The Plight of the Modern Woman – The Body

God. Food. Body. Sex. Love. Career. I can have it all, so I was told as a young lady who’s grandmother said, “Gosh Allison, haven’t you gone to buy a bra yet? That’s very unlady like, you need to cover up. Let’s go get a bra from JCPenny while you’re here.” So I can be anything, as long as I’m lady-like and my body is properly presented?

I know I’m not the only one who went to weight watchers at 7 years old with her mom. Or told by her pediatrician, “oh it looks like you need to lose weight….have you considered exercising? What types of food do you eat?” 

It’s not hard to attach your identity with the message of these experiences: “your body is presenting in a way that’s not appropriate, it must be changed.” These experiences are two of many that echo the experiences of the modern woman.  A woman is shamed for appearance, critiqued, ill informed of her physiology, and fearful of her body before she’s old enough to say, “fuck this shit!” No stage of a woman’s life is exempt from body shaming and hearing others' opinions about the shape or size of her body. Daily, she’ll hear that the female body MUST be covered up, changed, and cleansed in order to be presentable to society.

 Ah, the plight of the modern woman. Did you think I’d start with weight loss? You were right.  How could I forgo a golden opportunity to talk about food restriction, diet wars, a big butt with a snatched waist, calorie recommendations and the most glorious god of all – FAT LOSS. 

It’s a confusing time to be a woman, but isn’t it always? I honestly can’t tell what type of body is “in” right now. On the one hand, a section of culture will tell me that Healthy At Every Size is the solution. This particular solution entails the acknowledgment that my body can be healthy in a bigger body or a smaller body, because size doesn’t matter. Well that’s a nice step away from the obsession with thinness if you ask me. 

However, I do have a gripe. This solution seems to turn the other way when diseases associated with a higher body weight enter the conversation. There’s no denying that obesity puts someone at a higher risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and more. The Healthy at Every Size movement at its core encourages individuals to do away with things like BMI and weight, it simply encourages people to find their version of healthy, whatever size their body prefers. Unfortunately, that message of health has been lost and it’s become “Acceptance at Every Size, Regardless of Impact on Health.” So, this movement doesn’t quite hit the mark. 

On our next hand of culture, modern women hear, “big butt, snatched waist.” This again encourages women to accept their curves and maybe even put on some weight via fat and/or muscle. Again, love the concept of embracing curves, building muscle, and even being okay with some fat gain. This concept has also been misconstrued, we see women walking around essentially in corsets where they cant breath and getting butt implants that then get infected and they end up in the ER [happens more than you think]. We also see women going to the gym and doing extreme butt exercises, and once again starving themselves in their “cut phase” so you can see their newfound butt. 

In a similar vein is the muscle mommy camp. Here we also promote eating as much as you need to gain muscle, and put on some fat, because it’s a necessity in bulking. After the bulk, comes a cut, a period of restriction to reveal the hard earned muscle. Now, again, at its core, this technique isn’t all bad. Women are gaining muscle, improving their metabolism,  learning how to eat more, doing less cardio [hopefully], and then maintaining the muscle and their metabolic health while losing some of the fat. This is awesome. However, in reality we see what is essentially a binge and restrict cycle. A cycle of bulking/eating a ton, then cutting/restricting a ton. Plus, this does promote another unrealistic body for modern women. Muscle mommys are well known for tracking their food meticulously, at least for a period of time, via weighing, macro counting, calorie counting, etc. This tracking allows them to know how much to eat while bulking, then how much to cut to reveal the muscle. Generalizing isn’t great, so I wouldn’t want to do that. The dark side of bulking and cutting is real, extremely common, and again promotes obsession with food and body. For many women, this is progress…a step away from starving themselves [mostly], but they’re often still tethered to spending their days trying to control and manipulate their body.

Finally, I’ll introduce the classic obsession with thinness. Let’s disregard any discussion of aerobic health, endocrine function, metabolic health, bone density, and “good/bad” foods. This is simply about getting as thin as you can, because thin = good and large = bad. There’s not so much more to say about this one, in my opinion, that’d be beating a dead horse. 

These body types seem different on the outside, but it’s all the same thing. Whether it’s clouded in the illusion of a lifestyle to improve metabolic health, or not. The underlying goal is to manipulate various factors to achieve a “culturally appropriate” body.  The lens is often transactional, “do only XYZ to get this body” and it’s nicely packaged in a manipulative message of “this will improve health and wellness.” There are consistent lifestyle recommendations that can lead to a healthier body, but this approach begs the question, what IS  a healthy body? When one uses the lens of, “I want to live a happy and healthy life with a happy and healthy body.” The answer and relationship with food, exercise, other people, will be much different. In this approach we have space for spontaneity, a body that’s allowed to ebb and flow, and complete detachment from the outcome. 

This is  Plight of the Modern Woman. The introduction to a LONG conversation of an average woman’s experience.