I don’t want to accept my body as the size it is

YESTERDAY Lana was sent a photo that stopped her in her tracks. She hated what she saw, but wasn’t allowed to say it.

‘Why can’t I say my body’s disgusting?’

LAST night a friend sent me a photo in which I featured in the photo bomb position.

Given that I had no idea I was in the photo, I was not posed, I was not holding my stomach in and I wasn’t even showing my good side to the camera (probably because don’t know which side it is).

The photo in question.

The photo appalled me in the same way that you’d feel if someone sent you a photo of yourself looking like you had been blown up. Not by a bomb but by a bicycle pump.

She told me it was the angle and nobody else would notice.

“We are always most critical of ourselves” she said. “Just make friends with your body and be nice ... that’s when they are nice back”.

Sage advice because she’s wise. But really hard to accept. Because I didn’t feel “nice” and quite honestly I didn’t look it either. I’m not sure why I should just accept that.

I’m not obese. My BMI is good and I probably wouldn’t technically be described as fat. But that’s not the point. I looked at the photo and I didn’t like it.

Then this morning I woke up to a Facebook feed full of Amy Schumer posing for the Pirelli calendar.

Amy had posted the words “beautiful, gross, strong, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, sexy, disgusting, flawless, woman” under her image. Words that describe how she sees herself and pretty much how most people see themselves at some time in their lives.

Beautiful, gross, strong, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, sexy, disgusting, flawless, woman. Thank you @annieleibovitz pic.twitter.com/kc0rIDvHVi

— Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) November 30, 2015

I identified with her words. In fact I identified with them more than I did with her image because she had perfect lighting and posing and all the talent of photographer Annie Leibovitz behind her — she looked like a calendar girl. Funny that.

But people took issue with the word ‘disgusting’ when I said how much I related to it.

Apparently you’re not allowed to say you are disgusting because it makes people feel uncomfortable. It makes people feel like they need to fix you and reassure you. That somehow disgusting is dangerous.

No one is OK with you being that negative about yourself — they’re only just coming to terms with the fact that fat is not an insult. It’s just an adjective.

I tell people that I relate to the word disgusting and they are quick to tell me not to think like that, to love myself, to respect my body and be grateful for my health and the fact that I have a body that works. But I don’t want to love a version of myself that I don’t even like, I don’t want to accept that this is just the way that I am and move on with it. And nor do I think I should.

I don’t understand people telling me to accept and love my body any more than I would understand them telling me to smoke cigarettes because I enjoy them. Accepting your shape at any size is not automatically a good thing. It gives us permission to ignore the signs of disease and the burden of excess weight on our bodies. It gives us permission to stagnate and remain the same. It makes change seem like it’s a bad thing.

Rather than accepting it I should do something about it. And that something is losing weight.

This is not society’s fault, nor the media, nor anyone else — this is the fault of me being out of shape and not liking what I see.

I just wish everybody would stop telling me to love myself the way I am because I find it very hard to take them seriously.

Be happy that I want to change, support me in that change — but don’t tell me to accept that which I know is wrong.

Writer Lana Hirschowitz pictured with her family.

Lana Hirschowitz is a blogger, writer and reforming toast lover. You can follow her on Facebook.