Before I started college here at the University of Michigan, I competitively ran for 7 years. I competed for my school’s track and cross country teams, as well as unaffiliated races during off-seasons. I loved running, and I loved the community that came with it. However, becoming so involved in this sport brought me unsolicited comments about my body and my performance. Yes, people always say things. In life we are always going to encounter individuals who feel the need to put their two cents in. However, these comments are unnecessary and provoke discomfort. Whether or not these comments are negative or positive, we need to separate our intrinsic worth from the way our bodies look. For obvious reasons, these negative comments can be detrimental to one’s physical and mental well-being, but even positive ones produce an association between body image and worth that should not be occurring.
During my running years, I received comments about my own body and heard the way people I knew talked about other people’s bodies. Shape and size, these discussions produced not only an association between looks and worth in my mind, but seemed to be a widely accepted phenomena. The idea of “race weight” and “lighter equals faster” permeated my thoughts. I was constantly fed the idea that being smaller was better, and I relished in comments saying I was skinny, while also ruminating on comments about my body being too big. That’s the other thing about commenting on other people’s bodies: you can’t please everyone. So when I was being told I was thin by some people and big by others, I was extremely conflicted. But either way, I learned smaller was better, and that was the goal I set out to achieve.
These ideas of “race weight” developed into an unhealthy obsession with my body and food. I was constantly thinking about my next meal because I was chronically hungry and over-exercising to compensate for the calories I was consuming. The standards I set for myself and the standards associated with the female body plagued my mind. I destroyed my body all because I wanted to look a certain way. I destroyed my body because I was told I needed to fit the mold of a “skinny runner.” I wanted to be smaller because I was taught that’s what a woman is supposed to be. My unhealthy habits began to take a toll on my health. I had awful anemia, regular headaches, and constantly felt weak. I got two stress fractures that took over a year to heal all because I wanted to look thin.
When we make comments regarding the way a person looks, we are producing either a positive or negative association between their body and their worth. Pointing out that someone looks worse after they’ve gained weight places that person’s beauty in their size. Pointing out that someone looks better after they’ve lost weight does the same thing. We live in a world where the female body is constantly under scrutiny in all realms. Female athletes, models, and young girls are told that they need to look a certain way in order to be worthy, perform better, or be considered beautiful. When we talk about other’s bodies, we are making our physical appearance consequential to our being when that shouldn’t be the case.
Making the choice of commenting on someone’s body contributes to the idea that bodies should only look a particular way when, in reality, everyone’s body is different. Everyone’s situation is different. Everyone’s health and needs are different. When we make any comments about someone’s body, we are undermining the abundance of circumstances that make us look different. If we all ate the same thing, our bodies would still look different. Why are we spending so much time discussing the way someone is shaped when there are so many other things that actually matter more? Why are we pushing ourselves to fit into standards that don’t even belong? No matter the answer, it is so important to consider how damaging it is to make these comments. If you’re thinking about talking about someone’s body, I suggest you take a step back and think deeply about the potential effects it might have on that person.