Spring Break 2014
I pulled of my jean shorts with ease, excited to tan my legs in the heat of the Florida sun. However, I hesitated to reveal my floral bikini top, borrowed from a friend of course, because I haven’t owned one in years.
Everybody else was already rubbing sunscreen on their tummies, ready to tan and enjoy our first beach trip of the week at a retirement community in Naples, Florida. But I still hesitated. Then something in my head clicked and I internally screamed “YOLO” and pulled off my shirt to reveal my fluffy tummy.
Last week I stripped down to a two-piece bikini. Less than a year ago I wouldn’t even be seen in anything less than a tank top that revealed just enough to let my intentions to enjoy the sun be known.
I wasn’t the skinniest person on the beach last week; in fact I was probably the exact opposite. I couldn’t compete with the size 2 girls that roamed the beach, and I can’t say I didn’t avoid comparing myself to them.
Love your body.
So what happened? I learned to love my body. Not the ugly blob of a human I was in the past, but the new me that has potential to change and be better. I’ve come a long way in the past year, hitting a plateau along the way, and falling off the fitness train a few times. But, I’m still trying.
The Notre Dame Standard
It is safe to say that the average Notre Dame student is pretty active. Somebody pointed out to me the lack of morbidly obese, or even excessively overweight people at Notre Dame. The “Freshman 15” is more like the “Freshman 5,” and arguably non-existent, around here. We’re told to love our bodies and to avoid using the word “fat,” but what about when somebody actually is?
I would love for this to be a piece about loving your 35+ BMI, size 24 pants, but it’s not. I imagine what my life would be life if I had chosen not the take possession of my own fitness and continue to live a life of sedentary mouth stuffing. I would have continued to criticize my body every chance I got, instead of recognizing the positive progress I have made.
Loving your body is so much more than being satisfied with being “big-boned,” or fat merely by absurd clinical standards, and convincing yourself that over-eating and non-active lifestyles are not the cause of morbid obesity.
The fact that the “average American woman” is a size 14 should not be embraced; it should be criticized. This means there are over 100 million U.S. women who fall above this size. Society’s reluctance to embrace this size reality should not be completely blamed on the admittedly unrealistic and absurd beauty and weight standards commercial advertising encourages.
If you really love your body, you should try to be better. If you’re straining your body each day with excessive caloric intake and non-existent physical activity, you’re really only hurting it.
The irony of loving a rapidly deteriorating body as opposed to stuffing it with healthy foods is overwhelming. As Notre Dame students, we should always strive to be better, not bigger.
The Eating Disorder Endemic
Even as I write this I am overwhelmed with the thousands of people with serious physical disabilities that do not allow them to lose weight, such as thyroid problems, birth control pills, and other glycemic issues causing weight gain. I realize it is difficult and I sympathize greatly with these individuals, as I have many family members who suffer from such issues.
Visit University Counseling Center to learn more about the signs of eating disorders.
I may have bitten off more than I can stomach, but I think that eating disorders are a serious topic of conversation here, and would hate it if I were to not address it them at all. I keep talking about weight loss and eating right, but there still exist the extreme end of the weight loss spectrum, which revolves around eating disorders.
I walked into the bathroom of the dining hall twice last week to find the previous occupant threw up everywhere, leaving a dirty toilet seat with various food particles all over. I was scared. Not because it was gross and the next person might blame me, but because I know if these two very normal looking girls suffer from presumable eating disorders, there are far more out there.
86% of college women report having an eating disorder before the age of 20. I think I can say I fall into this statistic during my teenage years. My dissatisfaction lies in the fact that my E.D. did not aid weight loss AT ALL. It wasn’t until I began exercising regularly and eating healthy that I saw real results, and began loving myself even more so than I did before.
Bulimia, anorexia, and other eating disorders do not work. Even if you see results, they are not healthy and anything but conducive to loving your body. Take it from somebody who’s been there, get up and eat an apple, go for a run, skip the ice cream, and eventually come to love the body you have the potential to obtain.
Within the last year I have been accused of having an eating disorder more times than I can count. The fact that I took my health into my own hands and made a positive change in my life by eating healthy and regularly excersizing is such a shock to others and it’s saddening and pretty infuriating. But honestly, eating correctly is the only way to change the course of your life and love your body even more.
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