Is Body Neutrality Achievable?

Some days I'm not so sure.

Can I be honest with you? I truly debated writing and sending this newsletter because I’m embarrassed to admit most of this.

I’m really unhappy with my body. Most days I really hate how it looks. I pinch it and glare at it in the mirror. I repeat “body neutrality” over and over in my head without much luck. I don’t feel neutral.

Although there have been moments, even full days, where I’ve loved my body, it is far from the norm. But the last year has felt especially challenging. I think I’m gaining weight, but I honestly have no idea. I haven’t weighed myself since 2020. All of the perceptions about my body are just perceptions. I have no data to support it.

This sounds weird to say, but I have no idea what my body looks like. This is hard to admit, but sometimes I’ll show Ryan a picture of someone on Instagram and ask him if I look like her. He hesitates because he knows it is a trap. But part of me is genuinely curious. What do I look like? Of course, this is all rooted in comparison which is ultimately unhelpful. And the answer that I’m looking for from Ryan (yes/no) wouldn’t lessen the anxiety I feel about my body. All hail body dysmorphia.

My clothes have started feeling too small, or I’m just hypersensitive to tight clothing (see my recent newsletter on this), so they don’t fit my new comfort threshold. I cry a lot when I try on clothes. I finished going through my closet the other night and felt like a pile of poop when I was done. I got rid of most of my dresses. I felt a lot of grief. I remembered wearing those dresses for my college graduation, out to a bar, on a first date. Grief for growing out of a phase, out of a body?

Climbing three days a week has enlarged my arms. Ryan’s too. But for him as a man, it is a welcomed development. For me, it’s an existential crisis. How can the sport I love the most be causing my body to change in societally unacceptable ways?

Wanna know my biggest fear? Going to the doctor and admitting that I’m concerned about my weight. I ruminate about this regularly. I haven’t let a doctor weigh me in 3 years. Gah, the shame of going to the doctor and saying that I think I need to lose weight. And god forbid the doctor prescribes me a diet or more cardio. I would scream. There is something so sickening about trying to unlearn all of the diet culture beliefs, but ultimately feeling like your brain can’t let go of them.

I’m embarrassed by so many of my thoughts. Brené Brown always says that shame thrives in the dark, so here we go. I’m so afraid of gaining weight. I’m afraid of people judging me for my weight. I’m afraid that I’ll have to “take action” on my weight, like start running again. I’m afraid my family will have an intervention with me about my weight. I’m afraid that I’ll just keep gaining weight and never stop.

I know that all of these beliefs and concerns are fatphobic (or the implicit and explicit bias towards fat people that is rooted in blame and a perceived sense of moral failing). My concerns are rooted in diet culture and the societal pressure to be thin. I can easily intellectualize it. That’s not the problem. The problem is that some days I believe all of my fears. A lot of days. How can I so deeply believe in advocacy for all bodies, but have my brain undermine me constantly?

I keep going back to this idea of body neutrality — the acceptance of your body as it is, rather than positivity or negativity towards it. I believe that body neutrality is the solution, but it is so goddamn hard to get to most days. I can scream “body neutrality” at myself in the mirror and still find myself picking everything apart. Is body neutrality achievable? I fucking hope so. Because whatever sick universe of body image beliefs I’m living in is pretty awful. Neutrality seems like a dream right now.