Our Bodies

Today I am sitting in my clinical interventions lecture and we are discussing eating disorders. Though I do not have an eating disorder, two of the people I love most in the world are in recovery from eating disorders. It is a daily, hourly, and sometimes constant battle for them to nourish their bodies and quiet the ED that is telling them not to. I, like many people, also have some of my own body image issues that have shifted as I've become an adult. Some days are better than others, but I find balance in self love the way I do when I consider other personal challenges.

Now, as a social worker, it is important to know which interventions are efficacious for ED treatment because it is likely that my classmates and I will work with folks who are experiencing ED in some capacity.  However, the way that professors discuss and teach ED is problematic. For example, to open today's lecture, my professor read a meditation which was asking people how they feel about their bodies. The meditation equated fatness and badness as well as thinness and goodness. This meditation was meant to be done with people in a controlled environment in a therapeutic setting. Not in a classroom where therapeutic conversations cannot happen. After the meditation was read you could hear a pin drop in the room.

It is unlikely that every single person I have class with has an eating disorder, but it is likely that they have been made to feel bad about their bodies in some way at some time. Everyone in the room looked as if they were back in the place of feeling bad about their bodies and therefore feeling bad about themselves. It was amazing to me how much body image issues impacts everyone. The way that we talk about food and body image is epidemically problematic. While looking around our classroom my professor seemed confused. Albeit he is an older man and is seemingly a bit disconnected from the grip that thinness and body perfection has on American culture. While artists like Lizzo and Rihanna and companies like American Eagle are fighting back against these destructive norms, there is still a lot of work to be done.

I am proud of one of my good friends who is in recovery for speaking up about how triggering the classroom activity was for her. When she spoke up many of our classmates were nodding their heads in agreement. Thinking of how our bodies are "bad" will not help us work with folks who are derailed by eating disorders and body dysmorphia so we should not teach it or learn it that way. We should instead learn to meet people where they are so we can better support them in learning how to nourish themselves and begin the healing process.

Our body sizes do not define our goodness. Our body sizes are perfect the way they are. Our doctors  are the only people who can tell us how to be healthier and even then sometimes they are wrong.  Our bodies are strong and carry us through our highs and our lows. Our bodies deserve our care and respect and not our hate or disdain. Let's all work on unlearning and healing from the hate we have shown our bodies and practice more self compassion and self love.