the perfect body doesn't exist

the only body you’re responsible for is your own

my body from behind, taken by my friend jacqueline whitty

I wonder how much time we’d get back if we spent less of it agonising over our bodies. Am I thin enough to be high fashion? Curvy enough to sexy? Imagine if we got a weekly — unrequested! — timesheet, like we do for our averaged screen time.

Ping! Laura, this week you averaged 8.5 hours per day thinking about your inner thighs, and how much simpler and more comfortable your life would be if they didn’t touch. Fuck.

But right now, maybe more than ever, we can’t escape it. Conversations about women’s bodies are everywhere. Celebrities who were once curvy, transforming their appearance with a drastic weight loss, hard-launched via an Instagram post with no context. Amy Schumer, Lizzo, Meghan Trainor, Adele. Or the more gradual ones, the ones we’ve picked up on over time but are now “deeply concerned” about as we enter an era where thinness is cool and hot again. Ariana Grande. The Kardashians.

I can understand why these conversations are happening. About five years ago, we started seeing body diversity in places we never had before. Runways. Billboards. TVCs. Models over a size ten could also reach supermodel status. They even went on the telly to talk about it! Victoria’s Secret got cancelled. Ashley Graham went on Ellen.

It was a victorious moment for curvy women all over the world. For women who have, for some reason or another, always felt that they sit outside the aesthetic ideal. It was a new kind of universe, and we were just settling in until…

Heroin chic came back. First it was low-rise bottoms. Then it was low-rise bottoms paired with high-rise (crop) tops. And before we knew it, the Gabriettes of the world were the ideals once more. It was basically the 90s / 2000s all over again. Paris Hilton. Kate Moss. Bambi. Alexa Chung. Bring back the willow-y girls! The girls who smoke cigarettes in place of meals! The girls who have no tits! The girls who look chic in low rise slim cut jeans and ballet flats!

alexa chung smoking a cigarette on a staircase in 2008-ish

And look, I was a bit mad about it too, at first. I thought that maybe, just maybe there was a chance that I wouldn’t have to worry about my lower stomach fat anymore. That my thighs would be globally celebrated. That Nigella Lawson’s brand of womanly curves were back.

But now I feel more concerned about something else: the anger of women online, who feel that curvy-turned-slim celebrities have betrayed them. I mean, I get the anger. They made you feel seen, and being seen is everything. It’s life-changing and healing to see a celebrity whose body you relate to. Especially when you’ve spent your whole life believing that your body will hold you back, simply because you don’t fit the ideal.

But the anger is out of control. It’s so vicious and so mammoth, that celebrities are having to come out — in big interviews or on their own socials — to explain why (and how!) their body is changing. We’re demanding women to explain their bodies to us, because we feel they owe us something, simply because we decided to attach ourselves, our identities and insecurities to them.

This has been happening to women forever: being told that they owe the world something, that their body doesn’t belong to them, that it’s up for discussion. I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt it my whole life.

Don’t be too thin, you’ll look malnourished. Don’t be too curvy, you’ll attract the wrong attention. Our bodies have never belonged to us, but now we’re insisting that other women’s bodies do? Because we feel that they’re making unhealthy choices? That they’ve turned into a role model we don’t relate to anymore?

Look, I do get the pushback. I think it’s a part of societal change. We want body diversity, but we’re seeing thinness return with a vengeance. And it’s scary. I get that. I’m scared too. And I understand the impulse to call out the move towards thinness as a sign of regression. I know it feels that way, especially when it’s happening in the public eye.

I won’t say that women aren’t taking measures to lose weight due to patriarchal and societal pressures, because I think that will unfortunately be a reality in our society for quite a while longer. But I do think that not every famous woman is getting thinner for the sake of ideals. Some — namingly Amy Schumer — have said as much.

And, perhaps more importantly, I don’t think we need to add anger to the discourse that already surrounds women’s bodies.

Throughout life we all fluctuate, for mental reasons, physical reasons, societal reasons. We make mistakes, we lose ourselves, we have health scares and epiphanies. What might be our normal one year, can be vastly different the next. That’s not to say that every move we make is healthy or right.

But I can say with certainty, that we mostly don’t know what’s happening inside someone else’s vessel. I think we should move our energy away from criticising other women and into making sure we feel as healthy and happy as we can, outside of external influence.

There is no such thing as a perfect body. Only a healthy one. And I don’t think it’s up to us to say what is healthy or not, for anyone but ourselves.

Hey, quick side note. I’d love for you to follow me on Instagram. I share all of my other work on there, including my fortnightly sex column. Come and connect. My DMs are always open.