“Have you gained weight?” is a question my gramma has asked me several times in the last few months, pretty much every time I have seen her. Now, first of all, don’t be like my gramma. Whether someone has gained weight or not and how much they weigh is none of your business unless you’re a doctor or something. Putting that aside, I actually have gained weight. However, I have also worked out very actively during these last few months, as well as maintained a healthy diet. That might sound contradictory but actually it isn’t, not at all. In this article I would like to talk about why that is.
First I’d like to say that my meaning is in no way to shame people who have recently gained fat or are fat in general. There are tons of different reasons for why one might gain fat and unlike society makes it seem, gaining fat is okay in most cases. Just because you are fat, it does not mean you aren’t healthy and actually, having some fat is often healthier than being super skinny. So if you are fat or have gained fat recently, I hope you are proud of your body and love yourself because that is what you deserve.
However, the point I’m trying to make here is that society is scared of strong women. The reason I have gained weight recently is because I have gained muscle and muscle weighs quite a bit. I have been lifting weights very actively and you can actually see the change in my body: for example my arms and my thighs are bigger than they have ever been before. I’m so proud of the progress I have made but in society, it is not really accepted. People often feel threatened by strong and muscular women and try to shame them so that they would stop getting stronger.
Back to my gramma; every time she has commented on my weight, I have told her that I work out and am trying to gain muscle. Every time she asks me why I am doing that. To her, a woman wanting to be strong and muscular is something weird and abnormal. She asks me if my boyfriend isn’t strong enough to lift things around the house since apparently I have to do it. However, my workout journey has nothing to do with my boyfriend, it’s just that I feel great when I see my muscles grow and am able to lift weights that are a bit bigger. The Finnish news channel Yle recently interviewed a weightlifter called Sofia Rönkkö and I think she worded it well: Being strong is cool.
Now, I’m not trying to be unrealistic. I’ll never be as strong as a man who is 30 centimeters taller than me and works out. It’s not about that, it’s more about testing my own limits and also challenging society’s expectations. Despite my small size, I am not a weak little lady who needs a man to do everything for her. Though that kind of thinking can also be harmful; what you are capable of physically should by no means be a measure of your worth as a person.
It does annoy me, though, how society demonizes women who want to be strong physically. Everything is centered around how much you weigh and no attention is given to where the weight comes from. If your weight increases, it is automatically thought to be a bad thing even though it might very well be the result of muscle gain. Women are being encouraged not to lift because it increases their weight even though it also increases their health. The number on the scale doesn’t really say much about how healthy you are, rather society is just scared of women who are strong.
The same goes with stretch marks. Since especially the muscles in my thighs are getting bigger, I also have more stretch marks than ever in my thighs. This is, again, the result of muscle gain but even so, stretch marks are automatically seen as a bad thing. Stretch marks as an indicator of health are such a stupid thing altogether; you get them when you’re pregnant, for example, and then they are treated as something ugly even though they are literally the result of you creating life, which is amaxing and miraculous.
So, to conclude: society is scared of strong women and tries to demonize them by making things like weight gain and stretch marks a bad thing, which is just dumb. Even if those two are a result of fat gain, it still doesn’t tell nearly anything about how healthy you are. If you like lifting weights, go do it! Go get strong despite what anyone says!. At least I am going to.