MENY
I want to write about body image and eating disorders. I´m not a professional so this post is only about my own experiences and thoughts. I thought about it and everyone of my girlfriends struggles or have struggled with anxiety about their weight and appearance. A lot of my guy friends too for that matter. It´s well known that this is a big problem in our society with all the norms about how a body is supposed to look like and also the objectifying of women by putting their worth in their beauty. Sometimes it´s even so obvious that I forget about it and eventually caught myself having bad thoughts about my body, skipping meals and doing punishment workouts.
When I was 8 years old I held a fat camp for my best friend. She was a little chubby and I forced her to go on a diet. I made her workout and told her what she was supposed to look like. I did it because I was so insecure about my own body and tried to make myself feeling better by pushing her down. She ended up with serious eating disorders and my self esteem just got lower.
Me and her continued with this destructive thinking through our teenage years. We would force ourselves to work out, talk about how skinny we would get and put up different diets we never managed to follow. I spent endless hours in front of the mirror and on the scale wishing for change. I did a lot of at home workouts which I enjoyed to a certain extent, in between the different exercises I would go to the mirror just to check if I had gotten skinnier or if some new abs had shown up.
When I was 12 years old I worked out almost everyday after school. I played football three times a week but I didn´t feel like it was enough. I went out for a run and when I came back home I did a workout. Then I tried to not eat more than two sandwiches and maybe a fruit. I watched workout videos on youtube everyday and read fashion magazines. I do really like fashion but half of the fascination with it was the way the models looked. I read blogs about young, rich girls who seemed to have the perfect life and really wished I could be like them. I thought people was paying attention to all the flaws I saw on my body.
When I was 18 years old I started to make myself throw up when I felt like i´d eaten to much. This didn´t go on for more than a year because I was scared of ruining my throat so I couldn´t sing. But instead I did punishment workouts. When I felt like I´d been eating too unhealthy I would make myself workout just to feel better. I was counting every movement during the day that could have burned fat.
You´re telling your friends that they are beautiful because you know that they are. When they tell you the same thing you don´t really know if it´s true or if it´s true it´s still nothing in comparison to if a chrush would say so. It´s always this endless striving for being attractive to other people. You are attractive. We all have a different taste when it comes to beauty and it would be way easier for young persons to understand that without the pressure from norms about “the right way to look”. Another person can make you feel beautiful and good about yourself but it´s not until you fully get the acceptance from yourself that you can heal. When you do it won´t be so stressful to wear a bikini, get naked during sex or see a full body pictures of yourself. It´s natural that the bad thoughts come back but if you just remind yourself of your new knowledge it will be easier to overcome every time.
I want to have a healthy body. I think it´s fun to run, dance, play football, swim, do yoga and workout at home.I want my body to be strong so I fully can enjoy doing these things. But a lot of times while doing some kind of exercising I get stuck in a mental trap and starting to think; “oh it´s good that I´m doing this because it will also make me skinnier, I really should do this more often to get real results”. I totally forget about the fun and get all focused about what it will do to my appearance. I´m still pulling in my stomach everytime it´s exposed in front of a camera. I don´t drink soda with real sugar because in my mind that´s the same thing as instantly gaining 20 kg. I love ice cream, sweets and salty snacks and really can´t resist eating it. So when I do I a lot of times compensate by skipping a meal. Which just ends up with me being super hungry and eating more snacks. It´s not dangerous to eat unhealthy stuff sometimes. To me it actually improves my life quality. It makes me happy to lie in bed, eat candy and watch movies on my computer. I´m eating ice cream when it´s sunny and buying pizza when I´m lazy.
One of the best things I remind myself of when I get stuck in obsession over my body is the fact that it actually doesn´t matter. I´ve got better things to do in my life. I have friends to meet, music to make and maybe some spiritual questions to wonder about. I´m still working on this and hope that you can do to. You are perfectly beautiful as you are and I´m certain that you have a lot of other qualities aside from your look.
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