The Body Neutrality movement is about focusing on more than the physical shape we hold in the world. Bethany C. Meyers is the founder and CEO of the be.come project and joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how they came to embrace the body neutrality ethos, why we need to move away from body positivity, and the calm that can come from allowing yourself to just simply be. Meyers is the author of “I Am More Than My Body: The Body Neutral Journey.”
This episode originally aired on July 12th, 2023.
Let’s talk bodies without judgement
By Madelyn Walton, Think Intern
The rise of social media apps such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram come with their pros and cons. The apps keep users interconnected and updated with their favorite creators and trends, but they also introduce them to various opinions and potentially toxic trends. Whether its beauty, fitness, fashion, or lifestyle related, young women scroll through several short form videos a day from influencers sharing their daily experience that may not be realistic for all viewers. While these daily routine videos were created to inspire one another, they may be causing more harm than good.
These days, there are too many voices telling young women what to do when only you truly know what’s right for you. These videos can be damaging to the perception of your body. For example, seeing someone else’s workout routine, or what they eat in a day may be right for them, but it may not be the answer for you.
Bethany C. Meyers is the founder and CEO of the be.come project. They joined Krys Boyd on Think to talk about their book “I Am More Than My Body: The Body Neutral Journey.” They defined body neutrality and discussed why body positivity isn’t the answer to feeling our best.
Meyers says, “Body neutrality to me is ‘somedays I hate my body, somedays I love my body, but every single day I respect my body.’”
In this era of being chronically online, it can be difficult not to compare yourself to what you see in the media. Meyers talks about how ideal body types change each decade.
“Something that is so frustrating about diet culture and society’s perception of bodies is that what is in style constantly changes,” Meyers says. “This idea that if we just work out hard enough, if we just eat a certain
Body neutrality is neither positivity, nor shame. It is appreciating your body for its functionality, not your general appearance. Your body is much more than something perceived through a social media gaze, it helps you with your daily functions. For example, you may not like the shape of your nose, but it is important to understand that your nose gives you the ability to smell your favorite meal.
“We are so much more than our body, big or small, there is so much more value beneath us that is often overlooked,” says Meyers.
Looking a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re healthy. Health means getting a good night’s sleep and fueling yourself properly.
“We live in a society where we are told to think about our body all the time,” says Meyers. “Body neutrality offers the tools to help you on those days when you to feel really low.”
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Transcript
Krys Boyd [00:00:00] In a culture that judges some bodies better than others by virtue of youth, or health, or size or shape, the advice to think positive is meant to prevent shame. But it comes with a downside because in addition to failing to possess a figure that measures up to our culture standards, if we don’t adore everything about our bodies all the time, despite those standards, we have failed in yet another way. From Kera in Dallas, this is Think. I’m Krys Boyd. If unfettered body positivity is too much to realistically expect of ourselves, maybe what we need is a different approach, one that recognizes the value of body neutrality. Bethany C. Meyers is founder and CEO of the bcome Project. new book is called “I Am More Than My Body: The Body Neutral Journey.” Bethany, welcome to Think.
[00:00:51] Hello. Thank you. What a beautiful intro.
Krys Boyd [00:00:54] Thank you. Lots of people have heard by now about body positivity. Body neutrality might be a new term for folks. How is it different?
[00:01:06] I think, you know, body neutrality really takes the focus off of the body and instead it puts the focus on the other much more interesting and important things about us, like what our body can do for us or who we are as a person, our personality. Like it’s really about removing itself from the body. I have I have this kind of one liner that I always use to sum it up, but body neutrality to me as some days I love my body, some days I hate my body. But every single day I respect my body because our bodies are deserving of respect and we are truly so much more than our body.
Krys Boyd [00:01:48] You share a fascinating story here about writing an article that referred to body positivity and being asked by an editor if you could use neutrality instead. Why did that request initially upset you?
