Body + Soul

BODY + SOUL

TCDSU CAMPAIGN WEEK

NOTE: DON’T JUDGE A MAGAZINE BY ITS COVER

SELF PORTRAIT

“As if you were on fire from within.

The moon lives in the lining of your skin.”

Self-portraiture is a challenge every photographer has been confronted with at least once, because it is often the easiest way to test a new idea. Everytime I try to do a self-portrait, I am torn between two voices in me: the one who wants to do an honest portrait, to make it say something about me or about something else, and that tiny annoying voice in the back of my head who worries about making me pretty as a picture. I have to fight the impulse to make me similar to the fake beauty we see everyday in advertisement; fight the impulse of making my eyes glow, my skin flawless, my limbs skinnier. This impulse disappeared the day I realized that I wasn’t trying to portrait the outside as much as the inside of me.

Everywhere I look, people are telling me to appreciate my beauty, even if it doesn’t match the standards, because everybody is beautiful. What I am hearing through these empowering words is that only beauty really matters. Here is a new idea: I don’t have to be beautiful. I think some things in me matter more: my kindness, my creativity, my bravery. I am not saying that my body doesn’t matter – I love it with its flaws and its quirks, and I feel beautiful in it sometimes – but within this body, I am a dreamer, an artist, a traveler, a risktaker, a heroine. And this is what I want to show in my pictures, more than a pretty face. I believe that beauty is multiple and mysterious – and that it is not always found in what we see in our mirrors, but in the way we interact with each other.

Jeanne Kretzschmar

“If you have issues with the way that you look, the problem isn’t with your body, it’s with your own perception of yourself.”

Rachel Fleming

I

n lots of ways, I fit the “teenage girl” stereotype very well. I spent excessive amounts of time on the phone, I thought that my parents were agents of Satan put on this earth for the sole purpose of ruining my life and I was always on a diet.

In lots of ways, however, I wasn’t a typical teenager. I obsessed constantly over my weight. I memorised the calorie content of every food I was likely to encounter on a daily basis, and I was never ever happy with the way I looked.

Somehow, I thought that this was normal. I never thought that getting up at 6am every morning to do 300 sit-ups was a behaviour I should be concerned about. I convinced myself that my hatred of shopping was more to do with how tedious I found it and less to do with the way I always cried in changing rooms. It never crossed my mind that spending every spare second of my day concentrating on my body and the way it looked and the number of calories I had consumed was somewhat obsessive. I never realised that it wasn’t normal to hate my body. Neither do most people who have eating disorders.

There are a huge amount of misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding the term “eating disorder”. Few people realise how common they are and even fewer understand what they actually entail, to the extent that sometimes even those with disordered eating patterns don’t realise that there is anything wrong with their behaviour.

Because the thin ideal is one which is so coveted, almost anything is deemed acceptable in the pursuit of bodily “perfection”. In a society where thin equals pretty, and eating plans and diets are promoted on the cover of every magazine, forcing yourself to follow a liquid-only diet for a week seems like the best way to go about weight loss.

Unfortunately spending a week drinking only soup is highly unsustainable. Diets might work, but only in the short term. I spent seven years dieting and in the end only gained pounds coupled with a severely unhealthy mindset. Since then I’ve met a lot of people who have suffered from eating disorders or eating issues and all of them started the same way as me - with a diet.

This is supremely helpful knowledge because it means that eating disorders can be prevented. Wanting a healthier lifestyle or losing weight for health related reason is highly admirable, but it is important to understand that these goals can only be achieved through the slow implementation of healthier eating habits. If you find that you are spending

your life in an endless cycle of dieting and failure, my advice would be to examine your reasons for doing so and then to seek help and support from a counselling service or trusted friend or family member before the problem gets worse. Eating disorders are not like depression. They are not caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, but by circumstance and behaviour. More often than not disorders are a coping mechanism to deal with other problems. I relied hugely on my eating disorder in sixth year to help me cope with exam pressures, never realising that there were far more effective ways to deal with it. Although the underlying problems causing unhealthy eating habits might not be preventable, relying on destructive eating patterns to cope certainly is, and is in no way an effective way of dealing with any problems.

My issues with food started when I was eleven. One day I decided that my stomach stuck out more than I liked so I went on a diet. My friends were somewhat intrigued that I was throwing out my sandwiches every lunchtime so I started disguising my eating habits to avoid making a fuss.

This was a pattern that was to characterise the rest of my school days, but it took about five and half years before this pattern developed into a recognisable eating disorder. As a result I spent five and half years with bizarre eating patterns, never thinking that what I was doing was dangerous.

As it turns out, it was. And as it turns out, I actually did have an eating disorder for those five and half years, but it just wasn’t one I knew about.

