How to be a natural Kim Kardashian
In Year 6, I was told my hips would get wider, my boobs would get rounder, and at some point along the way, blood will start pouring out of my fanny. Understandably, this left my knowledge of pubescent physiological changes as far reaching as a gradual transition into a natural Kim Kardashian, with a rendition of Saw IV in my pants.
Given that, to my 10 year old surprise, I did not organically and seamlessly transform into Kim Kardashian, I believed the changes I saw in my body were wrong.
Ages 10-16 are the worst years of a women’s life.
Fight me.
11 year old girls are arseholes.
We pretend to love the rigmarole of ‘who fancies who’ when all it does is give us anxiety, and the “Who the fuck am I” identity crisis entering secondary school forces us to channel every fibre of energy into pretending we know the answer, when, of course, we don't.
Making matters worse, thanks to the astounding wit of the cat-calling man, with age comes a growing awareness of our ‘role’ as sexual beings.
Our female obligation to pay the £BE-NICE-TO-LOOK-AT rent.
Which, in accordance with the vital teachings of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, GRAZIA magazine and Instagram, is afforded through having a tiny waist, flat tummy, perky bum and rounded boobs. (The Ideal Body)
At the very same time that this aesthetic pressure piles up, (and analysing Instagram pictures as if they were crime scenes becomes a daily activity) our bodies have a biological necessity to gain weight.
No, not just on the hips, bum and boobs. On the arms, legs and tummy too. Which, funnily enough, wasn't mentioned in lesson promising me the natural Kim Kardashian look.
This weight enables the synthesis of essential hormones, that facilitates physical development, prepping us for pregnancy and growing a baby (should we wish to do so).
Vital weight providing energy stores the body needs to cope with the transition into womanhood. Ah, puberty.
Our poor, 13 year-old selves are left in a double-bind: our worth is measured on how aesthetically pleasing we are (which we have been taught, increases with slimness), but our body starts literally shapeshifting. Often becoming less slim at various rates and proportions, and therefore less attractive and less worthy.
My question is: why the fuck are we not taught that female bodies need to and will gain weight during puberty?
No wonder there is an epidemic of young girls hating their bodies, when our education around female development mirrors the unrealistic ideals plastered throughout the media. We are led to believe that getting a little wider, lumpier and wobblier, as we often naturally do during puberty, is wrong. Or more precisely; is a result of our bodies being wrong.
Leaving many of us resentful, scared and ashamed of our self-perceived “abnormality”. I genuinely thought the stretch marks on my legs were an ageing condition, because they weren’t meant to appear until I was pregnant. The fact the growth of my boobs was yet to overtake my still-rounded stomach, was clear, concrete evidence that I was objectively repulsive.
I didn’t look anything like the animated girl in my PSHE lessons, who apparently illustrated the bodily changes that awaited me. I didn’t have her flat belly and thigh gap, that remained suspiciously unchanged as her waist got smaller and her hips got wider.
I did not see myself in her effortless transition from 10 year old girl, to size 6/8 woman.
Diet culture is so pervasive, that it even fucks with the national curriculum. Are we really that afraid of weight gain that we can’t bare to break the news that, shock horror, as you grow older, your body changes?
With such skewed and limited information about their bodies, it has become normal for young girls to actively fight against their natural development.
Most eating disorders begin during adolescence.
By age 17, 89% of girls have been on a diet.
66% of under 18s feel ‘negative’ or ‘very negative’ about their bodies.
We have a problem.
Whilst there are some wonderful (and very much needed) reforms around sex and relationship education, such as the inclusion of same sex relationships and consent, diet culture still maintains a stranglehold over the information available to girls about their own bodies and how they may change. Why aren’t we told to expect stretch marks, cellulite and fat gain on our belly? Why aren’t we shown images of girls who’s thighs touch?
Girls who have hip dips and who’s arms actually get thicker as you go up from the wrist to the shoulder?
Our bodies are insanely smart, they know exactly what they’re doing, and yet our education (or lack thereof) invites us to distrust them and to believe they are wrong and need to be “fixed”.
We have got generation after generation of young women trying to mess with the body’s process, hoping to transform into Kim Kardashian, like they were promised.
That's generation after generation wasting precious brain space on our looks. An extremely effective distraction from what really matters (which, btw, is not what our bodies look like).
