Why can't I just love my body?
Confessions of a millennial woman
Gentle warning: this is a personal essay about my relationship to my body. My “truth”, if you like, about the realities and paradoxes of self-love that I think many women of my generation face. As such, I hope it will be relatable and reassuring. However, if body image is a tricky topic for you, do what you need to do to protect your peace ❤️
It’s the second night of my holiday. The out-of-office is on and seven days of sun, sea and Campari lie ahead. I should feel relaxed and happy. Instead, I’m having a crisis—the climax of which sees me turn to my boyfriend and solemnly inform him that I am, in fact, a potato.
It’s a marvel that he’s never noticed it before, I know. But the mirror doesn’t lie. There I am, a Maris Piper trussed up in a sundress.
Only a few days ago, I was looking forward to wearing this dress—khaki green, early-noughties vibes with a cinched bodice and swingy skirt, scored in my hometown charity shop. As the kind of person who packs for a holiday at least one week in advance, meticulously planning every outfit, I had been pretty happy with how it looked when I tried it on at home.
So what had happened to my self-confidence between then and now?
The mess: why can’t I be more like Rihanna?
On nearly every holiday I go on, I have a body image crisis. It will strike a few days in, when I’m getting ready to go out for the evening. Standing beneath the unflattering Airbnb lighting (always stark enough to rival a Zara changing room), I will try on dress after dress, growing increasingly huffy and sweaty as all of them fail to manifest the reflection I desire; only potato.
With decades of potato-gates behind me, I do my best to prepare for this moment. On the one hand, I fundamentally disagree with the concept of beach-readiness. At the same time, I want to give myself the best chance of feeling as good as possible in my bikini.
So I amp up my already regular exercise routine. I’m a little more cautious about what I eat. It’s not no-carbs-before-Marbs, yet I still seem to be susceptible to the idea that I need to "train” to take most of my clothes off and lie on a sun lounger. As if everyone on the beach is going to be scrutinising my thighs for signs of a biologically impossible gap.
Of course, once I’m on holiday, any semblance of regime or discipline goes out the window (as it rightly should). Confronted by my scantily-clad body on a daily basis, and all the delicious aperitivo snacks the Italians give you FOR FREE on a daily basis, I can no longer cling to the illusion of body positivity that my usual vigilance gives me. All the beliefs and stories I’ve fought so hard to unlearn rear their ugly heads, convincing me that letting go of control means letting myself go.
It’s this gap, not the thigh variety, that causes me the most pain: the gap between the healing I think I’ve done vs. the negative feelings I still have about my body.
I know that it’s not important to have a flat stomach. But I can’t lie—there’s still a part of me, thanks to my social conditioning, that feels shame that I don’t have a flat stomach. This is then compounded by the shame I feel about part of me still caring that I don’t have a flat stomach.
Because I don’t want to fit the stereotype of woman asking man if he’ll still love her, even if she looks like a potato. I want to smash it up.
I want to get up and throw on a bikini without checking my reflection ten times in the mirror, sucking in my abdomen and readjusting my boobs. I want to sit on the beach without feeling self-conscious about the ripples and rolls of my relaxed body. I don’t want to feel sad about my body—I want to love it.
“I have the pleasure of a fluctuating body type” - Rihanna
I want to be like Rihanna, taking pride in the way I shape-shift—whether it’s my body’s ability to bear a child or eat several packets of tarallini.
Making it make sense
I debated whether to share this publicly. Not just because it’s one of my most honest and personal posts yet, but also because I am an objectively slim young woman, who leads a healthy, active lifestyle—privileges I know I am lucky to have.
I’ve never been bullied about the shape of my body. I’ve never had an eating disorder in a medicalised sense—although I would argue that most women know what it is to have a not-entirely-healthy relationship with food (see: the “clean eating” movement of the 2010s). Most people (including my boyfriend) would look at me and tell me I’m being ridiculous.
Rationally, I know that they’re right. But my emotions can never quite seem to catch up. And if I feel like this, I can’t be alone.
I think that this cognitive dissonance can be particularly prevalent in millennial women like me, who have lived and are still living through a mind-boggling metamorphosis of female beauty standards.
On the surface, we seem to have made progress from the catty women’s magazines and celebrity diets (maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne pepper cleanse, anyone?) of our youth. But no matter how valiantly the body positivity movement has tried to dismantle those narratives, an Instagram hashtag is perhaps not enough to undo a lifetime of relentless and confusing messaging about the shape and size of our bodies.
We had the glamazons and FHMs. The waifs and the Kardashians. And now, disappointingly, Ozempic seems to be bringing us full circle.
How are we supposed to be able to see ourselves clearly—let alone love ourselves—when the parameters of what’s beautiful (or more accurately, hot) are constantly changing?
I want to bridge the gap, I really do. And maybe I’ll get there. I know women whose body image has been transformed by learning to recognise and own their strength and beauty, whether it’s through therapy, training for a triathlon or having a baby. For some, it does seem possible.
But for many of us, self-love can feel like a high bar to reach. And so I wonder if what we need doesn’t have to be so passionate and expressive.
Instead of trying to love my body, maybe it’s OK just to be OK with it.
Accepting that while I do have a choice to reject the messages society tells me, it can be easier said than done.
The “work”
Self-help culture, for all its good intentions, can do us a disservice when it sells The Work™️ as a miraculous, no-turning-back transformation. That all we need to do is “love ourselves” and we can wave goodbye to all our hangups.
The more I write, the more I coach, and the more I experience life, I see that change is something much more subtle, gradual and nuanced than that.
When we identify negative thoughts or unhelpful stories we tell ourselves, it can be enormously helpful to unpick what’s going on beneath the surface—acknowledging all those layers of upbringing, cultural beliefs and societal messaging that we’ve sucked up like a sponge across the course of our lives. It gives us perspective on why things feel so hard or unsatisfying.
There are situations where we can counter these narratives with alternative ones and write new stories—indeed, where it’s vital to do so. But there are also those where it is enough to acknowledge and accept them. Not giving in to the BS that society has fed us, but giving grace to ourselves and others for the external influences we endure, many of which are simply beyond our control.
As my boyfriend so eloquently put it, sometimes we cannot silence a feeling; we have to gently coax it out. Awareness can bring solace. And while there’s certainly a time and place for defiance and rebellion, acceptance can be its own form of resistance—one that can take away some of the power from the forces that try to keep us down.
So when I look in the mirror, I remind myself of what I’m up against. It eases some of the pressure. And from there, little by little, I start to find my peace.
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I’m Lucia, a freelance writer and qualified coach making sense of life’s messes, through a blend of coaching psychology, real life observations, pop culture GIFs and hard-won personal experience. Here are some of my most popular posts to give you a taste:
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'I would argue that most women know what it is to have a not-entirely-healthy relationship with food (see: the “clean eating” movement of the 2010s).' - this is sooooo real. It's such a pervasive problem, yet all the boyfriends of the world are completely baffled by it!
Very much relatable. Especially on vacation, I always seem to have a big upset and hate my body even more. What’s sad to me is that I’ve gone back and read my journals throughout the years recently and when I was quite young I was already obsessing about it, tracking food and lamenting any shape or space i took up. The older I’ve gotten, the less I care tho, so that’s something!