Working Towards Body Neutrality in the New Year
I haven’t made a real New Years Resolution in forever. I think last year I promised myself that I’d engage in at least one act of creativity a day all year, but that didn’t last long and who knows what my last “resolution” was before then. This year won’t really be any different. I have no true goals or deadlines for myself to meet, but rather a series of shifts I want to make in my own thought processes and in the ways that I interact with my body.
I want to work towards Body Neutrality in 2021. The Body Positivity Movement has become largely co-opted by corporations and people with insecurities and has left behind the people who it was created to help. Fat people, people with disabilities and mental illnesses are no longer centered, and I think it’s fair to say that Body Positivity has in many ways failed. For many people, myself included, it seems disingenuous to claim to love the bodies that society has worked hard to marginalize. And the self-love that we were once working on got twisted into sexualization and commodification. So, instead of trying to love it, I’m going to try to accept and recognize my body for what it can do. Instead of dieting and weighing and mirror-checking (all of which has been proven to worsen the ways that people feel about their body) I am going to say to myself “This body is mine, regardless of it’s size”.
I resolve to move my body in ways that bring me joy instead of making myself sick with exercises that I don’t enjoy. I am going to eat what makes me feel good instead of starving myself. And even if I can’t love my body, I will make peace with it.
