Tips for Lasting Body Acceptance
by Arielle Juliette. Approx. 3 min read
Do you wax and wane in your ability to find acceptance in your body?
That’s normal, and to a certain extent, we’ll all feel that way as we deal with life’s challenges and changes.
However, I have three tips that have helped take my body acceptance to the next level- the place where my body and I are always on the same side. The last one might surprise you, but it’s really been key for me!
1. Understand why we, as a society, have been taught to hate fatness (spoiler: it’s racism, not health).
It’s imperative to be able to see the system that influences us to feel this way in order to break free of it. Learn to see not only diet culture, which is a set of beliefs that worships thinness and equates it with health and moral value, according to to anti-diet dietitian, Christy Harrison, M.P.H., R.D., C.D.N, but also the underlying racism that’s behind it all. Our cultural obsession with thinness has been rampant for some time, but only became synonymous with health in the 90s. I highly recommend Dr. Sabrina Strings’ book “Fearing the Black Body” and Eric Oliver’s book “Fat Politics” to learn more.
2. Instead of focusing on how to change your body to make it more acceptable, use your platform to challenge the notion that only certain bodies are acceptable.
There’s *so* much that needs to change structurally that it can feel impossible to make a difference, but if you have a social media account, if you have friends and family you talk to, you have a platform. Where possible, you can use it to be the change you want to see. Focus that energy outward. Show your whole body in public photos. Show yourself living your best life in your biggest body, or your oldest body, or your most disabled body, etc. You deserve to be documented. You deserve to have a record of the life you have lived.
3. Get some haters. Clap back to them.
#2 will lead to haters anyway, so live visibly and be heard being on your own side. Hear me out, THIS IS KEY! Haters are the people with no power in our lives who are projecting their issues on to us. When I started clapping back, I stopped fighting those wars inside myself. I don’t want to be like those people, and I want to stay on my own side. They remind me of what it was like to be stuck in a body hierarchy mentality, and how damaging that was to my mental health.
Your mileage may vary on any of these, but those are the three key things that have taken my body acceptance to the next level. I hope you find as much peace in these as I have <3
Sending warmth and wishing you well on your body acceptance journey,
Arielle
If you have any questions about this article, or a question/topic for the next blog post you'd like to see covered, please don't hesitate to write me and let me know!