[00:02:00] I think, you know, I have a I had a history of eating disorders, body dysmorphia. And I had been on this journey to heal myself from those things and to fall in love with my body. And I felt like I had kind of achieved, you know, finally achieved this body positive status. And the idea that I was going to be neutral about it felt honestly infuriating. It felt like I had worked so hard for something and it was being stripped away. And then as I started to read it about body neutrality and really understand what it was and what it meant, it felt like this big weight had been lifted off of me because there was no longer the pressure to constantly be so in love with myself. And I think, like when we when we think about the idea of feeling positive about something 100% of the time, that’s very unattainable. And body neutrality felt so much more attainable.
Krys Boyd [00:03:10] To be really clear for everybody taking a body neutral perspective on our bodies and those of other people doesn’t mean we cannot have positive feelings, that we cannot love our bodies or certain parts of them. Right. It just means we’re not required to do this all the time.
[00:03:25] Absolutely. And that’s such a good point to make and something that I talk about in the book. I’m not against body positivity. I think that there is a time and a place where like a positive mindset are using some of those tools can be so helpful. And I also think that the body positive movement has done wonders for society and for people of different sizes. What I do think, though, is that sometimes the body positive model can set us up to fail when we have inevitable days that we don’t feel so positive. And that’s where body neutrality can really come in handy.
[00:04:01] It’s worth asking why people started to recognize the need for any sort of strategy for thinking about our bodies. What is it about our culture that feeds body shame most of all?
[00:04:14] I mean, I think body shame is ingrained in to all of us, you know, in so many ways. It’s it’s not even just a new thing. It’s generations and generations of being told that we’re not allowed to like the way that we look and that something is wrong with us and that we need to fit into one particular mold. And I think something that’s so frustrating about kind of diet culture and society’s perception of bodies is that what is in style constantly changes. You know, when you look at decades, every decade, a different body type is in style. And we just went through this kind of like the curvy girl and the boobs and the butt, and now suddenly it’s like back to this super, super thin, you know, that we grew up with like in the 2000s is coming back. And when we look at that, it’s like we’re asked to have completely different bodies every ten years. And that simply is not realistic. And then if we don’t attain that certain body size, then we’re made to feel bad about it.
[00:05:27] So lots of us have some experience with diet culture, which promises that if we can just like summon the willpower, the right body is within reach. You share in the book you’re among the small number of people who maybe could keep yourself from eating. You got very, very thin. You were constantly praised for that, despite the fact that you were actually quite unwell at the time?
[00:05:53] I had, you know I, I struggled with an eating disorder for a long time and I think I was always a petite child. Like I am smaller, smaller frame built naturally. And that was so praised among adults and peers in my life that I think that that really became an identity for me. And it felt like if I am not small, then who am I? And then as I got older, it became I have to be a certain size and I have to be small. And that is, you know, part of the but some of the things that led into a pretty severe eating disorder in my life. And again, that’s why I think the title of the book is is so important because we are so much more than our body, big or small, whatever our size may be. There’s so much more value beneath us that is often overlooked.
[00:06:52] How does it happen that body positivity can be as damaging as body shame?
[00:07:02] I think it becomes damaging when it turns into what I like to call toxic positivity. And toxic positivity can be used in so many more things than just our body. Like when you’re having a really bad day and somebody is like, just be happy, you know? And you’re like, how? Okay, how am I supposed to just be happy right now? I’m not feeling this way. Or I was really struggling with infertility for two years. Part of that during the process of writing this book and people would be like, Just relax and you’ll get pregnant. Right now, I feel like, which is not true. And I feel like that’s such a, you know, that’s this kind of toxic positivity. That’s like if we just only think good thoughts and everything is going to be good. And what it doesn’t allow for is the very wide nuance that happens in humans. And with our emotions, you know, sadness breeds joy, and we have to allow all of those things to live. And I think if we’re told that we should only be positive about our bodies 100% of the time, it ignores some of the very real feelings that come up around our body, no matter what size you are. And when we ignore those, we can address the root of the problem and therefore they just grow.
[00:08:25] It also seems to suggest, you know, this idea like relax and you’ll get pregnant or whatever. It implies that we’re all really in control of our bodies, right? That that nothing should be beyond our control when so many people have the experience that that’s just not the case.
