A Millennial mum's struggle with body image

Being a mere mortal and postpartum mum, it’s hard to stomach (pardon the pun) the resurgence of the skinny trend. I’m not talking about slender, I’m talking about smaller than petite, so wafer thin a stiff breeze could blow some of these women over. And it’s not just the lack of accessibility my now, two kids' deep postpartum body has to that body type. It’s realising that I have a little girl and my nightmare would be for her to see these types of bodies thinking they’re normal or even achievable. There’s so much going on when it comes to women’s body image and even more when you layer your own experiences on top of it all. 

So I’m going in, talking about it all. The empowerment, the expectations, the pressure, the unhealthy pursuit of body type trends and every other taboo subject surrounding our bodies.

Damn you 90’s and 2000’s

If you asked me if I would trade in growing up in the 90’s and 2000’s I’d say no. The cross section of latch key kid childhoods with the beginnings of modern technology made being a Millennial pretty damn awesome. One minute you’re riding bikes outside, the next you’re on the playstation playing Crash Bandikoot, Tekken or Tony Hawk (I was a bit of a tomboy, not sure if you could tell). That doesn’t mean there aren’t super toxic things about that time period though. 

Women’s and girl’s magazines were rife with uneducated and malicious articles on the female body. Celebrities of all kinds, athletes, actresses, singers, presenters  - no one was safe from the criticism. I remember my own Mum and Nana casually discussing different female bodies from the pictures and stories printed in Women’s Day, People and any other trashy magazine they happened to read that week. “Did you see <insert name> lately?”, “Oh my God, yes. She’s gained all that weight back… again. I can’t believe it.’ Plastering unflattering images of countless women across magazine covers in the pursuit of selling the morbid curiosity of another woman's perceived demise apparently worked. 

For me, it was sports with a sidekick of magazines like Girlfriend and Seventeen that dictated how I felt about myself. I did competitive gymnastics for many years, winning more competitions and events than I even remember being at. But even then I was constantly self conscious. Running around with a leotard riding up your butt while terrified of falling off an apparatus with three judges, coaches, team mates and every other girl's parents watching on has a way of exposing insecurities in ways almost nothing else can. 

After the constant training sessions after school and on the weekends, the magazines kept me occupied with stupid home workouts boasting results that would get me legs like Cameron Diaz and arms like Jennifer Aniston. Safe to say, these meaningless routines paired with my half Samoan heritage, healthy appetite and gymnastics training didn’t have me looking anything like either woman. And I hated myself for it. I’d put the magazines down, only to turn on the TV to see countless singers flaunt hopelessly perfect navels while promoting Pepsi or some other counterproductive food brand. Beyonce, Britney Spears, Chrisina Aguilera, Kylie Monogue, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira… the list goes on. Every one of them with seductive music videos that made me bop my head, sing at the top of my lungs and desperately hate my body. 

Fashion and diet trends didn’t help. The lowest of low cut jeans in the history of man paired with midriffs made the toxic range of fad diets seem not only necessary but the only option. Atkins diet, juice cleanses, low carb, no carb, Weight Watchers points, Jenny Craig… sound familiar? All that and not a body positivity advocate in sight, we were no better than thrown to the wolves. 

Young adult, more criticism 

I thought becoming a woman would feel more empowering. I believed in the feel good movies and TV shows. I thought it would be like the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, different women supporting each other in their journey into womanhood. Wrong. My experience was littered with jealousy, insecurity, overcompensation and self hatred. I’ll admit, a huge portion of that was due to the less than desirable guys I chose to get into relationships with, but the hangover from my childhood body image expectations were leading the charge. 

Being a 20-something woman, in the dating pool, hopelessly trying to figure out who the fuck I was, meant my body image was painted with a brush of desperation. I was desperate to be accepted. Desperate to be loved. Desperate to not be judged. I’d wear in trend pieces and hate how I looked in them. I’d spend the majority of my day sucking my gut in, convinced people were looking at it. I was a size 8, sometimes a size 6 weighing less than 60kg and still felt this way. My insecurity led to many vices, including alcohol and within a few months of becoming a regular at after work Friday drinks, I was a full blown alcoholic. You can image what that did for my figure. 

