Can I Call Myself a Feminist When I’m Obsessed With Losing Weight?
Or: How toxic diet culture has ruined my relationship with my body
TW: Body issues
I have gained weight in the last year.
I’m not unfit. I can — and do — run 5–8 km multiple times a week. For the most part, I eat well. Vegetables are my thing.
But thanks to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle (nowadays I spend most of my days writing), and an immersion in the Portuguese wine trade, which is filled with many calorific endeavours, right now I hate — and I seriously mean hate — the look of my body.
I’ve tried to make my peace with it. I tell myself if I eat healthy and move my body, that’s the most important thing. I write stories about how flamenco dancers have helped my relationship with my weight (which they did until I gained more).
I count myself body-positive until it’s my own body.
This is hard to write. Acknowledging you hate the way your body looks because it doesn’t conform to societal norms is not an easy admission.
But I doubt I’m alone in this. Diet culture is insidious. Every woman in the world is subjected to its damaging messaging. Worse, I grew up during the early 2000s, a decade that defined you…