[00:08:42] Right? Yeah. There’s a whole chapter in the book surrounding control because I’m just so fascinated by this idea. I’m a person who loves to be in control. I like to think that I can have control over everything. And surrendering to that has been a very big part of my healing process. The fact of the matter is, is we’re not in control of a lot of things. And for many people, that includes body size. For many people, in order to be in control of their body size, they have to take very dangerous measures. So this idea that if we just work out hard enough, if we just eat only X, Y and Z are only these certain amount of calories, it doesn’t have health first. It has aesthetics first. Right. And it’s more about the size and the way that you look and not necessarily about how you feel. And that’s really a shift that we need to take is moving away from how we look and focusing on how we feel.
[00:09:44] You note the existence of what are called like plus size fashion models, which has created a bit more room in our definition of bodies that count as beautiful, but really plus size models that are kind of making waves are conventionally attractive. They are what you call small fat. They usually still have long legs and hourglass figures and great hair. They’re not really so different from from stereotypical models.
[00:10:09] Yeah. It was really important to me to interview all different types of people, primarily because, as I mentioned before, I have a body that’s pretty deemed acceptable by society. So it was important that we brought in a wide diversity of bodies to talk to. And, you know, we had this conversation with Stephanie Yeboah sticks out in my mind now of kind of this conventional beauty that still exist just with maybe a little bit of a bigger pant size. And how do we start to recognize that all bodies are not only beautiful, but they are worthy and they’re deserving and there needs to be more of a normalization of them in in magazines, in print, in social media, across the board.
[00:11:08] Would you talk a little bit about why you were able to understand this? Very many people, I think, who have never had a body that didn’t meet sort of societal expectations. Very many people struggle to empathize with people whose bodies don’t match those. Is there something about the way you were raised or your life experiences that make you able to not judge, but instead sort of celebrates other kinds of bodies?
[00:11:36] Well, it’s certainly I don’t think that that has to do with the way that I was raised, because I was raised in a pretty standard idea of what body looks like in a very small town without necessarily a lot of exposure to anything else. But my work has been in fitness for years, and so I’ve worked with a lot of different body types and I’ve seen all different bodies come through. And I have had a lot of conversations with people, you know, which I think is always our way to eliminate, you know, biases that we have is to have personal experiences, I think is so important. And as I’ve worked with different clients, I have very quickly realized that body size is just not indicative of someone’s health, of someone’s strength, of how much someone works out. And I remember like talking with a client who lived in a in a bigger body, and she was having a lot of knee issues and she kept trying to go to the doctor to get an MRI and she couldn’t get an MRI for her knee because they just kept saying, your knee hurts because you need to lose weight. She finally found a doctor who would give her an MRI and she had a torn meniscus. Now, I myself have torn meniscus, and getting an MRI was not an issue for me at all. The second I said my knee hurt, we got it looked at and and I had a diagnosis. And that to me is simply not okay for people to not be able to get the care that they need based simply on the way that they look. There’s so much unfairness there. I also think that the concept of body neutrality can support so many people regardless of size.
[00:13:34] Are more people in the health care industry starting to understand the concepts of body neutrality?
[00:13:42] I still think that people encounter fatphobia health bias across the board all the time. So that question is always, you know, interesting to me, like, are we moving forward or are we staying where we are? I think it’s getting a little better, but I still think that this is a very real thing that exists for many people.
[00:14:04] Bethany, you also note that, like body positivity insists that people should love their bodies as long as they are healthy. Boy, this is another assumption with a lot of pitfalls tied up in it, isn’t it?
[00:14:20] Absolutely. I mean, you know, we have this obsession with health. And it’s fascinating to me that so often health actual health is not at the forefront. You know, when you look at the things that truly make people healthy, getting enough sleep is one of the top pieces. And yet you don’t see people going around saying you should be getting more sleep, you should be getting more sleep. Instead, you see people going around saying you should lose more weight, you should lose more weight. Right? So our priorities are not necessarily wrapped in health. I think they’re wrapped in other things. And then when we really think about health, we have to look at accessibility. Who has access to fresh foods, who has access to be able to actually get a full night’s sleep? You know, the socioeconomic status, the environment in which you live, the foods that you have access to, the help that parental care is always top of mind. Right now, for myself, I just recently had a baby. There are so many aspects to this idea of health and so much of it is more support is needed within the community. One thing that I know does not promote health is rapid weight loss and rapid weight gain. And that is oftentimes what we see prescribed.