There are four recognisable disorders- anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating disorder (BED) and Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS). For the majority of my life I fit into the final category. I used to starve myself for a week and then eat three weeks’ worth of food the next. I used to chew my food and then spit it out before swallowing it. I used to be terrified of carbohydrates and I used to only allow myself 10mls of milk in my tea (which I actually measured each time). These were clearly unhealthy behaviours, but I still never recognised them as being serious because they didn’t fit into the categories of anorexia and bulimia. In fact, even when I developed bulimia, I didn’t think I had it, because I never achieved my ultimate goal: weight loss. I could never sustain my extreme diets for more than a week, so when I cracked I binged, and consumed enormous amounts of food in a very short space of time. This prevented me from ever losing weight long-term and even when I developed bulimia, a somewhat similar pattern of binge-eating compensated for by making myself sick never led to weight loss. I thought that not being thin excluded me from having an eating disorder, so I just kept

ty, u a e l b ter a e R in ruly e d, th , t n g i n k esti sing n o a ple bout h a he t is in g h n t i or ty wi th i u w bea and you you. out going. Even when I realised that I needed to stop and started seeking help, it took a long time for me to admit what I was going through to people, for fear that they would dismiss me as overreacting. I didn’t look like someone that had an eating disorder.

It is only now, six months into recovery that I realise that it was never my actions or my weight which determined my eating disorder. It was my thoughts. Losing weight was all I thought about. I thought my body was disgusting, that I was grossly overweight and that the only way to achieve happiness was through the scales. If you find that your thoughts are almost exclusively about food or about the way your body looks, I cannot emphasise how important it is to seek help. This is not a healthy mindset and even if it’s not having a huge effect on your behaviour, your body shouldn’t ever be something that makes you unhappy. Having an eating disorder is not characterised by starvation, purging or the numbers on the scales. It’s characterised by a mentality which tells you that your body is repulsive and that losing weight is the only thing that will make you happy. If you have issues with the way that you look, the problem isn’t with your body, it’s with your own perception of yourself. It’s possible to change that perception. It’s possible to like the way you look without ever reaching your goal weight, I promise. I’m living proof of that.

A

bout a year ago a friend of mine was taken into hospital. Severely ill, she found herself bed-ridden for nearly 3 months. Over that time, and due to the nature of her illness, she lost a lot of weight - so much so that, when she emerged from her lengthy hospitalization, she was a shell of her former self. To those of us that knew her, we could clearly see the effects of her illness on her frame her gaunt cheeks, her ribs showing through her t-shirts, her thin legs.

Yet, what struck me the most was the number of compliments she received, particularly from those who had no idea about her experience with the illness. They congratulated her on the weight loss, commenting on how fantastic she looked. They asked for dieting tips and exercise regimens. It was hard, because the reality was that her illness was an incredibly difficult time of her life. From all the compliments she received she was left with the impression that somehow it had benefited her in some extreme way.

My point in telling this story is to highlight the distressing fact that ‘skinny’ or ‘thin’ has become the ideal, as opposed to a ‘healthy’ body type. Regardless of your frame, your genetics or your dietary needs, if you’re not skinny, you’re simply not good enough - or at least, that’s what seems to be the consensus by many of the main media outlets. We are constantly bombarded with magazines telling us about celebrities who have ‘ballooned’ up to a ‘shocking’ 10 stone in weight, and reality TV shows that are ever more focused on shallow ideals of appearance being the only thing that matters (see; Tallafornia, Geordie Shore or any of the same shows of this ilk).

In recent years, however, a new movement has started, driven primarily by social media and the internet - this movement centres around the idea of body positivity. Body positivity is the belief that, no matter what your body type is like, you can learn to be happy with it, and accept it for how it is. The most important point to note about body positivity is that, first and foremost, it is about health, both mental and physical. It doesn’t promote unhealthy eating or not exercising, a common misconception. Instead, it

“It’s about acceptance of one’s own body for how it looks & how it is in it’s natural state.”

“People are like stained-glass windows.

They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” says that if you are healthy and happy with your body, then no-one else has the right to put you down for having the body shape that’s natural to you. Body positivity isn’t about losing weight to fit imposing ideals about what the ‘perfect’ body should look like. It’s about acceptance of one’s own body for how it looks and how it is in it’s natural state.

As awareness of this way of thinking grows, more and more celebrities are being heralded as champions of positive body image - comedienne Tina Fey, burlesque dancer Dita von Teese and actress Rebel Wilson have all spoken out against the way many media outlets push a consistent “notgood-enough-unless-you’re-skinny” message. Even people like Tyra Banks, notorious for her status as a presenter on America’s Next Top Model, where one would assume that promoting negative body images would reign supreme, has spoken out against tabloids that condemn women for gaining any kind of weight.

Body positive figures for men are often hard to come by, as there’s much less pressure on men to conform to ideals surrounding their bodies and the way they should look.

