Your Body is Not a Problem to be Fixed

We went on vacation a couple of weeks ago, and one request I made of my husband before we left was that we try to get some photos of us together. We rarely take photos together, and most of the photos we have together are from a few years ago. 

A lot has changed in my life since the bulk of our photos together were taken at our wedding three years ago. I’ve gone through some traumatic mental health challenges, I’ve changed jobs multiple times, and I’ve worked hard on healing my relationship with food and exercise. 

So, we went on our trip, and on the last few days there, we got our server to take some pictures of us. 

When I saw them, I was speechless. 

Not because of the beautiful sunset behind us, but because I didn’t recognize the person staring back at me. 

I’ve gained a substantial amount of weight in the past few years. There are many factors that have contributed to my weight gain, but at the end of the day, I don’t need to justify my weight gain to anyone. It is what it is, and there’s nothing wrong with our bodies changing.

However, as someone who’s always struggled a lot with body image, it’s been hard to accept these changes. But I felt like I was learning to come to terms with my new body and moving forward with my life. 

It wasn’t until I saw a photo of myself that I realized just how much my body has changed, and how much internalized fatphobia I still harbour. 

When I looked at the photos, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of shame. 

Shame that I had “let myself go.” 

Shame that I’m no longer the same person my husband married. 

Shame that I couldn’t maintain a body that only an eating disorder had allowed me to attain in the first place. 

Shame that I even felt shame, because that meant that I still had a lot of internal work to do to dismantle the weight stigma and fatphobia that have been instilled in me since I was a child. 

In the photos, I was happy. On vacation, I was happy. But I didn’t want to share the photos because I couldn’t accept the way my body had changed. 

I know I still carry the privilege of living in a smaller body. 

I know, deep down, that my body is the least interesting thing about me. 

I know that even when I was thin, I looked at photos and hated what I saw. But still, I looked at those photos from our vacation and saw a body that needed to be fixed. 

It’s been a couple of weeks since those photos were taken, and while I still feel a creeping sense of shame when I look at them, I’m coming to accept that my body has changed, and that’s ok. 

My body is not a problem that needs to be fixed, and neither is yours.

Society may tell us that we need to shrink ourselves, but we are worthy just as we are. 

You deserve love. 

You deserve happiness. 

You deserve peace.

And your body deserves to exist, just as it is. 

Looking for more structured body image help? Check out my Body Image Workbook. In it, you’ll find journaling prompts, coloring pages, affirmations, and exercises to help you make peace with your body.