[00:15:52] How did going through a pregnancy and giving birth, I mean, those processes do really remarkable things to a human body. Were you concerned at all that that your body neutrality would be diminished or threatened by by having a child?
[00:16:11] Absolutely. You know, I. I have been in recovery for eating disorders for a long time, and I was very nervous. And when we decided to start trying for a family of how that would affect me and what it would do and a weird silver lining, it took two years for me to get pregnant. And during those two years, I did. I had a miscarriage. I had fertility treatments, which change your body a lot. And in some ways, I almost feel like that was a blessing in disguise because it helped me work through a lot of things. And there was lots of therapy sessions in there to kind of prepare me for the pregnancy itself. So in one sense, it was really tough. In another sense, it gave a whole new meaning to my body. Right. And when we think about like I am more than my body, it really was like, wow, I am so much more than my body. I’m carrying life, blifend now I’m breastfeeding. And so I’m nourishing life. And my body means so much more to me than it ever did. And I won’t try to I won’t, like, sit here and say that it has been easy. I even say in the book, when I was writing the book, I was just like my body had been so in flux and hormones and injections and just like a million different things going on. And I had this moment where I was like crying with my editor and I was like, I’m the body neutral author and I feel my least body neutral. And I think that’s so important because body neutrality is not this destination. You know, it’s not it’s not this trophy that you get. And you’re like, congratulations, your body neutral and now you’re never going to think about it again. That’s absurd. We live in a society where we’re told to think about our body all the time. What body neutrality offers is tools to help you on those days when you start to feel really low or to help you during those times when your body is in flux. It’s a it’s a tool.
[00:18:27] I know you’re still a new parent, but you have researched this. What have you learned about raising a child in a body neutral environment?
[00:18:38] I am so excited about this because it’s something that I’ve thought about a lot. I’ve thought about my upbringing and how do I want to do things different and what will I get wrong and what will I get right? I think it’s so important for kids to be exposed to bodies and to understand from a very young age that like bodies come in different packages. And there’s a story from Ali Deval in the book that I just think is so great. She is a self-identified fat person. She was at a pool and there’s some young kids that say, wow, her belly is so big. And the parents immediate reaction was to they were just mortified. You know, don’t say that and don’t talk about that. And kind of shaming these children for doing something that’s very normal as a child. Right. It’s very developmentally appropriate for children to call out what they see in their surroundings, including saying that person’s stomach is so big. And when we shame the child for saying those things, we’re basically telling them fat is bad. And no, you don’t talk about it. Right. And instead, what Ali did was open up the conversation and say, yeah, I have a big belly. You have a small belly. Isn’t that cool that our bellies come in different sizes? And the kids were like, Yeah, that’s so cool, right? And the parents, you could see them kind of wiping the sweat off of their brow. But that’s something as parents that we can do. We don’t have to pretend like it doesn’t exist, right? Or shy away from that. But we can talk about it in what I would consider to be a very neutral way.
[00:20:35] So sometimes, Bethany, people love and respect their own bodies, but want to alter them in some way. How does body neutrality create space for someone like Adele to love herself at whatever size she might be right when she was heavier? And now that she is thinner without kind of betraying anybody or anything with her personal choices?
