The gordofobia It is a term that is the order of the day. That feeling of revulsion towards those suffer from excess weight and drifting away from established aesthetic patterns has done no one any good to date. Weight and everything that revolves around it has been traumatic moments for many women.
But not only that. Many are categorized as the one you didn’t like and now it’s good (Yes, Lola Indigo already says so). As if it were a goal, the “objective” to follow so that every woman lives calm and … happy? TikTok also echoed the issue with its ‘glow-down challenge’. The then anonymous Gabrielle McDonald, tired of seeing people’s glow-ups, where they exposed how they had improved and beautified With the passage of time, he proposed to show without hesitation or complex precisely the opposite.
“In beauty the emotional influence more than the physical. As we see in the consultations, the problem of uniting beauty and weight derives in the fact that the loss of kilos is associated with feel accepted“, pick up Cristina Perez, director of the team of psychologists at Siquia. The expert argues that all this has to do with social culture, like eating disorders, which, when weight becomes an obsession, begin to appear along with anxiety, depression and, of course, loss esteem. “In the end, half of our life is a fight against weight“, he concludes.
In any case, if one thing is clear, it is that a comment about someone’s physique can impact their mental health in unimaginable ways; from affecting their self-esteem to feeling insecure with your body. We collect some testimonies that have felt this way:
María (29): “My body doesn’t need an opinion, it needs respect”
“I had 20 years old, a size 44, he was 1.62 and I felt self-conscious about my body, especially in the summer, when I was surrounded by my friends on the beach. One day I went to the endocrinologist and I decided to lose weight “, says María (29).
The first thing he understood in consultation is that a slim body is not necessarily a healthy body. As soon as he lost weight, he began to receive all kinds of compliments and compliments. “At first they had their point, then I started to feel super uncomfortable and asked them to stop doing it,” she confesses. She says that she felt how suddenly her friends were counting on her in more plans to go out at night, she ‘sneaked’ into more photos for Instagram … had become a person cool facing the gallery and she wanted to continue being her usual self.
“Why not bet on a plural beauty? Everything would have been very different if from the beginning they had taught us to not focus your health on the kilos. I felt a very strong emotional violence because I still wonder what would have happened if I had continued to be plump. What parties or plans would I have missed? Everything is so superficial … My body doesn’t need an opinion, it needs respect, “explains María.
Sara (31): “Being thin, nobody judges your habits or your body”
“It seems that if you are not thin you should spend your life showing the world that you are trying to be”, says Sara (31). Recognize that by being slim, nobody judges your habits or your body. As if you can only be respected or validated by being thin.
“It’s like you can only be respected or validated by being thin”
“That is how I felt after losing 20 kilos. They assumed that because I was fat I did not take care of myself or feed properly and the reality is that now I do not either, because I live starving and I am aware of my problems with eating. That is why I do not think that the gordóphobic speech is property of nobody. We each suffer it in a certain way “.
Claudia (38): “Everything would have been different if they had taught us not to focus on beauty based on the normative”
Claudia (38) had a terrible relationship with my body when I started to lose weight. “It has taken me eight years to lose ten kilos and I recognize that in my case it has been worth it although the price to pay has been tremendous“, recognize.
“They laughed at me and tried to take pictures of me, it was humiliating”
“One day, shopping with my mother, I saw in the changing rooms how two girls could not take their eyes off me, I watched how they laughed and tried to take pictures of me. It was humiliating and worst of all, I didn’t have the courage to say anything to them. “, He says.
Confess that losing weight led him to therapy, He was not able to relate to his new body and what, inevitably, implied having a new life. “I have had many sequels. Now I see someone looking at me and I think they are talking about my physical appearance or that maybe they will take out a camera to laugh at me. I know that everything is in my head but it was so many years of crushing that even today everything this takes its toll on me “.
Macarena (40): “I went from being his charity to being his better half”
In the case of Macarena (40), losing weight meant a change for men, not for her or for his way of relating to them. “I had a hard time. They went out with me and they thought they were doing me a favor for being fat … As if for being fat you couldn’t say no to them.”
“They thought they were doing me a favor by going out with me, with a fat woman”
So, and she talks about only five years ago, she loved a boy and they were hanging out for a couple of months. “He told me that if I lost 10 kilos he would marry me. Due to things in life, my father suffered an illness that consumed all my energy. I stayed in the bones. Six months ago we met again and he sent me a message telling me that it was spectacular and that when would we have a drink. I sent him where you can imagine. All I want is to surround myself with people who accept and respect me, “he concludes.
Marta (41): “If what you are going to say contributes absolutely nothing, please save it”
Marta (41) would have loved to have been told since she was little that it would be normal for her body to change over time: “After being a mother, I gained 15 kilos that I managed to lose in confinement. I returned to my usual weight after three pregnancies. When I got to work, I started asking people to save it if what I was going to say did not contribute at all. “
He acknowledges that there were comments that flattered him, but he could not with those that made him feel that the previous one was a zero to the left. Phrases like ‘Luckily you have taken them off, you were that you did not look like you’. “It seems to me a tremendous crueltyIf it affected me with my age, I cannot imagine what it must be like for a teenager … “, he says.
Ana (27): “It is as if they invalidated the person who was before”
Comments such as ‘it’s for health’ are the best excuse to be able to talk about other people’s bodies when no one has to comment on other people. This is what Ana (27) thinks, who also argues that no one has to say that they see you prettier: “They tell you that they look healthier, but they don’t know if your diet is fireworks, if you’ve become obsessed broccoli or if you have a disorder. “
“They tell you that they look healthier, but they don’t know if your diet is firewood and you don’t eat anything other than broccoli”
He is also bothered by expressions like “love your body as it is “. She understands that the concept is important when we talk about self-esteem but she is convinced that all this is a lie, it is an oppression.
“What good is saying ‘love your body as it is’ if there are no clothing that includes sizes for all bodies? Besides that, the constant hurtful comments undermined my sanity even after losing weight. I have felt like many times. if they invalidated the person you were before losing weight when in reality I am the same with a few kilos less“.
The acceptance process
Cristina Pérez emphasizes that it is logical that there are parts of our body that we do not like and the appropriate thing is accept them and look at them with care in order to change or love them as they are.
It also occurs with other aspects that are not exclusively related to weight. There may have been a point where we feel prettier because our complexion has improved and we no longer have acne, or our hair begins to look much healthier and with more quantity or we have even said goodbye to bags under the eyes. In any case, the expert emphasizes not getting carried away by all those preconceptions and being true to ourselves, feeling beautiful inside, wanting our whole being in any circumstance.
In any case, he recommends putting tools to change what is hurting us and states that we can work on it with the help of a psychologist, in case we are not able to face it alone: ”Look at yourself, analyze yourself and pamper yourself. Change only if you think so, not out of a desire to please, fit in or be accepted“.
Photos | ‘The diaryof Bridget Jones’