Body Size & Self-Love: How Getting Bigger Is Teaching Me About Gentleness

I remember frequently being told as a kid things like, ‘you’re light as a feather’ and ‘you’re so skinny you might just break in half!’ I got lots of comments on my smaller size and stature, always seemingly phrased as compliments, so naturally, I started to think that being small was a good thing. I got pretty lucky with genetics, with a father who is tall and skinny with an atheltic build who seems to keep weight off without really trying. My mother is tall and well-proportioned and always has seemed to be able to lose weight fairly easily as well.

I always prided myself on being small, because the world seemed to tell me it was a good thing. Being tiny was always was positively reinforced for me— I never had anything to worry about other than maintaining my small size in order to feel like I was worthy (cue the daunting music).

It wasn’t until I got to college that I really started to reckon with how little I was. The first year of college I started to lose weight like crazy, due to a number of factors— getting sick constantly due to the influx of new germs didn’t help. And though I didn’t have an eating disorder, I was reckoning with some pretty intense anxiety and was barely eating because of how nauseous I felt. It was all I could do to make myself eat a bowl of oatmeal in the morning so I had a little something in my stomach each day. On top of that, I was playing ultimate frisbee nearly 7 days a week, which is a ton of running, so I was in this weird place of having eating habits that were not sustainable, and exercising so much that it was starting to get unhealthy.

But even still— nobody said anything. My mother worried about me, but nobody seemed to think I was too skinny— or if they did they didn’t voice it. I’m sure that I was, especially looking back on old photos of myself, I can tell my face looked gaunt, my shoulder bones and collar bone noticeably protruding. But again, the only message I was getting was that I looked fine, and so I continued on the best I could. I finally started eating more normally when the anxiety subsisded a bit and I got my panic disorder under control, which certainly helped, but I was not the picture of health that first year of college by any means.

Flash forward to 2019, right before the pandemic hit. I was 27 and started to hit a point in life when my body composition was beginning to change. I have always been a late bloomer in many regards, and I think that coming into my curves was no exception to that. I had always been stick thin, so getting some hips and curves for the first time in my late 20s was new to me. I started to not really know how to dress myself or how to relate to my body anymore. I remember the first time I saw a photo where I really felt like I looked heavy— I was traveling with a friend in Portugal and she is much tinier than me, and in comparison I felt like I looked like a monster. It was one of the first times I really started to think about my changing body and my weight in such a negative light. And listen— I know this is super privileged. I feel very lucky that I didn’t have to think about my weight until my late 20s when my body and my metabolism started changing. But it’s the body I was given and I am just trying to work with it the best way I know how.

It was in my late 20s that I really started to put on weight in different areas in a way I hadn’t before. And if I’m being honest, even when I was at my tiniest, I always had some sort of issue with my body, like most people do I think. My stomach was never flat enough, I didn’t have the early 2000s sought-after ‘thigh gap’ (shivers, what a time for body image). But this was the first time I was gaining weight around my belly, my thighs, and my waist. I was going up sizes and things were starting to fit differently. And of course this didn’t happen overnight, but I slowly started to notice over the years that things that I used to feel comfortable in— like jean skirts and crop tops— just didn’t feel good anymore. I outgrew a lot of my wardrobe staples and had to start over in a lot of ways.

Now, in 2023, I am the heaviest weight I have been in my life. I’m not unhealthy, but I am bigger than I am ever thought I would be, if I’m being honest. I would classify myself as a mid-size girlie these days, usually wearing a size 12-14. And if I’m being honest, it has been a very challenging road. It’s hard for me to admit, but I really hated myself for getting bigger, and how could I not— when the messages I got my whole life, from society and my peers, was that being thin = good. And this has really put me in a weird mental place— it’s hard to have to go shopping for new clothes, go up pant sizes and scrutinize how I look in every photo. It’s challenging to go from being a size 00 in high school to now having to buy things in size large or extra-large to feel comfortable. It really is a mental struggle and something I am still navigating every day. I have to really work hard to be kind to myself, to choose gentleness over the unkind words my mind spits at me. It is a daily exercise in self-compassion.

I have been at war with myself the last two years because the crazy thing is, I think I acutally am the healthiest I’ve ever been. I know how to cook well-balanced meals, I go for daily walks, I try and work out multiple times a week (though this is a bit of a challenge for me) I get enough sleep, and I generally take care of my body in a very consicous way that never used to occur to me. So it feels like kind of a cruel joke that during my healthiest time in my life, I am at my heaviest weight.

It’s such a weird paradox— when I looked my ‘best’ according to others, I was at times extremely unwell. And now that I’m at a place in my life where I’m genuinely doing better and prioritizing my health, I don’t look as societally acceptable. It is a tough thing to reckon with and I am navigating it day by day. What I will say has really helped actually, is creators on social media. Both on Instagram and Tiktok, I have been lucky to find a really cool community of mid-size or plus-size creators embracing their bodies, dressing in ways that make them feel beautiful and empowered, and having the hard converstations.

It’s really made me feel less alone in all this, and like it is okay to be the size that I am. Because like I said, I’ve always been able to find things to hate about my body, no matter what size. So what does it really matter that I’m bigger than I used to be? It doesn’t make me any less lovable or good or kind. It doesn’t say anything about me, actually. And that’s my journey— it’s far from over and I am learning more about myself every day.