When did our bodies become an image?

I was thirteen when my long-held belief that the adult world was free from slander was shattered. A “friend” of my mom’s had a snide remark up her sleeve when she saw me and she pointed out the hypocritical approach of my mother-preaching about health and nutrition at the professional front and not practising the same in her household because her daughter wasn’t skinny. It was the first time that I became conscious of my changing body. 

Eventually, a snowball effect was set into motion, combining the onset of puberty and a changing consciousness my overweight body went through countless insults from others and myself alike. Standing in front of the mirror, I would find myself reproaching more and more body parts that I felt dissatisfied with. Being fat somehow started to define me and became my characteristic feature. And in this sense, I unknowingly sided with the world, disgracing and mocking my own body and feeling ashamed by it.

Slowly I concluded that I needed to exercise, in the hopes that when I finally lose those extra pounds of weight there would come a day where I wouldn’t have to listen to the insults and taunts. The blood, sweat and tears paid off eventually; I had lost significant pounds but why was I not satisfied? Why did I still seem to detest this new body of mine? Why did it all feel wrong? These confusing feelings overwhelmed me and my fitness journey soon came to a dismal end.

I began to look around me and to my astonishment, I wasn’t the only one suffering from this plight. All around me I saw emaciated women wanting to lose a few more inches, girls and boys who were taller than average slouching to fit in with their friends, people with birthmarks on their faces or bodies wanting nothing more than to scrape it off and the list went on and on. Supermodels, actors, actresses were suffering from body dysmorphia. We were all a part of this vicious mind game, hoping that if we looked more like someone else, we’d feel better.

With social media playing the role of a catalyst, that spewed headlines titled, ‘How celebs look in real life!’, ‘Losing the fight with cellulite’ or the infamous summer beach body comparisons; somewhere along the line, I began to catch glimpses of my insecurities in them. The more I searched, the more flustered I grew. I was lost, with my sense of self-becoming to get compromised by the false identities I was consuming every day. In a world where everything and anything could be changed and altered, I saw the media profiting from our perceived flaws. 

Months passed, and my own body had become unacceptable to me. I began to realize that consuming the filtered images of celebrities with the so-called “perfect bodies” was doing more harm than good to my own mental and emotional well-being. I had gotten so accustomed to hating my body that I sought love and validation from those who themselves were struggling with their own bodies. 

I decided that I needed to change the way I viewed my permanent home because it was the one thing that was truly my own. I was no longer going to accept that I was ‘just a fat girl’. There was so much more I wanted to offer and convey to the world. Understanding that what I lacked all along was self-love, I began to practice it in small yet steady ways. As I came to accept and love my body, I decided I wanted to get back into fitness once again but this time around for my sake. I was embarking on another journey with this one involving finding myself and loving her inside out.

Written by Ksheerja Pandey for MTTN

Edited by Nitya Sai T for MTTN

Featured image by Moremar/Shutterstock

Artwork by @ameliagiller on Instagram