On Body Image and Identity

“You look strong,” my yoga teacher said, as she explained my body’s inability to do a pose. She went on to point out the Santa Clara Track and Field shirt I was wearing.

I blinked. I didn’t feel strong. I felt supremely out-of-shape, a shell of my former self. I know wearing the t-shirt presents a different message. Like “Look, I know what I’m doing. I was an athlete. Even though the new softness in my body seems to say the opposite.” The truth is, any pride I had in wearing this shirt faded years ago. Not because I don’t respect Santa Clara University’s Cross Country and Track Program, because I do. I ran with them for 4 years and pushed my body to limits I didn’t think possible. I don’t have pride wearing this because even when I was in my best running shape in college, I felt like an imposter. And now that I’m very far from being in that kind of shape, I feel like even more of one. What right do I have to wear this shirt? I think to myself. I do continue to wear it though, 1) because I have not really invested in workout gear since leaving college 5 years ago and this shirt has held up and 2) when I wear it to yoga, it gives teachers extra context into the extreme extent of my tight leg muscles, and they give me poses to help stretch them.

For a long time, for the good and the bad of it, running was a part of my identity. Some of this had to do with creating a sense of belonging in my extended family. My cousins were fairly athletic growing up, and most of my aunts and uncles followed some kind of sport. My parents were rather indifferent to sports, and I was very uncoordinated, so I always felt like the odd-child-out. I buried my nose in books at family events, sometimes even bringing them to the table, despite my parents admonishment. I was a scholarly kid, and found my own pride in that.

In high school, that changed. I remained scholastically driven, but freshman year I also began running on the track team. It was no-cut, so even my initial lack of ability wasn’t a barrier. I remember my first few practice runs to this day. My lungs on fire. My legs feeling like they were about to fall off. My body convincing myself I would probably die in the next half-mile. But I somehow made friends on the team, shy as I was, and decided to stick with it.

I trained and trained summer after freshman year. I made a running buddy with a girl from my school, a close friend to this day, and she pushed me to run faster, longer, and run more hills than I ever had. It was painful and exhilarating at the same time. Finally, I thought, This is what it means to feel strong.

I made varsity cross country with my friend sophomore year. We began scoring points for our high school teams. My name began being mentioned in my small town’s paper. My grandfather, an avid supporter of my cousins’ soccer careers, began clipping out these articles, highlighting my name and race time, and putting them up in his office, along with my cousins’ article mentions. This was another revelation, another way for me to belong when I always felt I hadn’t. I had actually done something that made my family proud. They finally had something to talk to me about, other than “what book are you hiding under the dinner table?”

I developed more community at school, too. Again, my school cross country and track teams were no-cut, so they were HUGE. 100+ people at least. And being on Varsity gave me some notoriety, even if I only really closely talked with a small group of people. It was maybe the best I could have asked for in high school, being respected by a large chunk of my high school population, despite being shy and nerdy and excessively anxious. My teammates and coaches were kind, community-minded people, and I felt at home with them in a way I have never been able to replicate since.

There were, of course, let’s say, aesthetic benefits to running as well. I was toned up and lost weight in a dramatic way when I started running. Some of this was from the nature of running miles and miles, and some of this, if I’m being honest, was due to restricted eating. Everyone on cross country and track were fit, and almost all of us were thin. Like, toothpick thin.

I want to be clear: no one advocated for not eating. No one explicitly pressured me to look a certain way. But high school is all about fitting in, and if everyone around me looked that way, that’s what I wanted too. I wanted to be conventionally pretty, and thinness was a way to do that.

It didn’t help that I grew up in manicured Santa Barbara, where beauty is considered the base-standard: all public greenery is manicured to perfection (even when we’re in a perennial drought), the buildings are kept to strict code to maintain their quaint, Spanish-style tourist-appeal, the mountains frame our backdrop while the beautiful beaches attract honeymooners, millionaires, surfers, and models on a regular basis. Palm trees line our roads like a lesser-known Beverly Hills. The weather is mild year-round too; this past Christmas, despite above-average rainfall earlier in the season, it was a perfect sunny-and-75 degrees. I went in the ocean in December, for Christ sakes.

