Gaining Weight Can Be Good Too, You Know!

It really concerns me that people around me seem to be constantly dieting and trying to lose weight.

Why should I have such an interest in this? Surely people can do what they want to their own body? Of course they can but the problem, for me, is that it seems as if it’s primarily women who are constantly having this battle with their own minds about their need to lose weight.

It’s always there, lingering in the background. It’s the something to turn to when everything else has been going OK – or when things are going bad and you looking for a way to turn it around. It seems to be constantly going round in the heads of my female colleague and friends. Honestly, not one day will go by without someone mentioning something about losing weight, whether they weigh a lot or not. It’s embedded in us.

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I am confident that we are not all born this way and it is a mentality born partly out of consumerism and marketing.

I am also positive a time existed when women didn’t preoccupy themselves with their BMI. This may be going back years, but I’m sure this time existed.

I get it; we’re an obese nation; it’s costing the NHS millions, so when someone talks about losing weight, surely it’s positive action towards tackling this?

I’m not sure.

We’ve become so obsessed with losing weight that we equate it with positivity.

We say things like (and I am just as guilty of this), ‘I’m being good, I’m not eating chocolate today’ and when someone has lost a lot of weight, we might say, ‘oh they’ve done really well’. We praise people for weight loss and their continued effort to lose weight as if we should all be having this constant battle to re-assess ourselves and our bodily mass. The association between weight loss and positivity is incredibly strong.

Weight gain can be positive. Weight loss can be bad.

If your weight isn’t causing you any health problems – you are probably OK. If you’re slim and think you need to tone a few areas or lose a few more pounds – how about focusing that longing desire on some other goal, which is likely to bring you more happiness?

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Sometimes, I feel like I’m having to justify myself for not completely being preoccupied with my own eating habits and to convince other people that I don’t need to watch what I eat. People challenge me on what I eat. I don’t sodding care – I am happy not worrying about my weight. I would like a future where young girls don’t have to grow up thinking that this is normal acceptable behaviour and that it’s a normal thing for a woman to worry about ten times a day.

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I have had friends who have lost a lot of weight. It wasn’t a positive experience for them. I have struggled with a problem that caused me to lose weight. For both me and for them, the turning point came when I started to put on weight. It meant I was finally getting better and I had more control over my symptoms. It was an incredibly positive moment for me when I could eat cake, enjoy it and not be in a state of panic.

I have heard recently where girls have been grateful they’ve had food poisoning because it has given them a flatter tummy or that they’ve been sick and gone off their food. I don’t believe people are actually grateful for this and if they took a second to analyse why they thought this it would probably only be because weight loss = good.

Weight gain is also good. Weight gain can mean recovery, health and positivity. I really hope that one day we can turn things round so that we aren’t making ourselves sick and thinking we should celebrate it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN7lt0CYwHg

For me, the This Girl Can campaign is a leap in the right direction. One of the most uplifting things for me about it is that there are these wonderfully healthy women of all shapes and sizes. This is what it should be about, not whether we’ve put on a pound or two, but whether we are healthy and happy and have the confidence to defy the constant stream of adverts telling us we need to look a certain way, when this just isn’t true.

If you enjoyed this post, why not check out ‘All Your Perfect Imperfections: Real Women Have Curves’?

Tags: #ThisGirlCan body image Health Joy This Girl Can weight Women

Categories: Empowerment: Man! I feel Like a Woman! Fire me up baby! Mirror Mirror: Self Improvement