Ahimsa and the Relief of Body Acceptance As we head into winter, it is never the most opportune moment to be accepting of our bodies, is it? Colder weather means weightier nourishing food, warmer and more comforting meals to stave off the chill and keep our personal physical machines functioning as successfully as they would in warmer months. Extra layers of clothing mean neither we nor strangers have to be visually aware of any added rolls (some yet remnant from the first lockdown). But practicality aside, if – say – one were to be considering a winter sun break (Covid variants and travel restrictions permitting), would we even want to, knowing that such would entail a bikini or at the very least a swimsuit reveal, everything on display?
What is wrong with the opening paragraph is the entire mental dialogue it presents. Why does weight mean so much to most of us? Apart from valid health concerns, what matter a few extra pounds here or there? Why do we care about the shape of others, or about what they eat in a day (we’re looking at you, social media)? Why does the mirror – and the gaze of others – hold such fear? While many happily follow #WhatIEatInADay, joining 6.9 billion others watching a looped video on Tik Tok, one wonders how dieting has become the focus it has today, so long after the first regimen was set out by Luigi Cornaro in 1558 and Lord Byron recorded his efforts to stay trim (as according to Louise Foxcroft in Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over two thousand years). Psychologists have been concerned for years, and duly so: who can forget the “heroine chic” of models at the end of the 20th Century or the celebrity “lollypop” ladies of the early noughties, size zero taken to the extreme and heads on toothpick thin bodies strangely alien? And that all predated the magic of the photo filter. 54
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Face looking a little craggy? Dark circles a giveaway that you’ve been burning the candle at both ends? Have you tried Amaro? Or perhaps Gingham is more your bag? Whichever filter it is you find yourself applying when posting to social media, truth is that image is no longer you. But once the brain has processed the ameliorated digital version of the self, it insatiably craves more such fakery. Who is that lesser being, the light too dull, the skin imperfect? Who could possibly ever find that attractive? So the destructive thoughts whirl through impressionable minds; too frequently the still developing minds of young girls and boys. Granted, there are divergent uses of #WhatIEatInADay: some use it to chart recovery from anorexia nervosa and bulimia; others use it to record a wilful disregard of moderation or restriction. Nonetheless, the voyeurism remains: what business is it of ours?