However, with rates of eating disorders among men in the 16-24 age group rising exponentially, it’s important that we stress the fact to men as well as women - don’t set yourself unrealistic goals surrounding the way you want your body to look. If you want to go to the gym, do it for yourself, not because you feel pressured by external forces to fit a stereotype, or conform to an ideal.

At its core, body positivity boils down to one overriding concept - that is, that your body is your own. It is the one thing that you have complete and utter dominion over, and you should be able to do with it as you please and, ultimately, to be happy with it. It’s unfortunate that external forces and pressures want to influence the way we think and feel about our bodies, and that they affect us so extraordinarily.

However, in the words of comedienne extraordinaire Tina Fey, “always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is: who cares?” Words have never rung more true don’t let anyone tell you how you should look. As long as you’re happy with your body, does anyone else’s opinion really matter?

Samuel Riggs

WHAT NOT TO WEAR

W

hen I was younger there was a programme called What Not to Wear where those sartorial entrepreneurs now fallen from grace, Trinny and Susannah, told women which clothes made their big bum look even bigger, or made their legs look shorter. Having highlighted every single one of their insecurities, they then taught these women how to dress in a manner that hid the “bad” parts of their body and emphasized their “good” features. Since then almost every style advice column, programme and blog has offered women advice on how to dress in a manner which flatters their body shape. It’s not hard to see the logic behind this strategy. If you think you look good, you’ll feel better about yourself, regardless of whether or not the clothes are to your taste. And if you feel that you look attractive, you’ll feel better about yourself and you’ll be happier. Isn’t that what defines the art of dressing well? Finding clothes that make you look as attractive as possible?

Well, no. What about self-expression? People dress individually according to their tastes and preferences, not just based on what suits them. Numerous style advice in magazines has told me that I should wear flared jeans but I’ll never give up my skinnies. It’s somewhat insulting to have a fashion advice column assume that I’m willing to do anything to make my body look as attractive as possible, that my body shape is something which requires flattery. I wear the clothes I do primarily because I like them, not necessarily because I want to appear to fit a certain standard of beauty. I don’t like to think that I’m allowing the shape of

my body to limit my choice of clothes Realistically though, I probably am. Reality and idealism collide dramatically when it comes to clothing, at least in my mind. I like to think that I am a strong, self-assured women who has enough confidence to wear whatever clothes I like and still feel good in it, but upon closer examination, I realise that I’ve always limited the clothes I wear. Everyone’s suffered that heart breaking moment in the changing room where you realise the clothes you’ve picked don’t look quite as good on you as you imagined that they would. The item itself might be something you’ve been searching your whole life for, but if it looks better on the hanger you’re not going to buy it. To take a personal example, I never participated in the “bodycon everything” trend, not necessarily because I didn’t like it, but because I didn’t like the way it looked on me specifically. I could never bring myself to wear something which highlighted my less-than-flat stomach to such an extent, because I knew I’d feel self-conscious and uncomfortable. My body does not look good in a skintight velvet dress, and no matter how I hard I tried, there was no separating my body from the dress.

It was only recently that I started to realise that the issue wasn’t with my perception of myself, but with the image of beauty I’d been fed all my life. The purpose of those columns and features weren’t to give women the tools to make themselves feel good about themselves, but to give women a way of looking as much like an idealised body as possible.

Women with excess fat on their stomach are taught how to conceal it and make themselves look slimmer, while wom-

en with boyish stick thin-figure are taught how to create an illusion of curves. Instead of embracing a diverse range of body shapes, we are taught to conceal, to hide, to flatter until we reach a point where even we don’t know what our own bodies look like any more. The more I’ve become aware of this mindset, the more I’ve realised the extent to which it is entrenched in our culture. I’ve heard phrases like “I couldn’t pull that off ”, “those shapes don’t suit me”, or “I’d have to be really thin to get away with wearing that” on almost a daily basis and I’m starting to wonder if it’s possible to escape from this toxic thought process. If you subscribe to this ideal of beauty which is presented everywhere, you start to limit yourself to clothes that only make you look a certain way, not necessarily because you want to look like that, but because you believe that that is the standard of beauty and reaching it is the only way to feel comfortable about your body. It’s a vicious cycle.

Escape is possible. We need to stop idealising a certain body type and accept individualities. There is nothing wrong with small boobs or not having a flat stomach, and it shouldn’t be a social norm to dress accordingly to the idea that these features are negative. We need to refuse to limit ourselves any longer. Everyone should feel free to wear whatever they like and to feel attractive doing so, confident in the knowledge that their body doesn’t have to be a certain shape to be considered beautiful.

Rachel Fleming

We spend too much precious time trying to be someone other than ourselves. Embrace your inner colours look how beautiful they are.

Aoibheann Schwartz