compliment about someone's physical appearance might do more harm than good. For example, when I was a senior in high school, I went and visited my potential college. I practiced with the volleyball team and ended up attending there. Six months later, I had dropped about twenty pounds, and everyone commented on how good I looked, how thin I'd gotten-- and I know they meant it to be positive.

What they didn't realize is that I got thin by starving myself. Literally. I went for ten days without eating a real meal one time. I used to eat pickles and banana peppers because they were low or zero calories. Every time I showered, I tried to make myself vomit. I weighed myself obsessively. I would say "no" to friends when they invited me places because I was afraid there might be food involved somehow. I was cold all the time, my breath smelled weird, my heartbeat was sluggish.

But the well-intentioned comments about how thin I was getting fueled my fire, unfortunately.
People telling me I was beautiful and attractive only made me feel worse.
So now, I usually refrain from making comments about someone's weight loss or beauty. There are some exceptions to this-- I have friends who post their workouts on social media, so sometimes I'll tell them I can see their hard work paying off. I always try to tell pregnant women they look beautiful. And even in those situations, I'm really hesitant and paranoid I might be triggering someone.

2) It isn't helpful to tell someone to "eat a burger" if you think they're too thin. I cannot emphasize enough how unhelpful and hurtful this is. Not every thin person isn't eating. The beauty of humanity is that God has created us all different, and that includes our bodies. It's rude and insulting to make comments telling people who you deem as "too skinny" to eat some sort of fattening food.

More importantly, though, you don't heal from an eating disorder by "just eating." That's not how it works. Eating disorders need to be addressed at their root causes through professional counseling. "Just eat" isn't going to fix the problem if there is one.

You know how I know?
My eating disorder got WORSE after people knew about it. After I told a female youth group leader, who then told my parents, who then sat and talked with me about it. But I didn't get professional help and it actually became EASIER. Because I guess people thought that since I had admitted my behavior, I was going to stop. I didn't.

I did get professional counseling in college, and that's when I started the healing process. I didn't start healing because people told me I needed to eat more. That wasn't helpful at.all.

3) Kids are listening to and watching us and how we treat our bodies. 

I decided when I was pregnant that my daughter's health and safety would always come before adult's feelings. I've tried to live by that rule (I'm still a work in progress).

So if someone starts to talk about dieting or losing weight in front of my daughter, I ask them to stop. Or I just walk away. I am her protector and her advocate, and I refuse to subject her to those toxic conversations if there's anything I can do to avoid them.

I've also had to make changes in how I speak: Now, if I find myself wanting to criticize my body when I get out of the shower or try on clothes, I refrain.
Instead, I point out to my daughter how amazing our bodies are:
"These feet have run many miles. They even ran a 10K one time."
"These thighs are strong from years of playing volleyball."
"This stomach has expanded to carry life and birth it into the world."
"We eat vegetables so our body feels good and healthy."

It felt REALLY awkward to say those things aloud at first. I felt silly. I felt fake. I felt weird.
After all, I was used to standing in front of the mirror and sucking in and poking and prodding, lips pursed and shaking my head.

But now, my daughter is watching me. Listening to me. And I'll be damned if I don't do everything in my power to cultivate a positive body image that she can imitate.

I also try not to talk negatively about food, although I admit I am still a work in progress. I try really hard not to say things like, "I'm going to be bad and eat this cupcake. It's going to go straight to my thighs!" And IT IS HARD because I have been programmed to say those things (haven't we all, ladies?). I try not to complain about how my clothes fit or don't fit or make me look "fat" in front of my daughter-- if something doesn't fit, I just get rid of it now; I don't hold on to hope that I'll squeeze back into it someday (thanks, Marie Kondo).

How I talk about my body and her body and other people's bodies is so very important and will shape her mindset for years to come. I pray earnestly that I can help her cultivate a positive one.

4) It's easy to go all "Christian-ese" and throw out well-meaning cliches, but most of the time, they're not helpful. 

I grew up speaking Christian-ese. I'm as fluent in that language as English and sarcasm.

As a teen, I knew that I should "find my worth in God" and that "He values inner beauty over outer beauty." But I didn't really understand HOW to find my worth in Him. I didn't know what inner beauty REALLY meant. Because even the Christian women I was around wore make-up and dressed fashionably and got their nails done and told their daughters they needed to "get some sun" if they were looking too pale. I was told that I shouldn't wear yoga pants around boys in case I "tempted them," as if they were animals with no self-control or accountability.

How is that valuing inner beauty?

(Truthfully, I need a separate blog post to go into more detail about the damage that the messages I was hearing at church and from Christian leaders in my life did to me. But I suspect a lot of Christian women can relate to hearing toxic messages about their femininity and their bodies growing up)

What is helpful, in my experience, is actively and consistently modeling God's love and grace. Treating all people, regardless of what they look like, with dignity and respect because they are God's children. Affirming people for the way they treat others and love others instead of how they look. I think those are some good places to start.


5) Men, there is a LOT you can do to help the women in your life out. Speak positively about the strong, smart, creative women in your life. Avoid objectifying and sexualizing women. If you have a daughter, affirm her skills and talents and passions.

When you offer praise or compliments, make sure they're not primarily about looks. Tell your sister she has awesome leadership skills. Tell your daughter you're proud of the way she stuck with her math homework, even though it was really hard. Tell your wife you love how creative she is, or how kind she is, or whatever.

And remember, men have body image issues, too. Because I'm not a man, I don't feel qualified to speak on them, but I don't want to ignore that fact. 

6) Raising a daughter in today's society scares me sometimes. 

Right now, my toddler will dance in her diaper in front of the mirror. She doesn't know or care that she is pale (an undesirable feature, by the world's standards-- trust me, people comment on my pasty skin color all.the.time and think it's okay to do so). She doesn't care that her tummy is protruding or that she has leg rolls. She looks at herself in the mirror and cracks up laughing and smiles. She loves herself. It is so pure, so innocent, and my heart breaks when I think about her ever looking at her body in any other way.


There are media messages everywhere telling her she's not enough, both explicitly and implicitly.
There are men who will try to grab her butt in public. Who will find her on social media and send her inappropriate messages. Who will catcall her and give her unwanted sexual attention and try to sexually violate her.  I know because all of those things have happened to me.

I can do two things:
1) I can try to help change society, and
2) I can raise her to be strong and confident.

I'm trying to do both of those things. I'm trying to take my experience, my pain, my baggage and turn them into strengths and learning experiences.

I hope you'll join me.