I found this wonderful article that speaks volumes on women’s relationship with their bodies. It’s also heaps more eloquent that I could ever express my thoughts on the topic.
Thanks to Sarah Ogden (whom I don’t know personally) from Everyday Feminism. Here’s an excerpt:
“Being a kind-of-curvy lady poses some challenges at the gym, where is where I do most of my exercising. Most people assume that I’m there for the sole purpose of losing weight and would never consider that I might be there to take care of my body…
…The assumption that someone with curves would only exercise to lose weight is really harmful and hurtful. It completely negates what we already know – that self care is a vital piece of survival and that bullying people into weight loss doesn’t work.
Study after study has shown that there are more effective ways to measure health than to just focus on someone’s weight and/or BMI. And yet, when we talk about health, we usually discuss it in terms of these numbers. But really, health and being healthy means so much more. We need to move the conversation around exercise away from weight loss and shift the focus onto health and wellness.“
Spot. Frigging. On.
Reblogged this on I love my body, fuck you! and commented:
The article linked from this post is really excellent. That feeling of being judged by strangers who feel ownership over our bodies is definitely one of the things that puts the fuck you! in I love my body, fuck you!
The struggle to move past other people’s expectations of what our bodies should be, or should be doing, and to get to doing what we want for our own health and happiness is real. But the story shared here and tips at the end of the post are awesome, and definitely worth checking out
This is such a key line: “We need to move the conversation around exercise away from weight loss and shift the focus onto health and wellness.“ Being comfortable in our own skin – that’s where the real ownership should be
Yoga has helped me with that so much.