Makeovers were my absolute favorite thing to do at a sleepover as a kid. From my memory, I didn’t have a very creative imagination for playing with toys like most little girls, but what I could imagine is how perfect my life would be once I looked like Kelly Kapowski (that’s Saved by the Bell for you non-90s babies). I’d be the envy of all the girls and all the boys would love me. It started with the hair and makeup until later when the body obsession took over. As a teen, I’d come home from school to watch TRL with Carson Daly and daydream of one day looking like Britney Spears or Mandy Moore. In college, I idolized the Victoria’s Secret Models and the confidence I assumed was inherent with having a body like theirs. My brain was telling me I had a lot of work to do before I could feel ok about myself.
In glorifying the beauty queen’s way of presenting herself, I consequently degraded my own. I struggled with acne. My hair was thinner and my skin was fairer than I wanted them to be. I wanted boobs like nothing else in the world. I wasted a lot of time, money, and happiness trying to ‘fix’ these features that I believed were flaws. They became the things that took center stage in my mind, which is painfully shallow to admit, but also expected, given the society we live in. Women are socialized to believe their worth comes from their appearance. That fitting the beauty ideal should be our ultimate goal in life if we want to be validated by others. But internalizing this message and seeking validation outside of ourselves we leave no room for cultivating self-love and self-confidence.
While I was growing up with a complete lack of self-confidence, I was also often being told what a pretty girl I was. I identified with that compliment so deeply that I thought I had to hold onto it for dear life. If I wasn’t pretty, what was I?
This attachment is what makes rejecting diet culture especially challenging in the beginning. Vowing to give up food rules and to stop over-exercising in order to recover body trust means releasing control. It means the body will change in what the brain has perceived to be the scariest ways. It means retiring the identity as ‘the fit friend’ or ‘the disciplined one’ or ‘the healthy one’ (what even is healthy?). But it also means remembering our inherent worth, regardless of our appearance. It means doing the work it takes to have a managed mind that can handle any body image disruption without drama. It means learning ways to cope with intense emotions in more nurturing ways than using food.
To get to the other side, you may actually go through a grieving process of the former self with all the phases – shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and testing, before arriving at acceptance. Rejecting diet culture and the pursuit of the perfect body isn’t easy, but it’s one step toward liberating women from the oppressive patriarchal system we live in. What starts out as a personal journey is progressively promoting a better world for future generations of women to find security, empowerment, and confidence in themselves – no body fantasy necessary.