I’m Sick and Tired of Hating my Body

I know I keep coming back to this issue, but I feel like I can’t say enough about it. I don’t love my body, and I’m upset by that. I love myself as a whole, but if I separate my body from the rest of me, I’m not sure if I can confidently and honestly say I love my body.

But I should.

I follow influencers on social media who are curvy and voluptuous. I remember one woman who was strikingly beautiful saying, “Repeat after me: you don’t have to be thin to be pretty.”

That’s a hard one to put into practice in a culture that has distorted women’s bodies. The ideal woman is rail-thin with a huge chest. Usually, that’s not even physically possible. And the size of my stomach or my breasts should not be up for evaluation.

I have family members and friends who will remain unnamed who are thin and beautiful. I sometimes have a complex about my body when I’m around them. That is not their fault. That is my issue; it’s on me. It’s my responsibility not to compare myself to them with envy. Jealousy and insecurity are ugly emotions that just make you feel like you are nothing.

I have found something very interesting. First of all, I feel like there is more pressure to be thin in the Indian community than in the larger American community. When I was in the hospital a few years ago, I became friendly with some amazing Black women. What impressed me the most about them was how comfortable they seemed with their bodies, no matter their size. I’ve also known my whole life that Black men are attracted to thicker women.

I have also found, in my experience, that women judge women’s bodies more harshly than men do.

The “thin is beautiful” narrative is supported by the media, Hollywood, Bollywood. It’s everywhere.

Every time something doesn’t work out between me and a guy I’m dating, I suspect that my weight could be one of the reasons it didn’t work out. Intellectually, I know this is outrageous and untrue. I remember hearing once that even women on My 600-lb Life had boyfriends.

I’ve decided to stop doing this to myself. I’m only torturing myself. And it’s not true. My brain has been ruined by society, or you can call it patriarchy. The patriarchy is not only men; it’s all of us. The way we look at ourselves, the way we look at each other.

I almost developed an eating disorder when I was 13. I went on a diet and lost 20 pounds. One day, I ate some cookies and tried to throw them up. I physically was unable to make myself throw up. Either the universe saved me or I saved myself.

Women I have been close to have had eating disorders that have ravaged their lives and their bodies.

When I was in the hospital twenty years ago, I saw women hooked up to machines to give them nutrients because they had starved themselves to the point that it was deadly. It scared the shit out of me and made me incredibly sad, especially because there are women in my life who suffer from anorexia and bulimia.

Honestly, I’ve spent most of my life hating my body, even at my thinnest. I also remember relatives and family friends within the Indian community telling me that I was a little heavy my entire life.

The radical notion that I should accept myself as I am is the only way I want my mindset to go. I no longer want to be a slave to this ideal that crushes women’s souls. It takes the song out of our lungs and leaves us choking on the debris of society.

Accepting myself doesn’t mean I can never want to change my body. I can want to lose weight, get stronger, and improve my health. But I don’t want to spend my life putting off self-acceptance until I reach some magical number on the scale. I want to learn to treat myself with love now, not as a reward for becoming someone else.

My body is actually beautiful. In fact, men I’ve been close to have told me that I have an attractive body. And of course it feels good to be desired. But I don’t want male approval to be the foundation of my self-acceptance. If it is, I’m still letting other people’s judgments determine how I feel about myself.

And you know what? The way my body looks is the least interesting thing about me. I want to be free of all this bullshit. I’m sick and tired of feeling that I am not enough or that I am too much.

So how do I go about loving my body? That is a fascinating question. Apparently, there is no manual teaching women that they are more than their bodies. I studied feminism in college, but by then I had already been indoctrinated into the notion that the size of my body dictated a large part of my worth.

So what do I do now?

I just accept. I stand in the mirror naked and accept that this body is a temple, a beautiful vessel through which I experience love and life. My body works. I need to be grateful for that, because that may not always be true.

You don’t have to wake up one morning and suddenly feel beautiful. You can begin by refusing to make your body the price of admission to your own life.

My body is worthy of love at whatever size it is. Not twenty pounds from now. Not when I finally decide to strength train and build muscle.

Now. Just as I am.

There’s a song called “Your Body Is a Wonderland.” My body is a wonderland with all its curves and edges.

nina