The people in Santa Barbara adhere to this conventional standard of beauty as well. Because the weather is perfect, there is no excuse not to be tan year-round. There is also no excuse to stay inside, as outdoor exercise is always an option.

There are people that don’t adhere to the conventional beauty standard, of course. Just like there are poor people and middle-class people in a city that basks in its affluence (paradise isn’t cheap). Santa Barbara is adjacent to Montecito, where both Oprah and former Prince Harry have homes. But, in classic Santa Barbara fashion, those people aren’t talked about. Our city’s image is one of tanness (but only on white bodies), thinness, blondeness, and wealth. Obviously, folks exist outside this image, but they are relegated to the back of group photos. Or better yet, maybe they could be the one taking the picture? Thankssomuch.

What I’m saying is, in a way that athleticism brought me acceptance in my school, team, and family circles, thinness bought me acceptance in all areas of my life. Thinness acted as a shield in a place where what you looked like accounted for who you were. Even if I was shy, awkward, clumsy, nerdy, at least I had this. No one could make rude comments about my body.

Until they could.

I knew, in my anxiety-riddled brain, when I started running, my options were to either A) Keep running at an insane rate forever to maintain thinness, or B) accept the fact that eventually I would stop, and gain weight. Option B felt abhorrent for a long time, so I ran in college even when it became clear I did not have the consistent competitive drive needed to be a D1 athlete. Even when it became clear that running at the level I was was not conducive to my mental, or even physical health. Even then, I was not ready to give up my shield. Being an athlete was considered attractive. Being thin was considered attractive. Who was I when I was no longer that? What was I worth without my identity? Who would be left to love me if I gave up the only parts of myself that I liked, that had ever openly been liked by others?

Well, I’m figuring that out now. I have not given up running for good, but I no longer come even close to the level I ran in college. I have work, and no further desire to be in the amount of pain I was in solely to be able to hold up my shield. I have forgone thinness, not because I wanted to, but because the work needed to maintain it became unsustainable for me. I cannot run 50 miles every week and stay awake at my job. I cannot restrict food to the point that I pass out in unexpected places. I cannot be rail thin and strong enough to perform gardening tasks at my work, like moving mulch and pushing wheelbarrows uphill and carrying multiples buckets filled to the brim with weeds. I cannot be who I was and still find joy in my life. I couldn’t then and I won’t now.

And no, I am not saying I reside in a Big Body, although I do feel that the stigma given to folks in big bodies is toxic. Plus-sized folks face an unfair amount of ridicule and discrimination, something I in my regular-sized body am not privvy to, and have no desire to be, because people can be ruthless in these critiques.

What I am saying is, check your weight-based comments. Since losing my thinness shield, I have received far too many comments with the undertone of “wow, you let yourself go, huh?” My weight tends to fluctuate, so even well meaning comments of “Did you lose weight? Congrats!” sting. When I hear this, I think some variation of, Why yes, I had the stomach flu last week and couldn’t eat anything! So glad my misery made me more appealing to you. Or even, Why yes, I have been able to exercise more consistently because my mental and physical health are on track for once. But thank you for noticing when this was NOT the case. Now I can ruminate on how my weight gain is just another thing I have to worry about the next time I fall into a depressive episode. Thanks for confirming you pay attention to such things! All these weight-related comments are confirming is what my high school self felt in her heart to be true. Your worth is your weight. You are not worth love if you are not thin. I know I am far from alone in feeling judged by my appearance, even with the work I have done to attempt to not let these comments bother me.

This is why the comment, “you look strong,” shook me to my core. I thought strength was restriction. I thought strength was thinness. I thought strength was running, from and for, your problems. I felt with the change in my body, everyone assumed I was less strong. And I am, in some ways. I’m not as fast, my legs aren’t as toned, I’m nowhere near as thin. But I’ve gained strength in other ways. I can lift couches. I can shovel soil. I can support myself with my arms in ways that 16-year-old-me can only dream of. I can eat a meal without hating myself. I can try on clothes without the goal of needing to look as small as humanly possible.

Finally, I can know in my heart that this is another way to feel strong.