Happy Mother’s Day—Also, Apparently I need to lose Weight?

I open my Instagram & Facebook- Happy Mothers Day, Antanika- also did you know you needed to lose weight?

Ugh. Keep in mind this article is not about weight, but myself being a mere 49kgs already- this kind of advertising is borderline dangerous, imagine I was a very insecure with body dysmorphia… I’m not; but imagine if I were.

I’m getting multiple adverts for Ozempic programs every few scrolls for days now, with captions like “stop the food noise”…

By doing what? By not eating?

The other day I stood in my bedroom getting dressed when i made a passing comment to my husband: “I’d like to put on some weight these pants are too big.”

I didn’t realise my 12 year old daughter listening on in the hall nearby. Later that day my daughter and I went shopping. She hops out at the first stop, leans casually on the of the side of the car and says, “Mum, I need to ask you a question about something you said earlier.”

I nodded. “Yeah?”

“When you were getting dressed,” she said, “you said you didn’t want to lose any more weight…..”

A long pause, I was confused.

I nodded again, “yes’m…. What about it?”

She shrugged and repeated….”The part about not wanting to lose weight…”

I thought for a second. Processing what she was asking me…

I assumed that, she knew I wasn’t ever trying to lose weight because I don’t speak of it. And i assumed that because im one of the smallest humans she knows, that I wouldn’t “need” to lose weight.

But it’s not about actual weight. It’s about perception, opinion, ideas.

It’s so engrained in the society and messaging around her, that her programming assumes that ‘wanting to lose weight’ is just something people are constantly striving to do.

Evolved. Born to do. Part of nature.

Regardless if it’s safe or needed or if it matters at all.

I consider all this and finally answered, “Because I don’t want to… I’m happy with my body….well, most of the time, I used to hate my body, but that was because I hated myself, and it’s less so about loving what we are at all times but more about the absence of hatred or disgust or disapproval of it, acceptance of what is maybe?”

She tilted her head, letting that sit for a second.

“Well,” she said, “Everyone else talks about wanting to lose weight. So it’s weird hearing someone say that.”

It didn’t occur to me that she had never actually heard someone say that before.

The conflict being created within her. Everyone around her tells her not to worry about body or the image of it. But what she actually observes is a society consumed by standards of beauty that don’t align with the values taught or shown to her at home.

She has begun to notice the script that filled my head as a teen, she probably sees the way it still does, influencing my words or behaviours in ways I won’t. But in comparison to the outside world, the contrast creates tension, cognitive dissonance. No matter what I try, the story told through history about our bodies lingers in everyday conversation through generations- thrown in unconscious- off hand comments about others and self, through marketing, in our media and beyond.

The way people talk about their bodies as though they are something to be managed, shrunk, improved. I’m guilty of it. I grew up around reminders from my step father about my “puppy fat”. A mother who despite being smaller than me most her life also believed she was too much. I spent years in a battle against my intuition- I was enough but insecurity sells products.

This has come full circle and oh how different it is.

My daughter was testing the waters now. Trying to reconcile two opposing truths—the world says one thing, my mum - says another.

Many of us, don’t have those two side to hold in our hands, we do t always get to see a contrast.

And I could feel it, that quiet shift inside her.

“Is my mum wrong? Or is everyone else?”

Because at twelve, the world is already pulling her away from me. She’s supposed to question me, push back, carve out her own truth and put together her own reality.

But the only way she can trust me here is, if she already trusts me outside of this moment, have I built a foundation for this to sit on?

Does she trust herself and me enough to listen to her instincts on this, to build on the ideas swirling around.

Like I said, this conversation isn’t really about weight at all.

It’s about what we inherit.

What we accept as normal.

What we choose to carry—and what we decide to put down.

So we talked as we walked through savers. We talked about how bodies change, and how that change doesn’t have to be something we fight against. About how feeling neutral about your body is just as powerful as loving it.

Sometimes, I start to doubt that a single person could change the world just by changing their thinking. At times it feels almost impossible, to change such an ingrained story.

But by simply changing mine, I have allowed my daughter to consider another way. It reminds me, that all the change I created within me, isn’t hopeless, that this creates a legacy of people who believe about themselves differently.

That we can break these cycles. And we do that here in my home often these days. Boldly she steps where no man has stepped before….she pulls me up for my unconscious judgements, reminding me of who I am.

We can rewrite the script, thought by thought.

And maybe thats enough.

Happy Mother’s Day.

❤️ Show, don’t tell.