Let me begin by stating a few facts about myself:
1. I’m 5’5″ and I weigh 50 kilograms.
2. I’ve always been thin, it runs in the family.
3. I have a healthy appetite and eat more than enough to satisfy my daily nutritional requirements.
4. I have, on multiple occasions, been subjected to hate because it’s ‘unfair to eat like a pig and still be so skinny’.
Body-shaming is nothing new. It has been around for years, with its claws wrapped around our heads, filling our mindsets with poison. There’s always something wrong with your body–you’re too skinny, you’re too fat, you’re too short… It may start with seemingly harmless little jokes here and there but it soon morphs into something sinister which settles in the back of your mind and eats away at your self-esteem.
I don’t condone bad health choices, neither do I believe that using dietary disorders like obesity or anorexia as a shield is the way to go. If you have a problem, the first step is to accept its existence. I feel like people, especially in India, treat eating disorders like they’re not serious enough to demand medical attention. What we don’t realise is that by refusing help to someone who needs it or toning down the gravity of their condition, we’re putting their well-being at risk. ‘You’re just fat. Go work out and lose some weight, you’ll be fine,’ is not an acceptable thing to say.
When I first started college, there was a new timetable I had to get used to. The breakfast-at-home-light-lunch-in-school-heavier-lunch-at-home schedule which I had been following for more than a decade ceased to be relevant. I had to acclimate to eating at odd hours, sometimes skipping meals because I didn’t have enough time, eating too much later in the day because of said skipped meals and consuming all sorts of junk food because that’s how college kids have to roll. This led to some fluctuations in my almost always steady weight and I remember panicking when I realised I had put on a few kilos. I’d been thin for so long that the idea of not being skinny anymore was unfathomable to me. I’m pretty sure that it took mere seconds for the shock to wear off and be replaced with shame.
There I was, weighing 50 kgs and still underweight for my height, worried about being called ‘chubby’ by people. This is what years of body-shaming had done to me. There is only one thing that’s worse than feeling like you fail to conform to some social standards of bodily appearance– the fact that such social standards of bodily appearance exist.
I had a friend in school who quite literally starved herself for weeks, barely eating one proper meal a day, all because she was three kgs overweight. There’s nothing wrong with going to the gym or changing your diet, in fact, these are all wise decisions if you want to improve your health. What matters is your motivation behind those efforts. Don’t start working out because you want other people’s approval, do it because it would give you contentment.
I’m proud to say that I don’t measure my fitness in kilos anymore. The fact that climbing more than four flights of stairs in succession makes me pant like crazy still worries me but I’m working on that. And the best part is that I’m doing it for myself.
If you have a story to share, or if you would like to contribute to this topic, feel free to use the comments section. I’d love to hear from you.
OhRiyally 