Society creates body image complexes
I took my 9 month old to her 9 month wellness visit yesterday.
Luckily, she is growing, she is healthy, and overall she is doing great. However, at the end of the appointment the pediatrician commented that she is healthy and skinny. She is in the 25th percentile for weight. She said it as almost a negative thing.
Isn’t it funny that being skinny as a baby is considered “bad”, but being on the heavier side as an adult is considered “bad”?
No wonder we have body image complexes. Society starts telling us that our bodies are not good enough before we are even 1 year old. My baby is doing great. She is meeting most the her major milestones, and generally she is a very happy baby. So, yes, she might be “skinny”, but who cares? She eats, plays, poops, pees, and sleeps. She is healthy.
This is easy to say because she is too young to have a concept of self. I had body image issues throughout my whole childhood and into my thirties. I always thought I was “fat”. I always weighed more than my friends and was a larger clothes size.
Looking back at pictures, I was healthy! I was an athlete and I ate food to fuel my body (don’t get me wrong, I was a teenager and didn’t necessarily fuel my body in the right ways. I could and would down a whole pizza in one sitting). Despite being healthy and a healthy weight, I thought my body was ugly and was too big.
I believed this up until the day after I had my son. At the end of my pregnancy with him, I had the absolute worst rash in the world called PUPPS. It is a rash you can get when you are pregnant because your body has an “allergic" reaction to being pregnant. It can be all over your body and the only thing that is supposed to get rid of it is delivering the baby (mine lasted 6 weeks after I delivered my son, but that is for a whole other post). I also had wanted a home birth with my son, but ended up having an emergency c-section because he was not progressing during labor.
So here I was, the day after having major abdominal surgery because my body “failed me” to bring my son into the world with a red rash all over. After very slowly wobbling to the shower to take a refreshing cleanse for the first time (with the help of my husband) and enjoying a nice, relaxing, warm shower, I looked in the mirror and was disgusted at what I saw. I saw a flabby stomach with a long incision for the skin and tissue to hang over, a saggy butt and red everywhere. I commented to my husband on how I looked like I was 60 years older than I was.
He gave me the best gift in the world. He gave me the gift of self acceptance. With tears in his eyes, he said, “Don’t comment about your body like that. It just produced our son. It is beautiful and perfect.”
His reaction and words changed my life. In that moment, I realized, that he was right. This body, that I thought was “ugly”, just performed a miracle. Not everyone has the opportunity to fully grow a human inside them. But I did and I did it with MY body.
No matter what size or shape you are, your body is your vessel. It is what carries you along every day. It is what allows you to move and experience life. It might have even helped you grow a whole other being.
If you take good care of your body- give it movement and good nutrients every day, then be proud of it! Love it and appreciate it for all it is worth. And if a physician or anyone tells you it is too skinny, or too large, know that it is right for you and I think it is beautiful!
