Now is Not the Time to Focus on Shrinking Your Body

I’ve been struggling with what to say post election. Over the next week, I’ll definitely have some more words to share, but for now, I want to reiterate something I have already talked about before. 

Oftentimes, when things feel out of control, the urge to shrink our bodies becomes stronger precisely because it gives us the illusion of control. It gives us the feeling that we have autonomy over something, when we feel like we don’t have access to that in other areas of our lives. 

And right now, when the bodily autonomy of women is literally in the process of being stripped from us, the urge to focus on your body might be feeling stronger. 

So here’s what I have to say. And to be clear, it’s just my opinion. You can take it or leave it because ultimately, you get to decide what’s best for yourself. 

But in my opinion, now is not the time to be focused on shrinking our bodies. 

Dieting is a distraction. Diet culture is a distraction. 

When we spend all of our energy and time obsessed with our bodies and what we look like, we don’t have that energy to worry about anything else.

When we are underfed and fixated on our appearances, we don’t have the energy to fight back, fuck shit up, or dismantle anything. 

And that’s exactly the point of it all. 

Keeping us focused on our bodies and our looks is by design. 

The uptick in trad wife content is by design.

The return to 90s fatphobia and the obsession with female thinness coalescing with an ever increasing attempt to roll back the rights of women, both reproductive and marital, is by design. 

They want us distracted. They want us to keep making ourselves as small as possible – literally and figuratively. They want us immobilized. They wanted us sedated. They want us to do anything and everything besides take our power back. 

And dieting accomplishes all of that.

While focusing on being thin and pretty might give us a false sense of control, it won’t save us. 

And I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it also won’t save us from losing our reproductive rights or from the perils of fascism. 

I need you to let that sink in. 

The idea that we can be thin enough and pretty enough to beat patriarchy and white supremacy is one of the greatest ruses of diet culture. It cannot save you. 

At a time in history where there are real, imminent threats to our democracy, I am urging you to wake up and free yourself from the throes of diet culture. 

You can spend all of your precious energy on your appearance or you can break up with diet culture and decide to be a disruptor.  

You can keep chasing thinness or you can lock in and focus on things that could actually protect and save you.

You can keep choosing to fall prey to the same systems that are designed to keep us disempowered or you can choose to take your power back.

The choice is yours. What will you choose?