After a horrible break up, I decided to go cold turkey. I quit drinking and poured myself into my next toxic obsession - the gym. It started with yoga because it felt familiar after a childhood of gymnastics but more so because I was too chicken shit to venture into any other part of the gym and fumble around figuring out what to do. Then I wandered aimlessing into the cardio section and eventually I made myself walk over to the forbidden zone - the weights room. After becoming obsessed with the gym, I tried Crossfit and obsession turned into a fully fledged identity shift. Everything I did, from food, sleep schedules, social events - they all centered around training like a wannabe professional Crossfitter. I was doing Crossfit 6am classes, running 4km on my lunch break and doing a 90 minute weight session at night - every day. 

Being fit had it’s own challenges. Clothes didn’t sit right and I still hated my body. I legitimately thought I was fat while having visible abs, a quad sweep and shoulders more capped than some guys I knew. But I kept thinking, my butt isn’t big enough, my waist is too wide, my back looks soft all because of social media fitness influencers dominating my IG feed. I was constantly consumed with what others' opinions of me were, over my own

Nothing drove that home more than an outspoken middle aged woman who decided to share her unfiltered opinion of me wearing a dress in a boutique dressing room. She pointed out how my legs protruded too much out the front (my quads), and my bum looked too big while my shoulders looked too broad. She didn’t think twice about tearing me down and didn’t care one iota about how hard I had worked for the body she was ripping to shreds. My quads, they could front squat 100kg for reps every leg day. My butt could back squat close to twice my body weight. My “too broad” shoulders could do 20 push ups without stopping - but she didn’t give a shit, and at that moment, neither did I. I wanted to do exactly what that Homer Simpson meme does, where he disappears slowly into the bushes. I did my best to imitation of it and slowly receded back behind my changing room curtain. 

In my Mum era

By the time I got pregnant, training and fitness had been my dominating personality trait for about five years. I was in the middle of training in Olympic Weight Lifting and callisthenics when a positive pregnancy test flipped my world upside down. Extreme morning sickness took me out of the gym immediately. I lacked motivation and energy to train and I got as big as a house. I had my baby and after a couple months of consistently being back in the gym trying to melt away my postpartum weight gain, I was pregnant again. Rinse and repeat. After this pregnancy, the luxury of training wasn’t an option. A baby with health issues, no longer at a gym with a kids creche, my body was left to its own devices. 

I’ve beat myself up everytime I dare to look in the mirror with minimal clothes on. I got into the habit of taking my glasses off before getting undressed for the shower so it’s less confronting. I’ve worn all black about 90% of the time since I had our second baby. Everything from boobs to tummy to legs and arms, everything is bigger and worse than ever before. 

The ‘bounce back’ culture is something so many now speak out against. But I can’t help but notice that the support of those who bounce, or even more impressively, snap back into shape after having a baby have tens of thousands more followers, likes, comments and saves on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Bounced back mums are celebrated, garnering the loudest applause while the rest of us are sitting there, part of the crowd looking on. We congratulate and honour women doing what we can’t do, while struggling to love the body we’re left with. 

And just when I could use the body positivity movement to my advantage, super skinny culture comes creeping in the back door to make its return on the main stage. I wish I was the bigger person and didn’t care about it but I do. When it comes to body image, my mental fortitude of a house built on sand. It looks strong but the slightest shake and it comes tumbling down. 

To add insult to injury, millennial women not only have to deal with being postpartum during this resurgence of the super skinny trend, it’s not just dieting offering a pathway, it’s drugs. Drugs that take the weight and who knows what else? They’re not tested thoroughly and when they are, the worst side effects aren’t even on the box. It’s scary to combine postpartum bounce back expectations, with skinny culture with legal and easily accessible weight loss drugs. It’s never been more difficult to keep my own insecurities in check while being mindful of the example I’m setting for my own daughter. 

Saving grace 

I can’t say I’m healed, more forgiving or no longer care about my body image - because that would be a bold faced lie. What I can say is, my daughter will never know what it’s like to grow up in a house where women discuss and criticise other women’s bodies like it’s a sport. She won’t be watching women showcasing their bodies like a sales vehicle to peddle skinny teas and body suits. She’ll have access to female athletes, professionals, literary minds and talented creatives in all disciplines who show her that her body and mind can perform in extraordinary ways, none of which is associated with how much they’re liked by others. 

External validation is a hell of a drug. And as a recovering addict myself, I’m going to be working damn hard to make sure the same affliction doesn’t get handed down to further generations.