What's in your toolbox?

How to combat the shocking and hurtful things the people in our lives say about our bodies.

“You aren’t really going to order that, are you? Shouldn’t you be watching your weight?”

“Look how great we looked in this picture- we’ve all put on some weight since then…”

“You know you can’t wear that- not with your body.”

It used to be common place to assume that we all want to look a certain way. That we all expect something of our bodies that may or may not even be possible. The diet and fitness industry has made lots of money by agreeing with this antiquated idea that you must look a certain, specific way and if you don’t you need to be paying them to tell you to eat this/not that, to do this exact workout, and even to get treatments to make yourself have a singular look that they’ve told you that you must have.

Responding to the weight loss industry is not what this post aims to address. Re-training our own brains away from their hypnosis is another article(s)/social justice movement.

Instead, how do we navigate relationships with our friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances who’ve likewise been brainwashed to not only believe that they know how you should look, but that it is A OK to tell you how you should look?