Christine Anu on her weight and body image battles
CHRISTINE Anu first heard the word ‘diet’ when she was just 14 years old. Now the Aussie pop singer is fighting back against her body image demons.
CHRISTINE Anu first heard the word ‘diet’ when she was just 14 years old.
The Australian pop singer and actress was in Year 9 at boarding school when she first became aware of her body image.
“I remember saying, ‘I want to lose weight from here, here and here’. I was only a young teenager when I started to realised how influenced society is by the way we look,” she told news.com.au.
“And ever since then it’s been, ‘How can I make my size smaller? What can I do, what can I do?’ It was all about how thin I could possibly be.”
Anu, a 44-year-old mother of two, says she has battled with her weight and body image every day since she was a teenager. And while most people are able to experience these battles in private with quiet dignity, Anu doesn’t have that privilege.
“A lot of women get to hide,” she says. “Being in the public eye, it’s harder going through those changes and issues in front of everyone. It’s daunting and exhausting. It makes you want to remove yourself.”
Weight discrimination is still alive and well in 2015, Anu says.
“I’ve talked to a lot of women out there who have heard the same things as me when I lose weight.
“People’s intentions and the kind of conversations I had would change, it just seemed like all of a sudden I was a better person. I went from being invisible to all of a sudden being useful. So I started to think, ‘You know what, I must go on a diet for people to like me’.
“Gosh, the things that people would say to me. I remember an acquaintance of mine, she came up to me an a function once and said, ‘You’re not as skinny as you used to be!’It was just heartwrenching.
“So from then on said to myself, if anybody says anything like that to me again, I say, ‘Well, I haven’t changed as a person, there’s just more of me to love’.
Anu says she is “tired of chasing my own happiness” and is ready to “take a vacation” from the yoyo dieting and negative body image thoughts.
“When I look at photos of myself when I was smaller, I think ‘Wow, to think I was never happy with myself then’.
“I laugh now, because I was in such agony in those photos. I was longing to be accepted.
“I thought I had such a long way to be beautiful, and I look at myself now and I think, ‘I have to learn to love myself and be happy and feel beautiful’. I have to learn to love what I have.
“I would always say, ‘One day when I’m this or that, then I’ll be happy’. I’m tired of waiting to live my life and waiting for when I’ll be happy.
“I’m taking a vacation from those expectations. No matter what weight I am, I’m never going to look like a supermodel. I’m not going to be dictated by my size.”
Despite her weight battles, Anu says she considers herself lucky.
“Look at it this way — I have four limbs, a beautiful husband and children. I’m a good, kind person and I’m a giving person in my community.
“I think right now I’m striving for self acceptance. I’m not perfect. Life’s not perfect.
Anu says she wants to set a good example for her daughter, Zipporah.
“I often wonder at exactly what age my daughter is doing to realise that weight is an issue for many young women.
“That’s what I want to make people conscious of, especially with young girls around you — what personal conversations and what outside voices are happening in their lives.
“If you look at yourself and you’re saying, ‘I could lose a few kilos, we don’t realise what we say around children can have such a strong impact.
“I hope that if I can offer just one woman out there the reassurance that our focus on weight is society’s problem, not ours, then great”.
Christine Anu is celebrating 20 years in the music industry with a national tour that kicks off in March. Find out more at christineanu.com.au