[00:20:59] Yeah. I mean, I think that this is really important because in the book, something, something that I do talk about is I don’t want it to seem like you’re not allowed to change your body shape. It’s not allowed to change. Or if you lose weight, you’re a bad person. I think that this is a conversation that has been happening within the bodyositive worlds, right? Where it’s either like, how dare you want to lose weight, You should love yourself at this size or the other side of this spectrum, which is how dare you be too fat? You should be wanting to lose weight, right? Until it almost feels like there is no place where you can win. And I think that when we take kind of the body out of the equation and we focus on how we feel, it can really help us get to a place that feels good, right? So there may be habits in your life that don’t make you feel your best, that you want to cut out, and in turn, that could change your body size, whether it’s smaller or bigger, that could happen. And so to me, the motivation is not changing what’s going on in the external layer. It’s changing what’s going on in the internal layer and really thinking about how we feel and what can make us feel our bestnd what does that mean
[00:22:31] Are there good ways to tell the difference between how we feel and how we feel? Because we’re told to feel that way.
[00:22:38] I think it’s very tricky and I think that those lines will probably always be blurred in some way. And I do think that that’s okay. In the book, I give kind of this framework that that someone isin line with this question. But I think it’s really worth mentioning is to examine what’s going on, right? So I have these three steps, and that’s not to try to summarize it all into like a little three step, but it’s an exercise that I do often. It’s step number one is acknowledging the feelings and the thoughts that we’re having. Right? So like, what are we saying about our body? What do those words look like? What are we telling ourselves that so dramatically needs to change? Right? What’s that conversation? Then the second step is to explore where that is coming from and to recognize both the external influence and the internal influence, what’s happening in our lives, what’s happening with our emotions that can really tell us a lot about what the motivation is for the body change. And then the third step is reconnecting with our body through gratitude and naming what our body can do for us, right? Naming what we have right now that we can hold on to. And those three steps for me have really been an important source of kind of bringing myself back into a neutral zone. And I would say for me, it’s it’s like a daily practice. It’s not a one and done thing, but really acknowledging the thoughts I’m having about my body, exploring where they’re coming from or reconnecting through gratitude, I think has helped move me into a place that does feel more neutral and is less biased about my surroundings.
[00:24:35] Are there sort of go to things that you name for yourself on any given day when maybe you’re not feeling so great about your body, things that you are grateful for your body doing for you.
[00:25:39] It’s hard enough or it can be challenging enough to sort of get to a place of body neutrality in your own mind. And then you have the rest of the world that may be working very actively to make you feel bad about your body. Are there things we can learn from people with disabilities about the ways the built environment creates the barriers rather than their body is creating the barriers?
[00:26:06] Yeah. I have a conversation with Lottie Jackson, who’s the author oAnd she has a disability. And the way that she talks about neutrality is really quite fascinating. You know, she does recognize that there are plenty of times where she simply like neutrality isn’t necessarily super accessible because of the world that she lives in. But then she also talks about how often she focuses on the way that she writes and the way that she is funny through written word and how that’s how she sees the world.
[00:26:56] There have been like ad campaigns, Bethany, that insist everyone is equally beautiful. Do these strike you as as disingenuous given that we may sort of believe that and yet people aren’t treated as if they are all equally beautiful or as if their bodies are all equally valuable.
[00:27:16] Okay. I mean, definitely to me, a lot of the disingenuousness comes from the trend. You know, we saw a big wave of body positivity and body diversity in advertising and campaigns. I actually think now we’re starting to see a shift away from that. And so to me, that disingenuousness is more just brands kind of following what they think is going to drive sales instead of what they really believe. And I think that consumers can see through that. And that’s where it begins to feel like, okay, is this is this really real, you know, really, really honoring everyone and celebrating or is this just kind of what is hitting the mark right now?
[00:28:08] One reason to challenge the kind of shame that our culture projects on certain bodies is that the people living in those bodies end up feeling guilty about them, as if somehow it’s their fault that their body displeases someone else.
[00:29:34] Yeah.This is, you know, this is something that I think contributes to overall health. Like, I think when people are constantly shamed about who they are and the way they look. I think that that really creates a difficult environment to exist in this world ou know, it’s not like we can change all of that overnight. That would be the dream. That would be the goal is to be able to snap our fingers. And that’s not something that we’re looking at. But that’s probably pretty unrealistic. And so what it takes is many of us starting to think about bodies in a different light, starting starting with ourselves and then bringing that elsewhere. And you know, when I wrote this book, it was really, really important to me that the contents were compassionate and that they were accessible. Like, I didn’t want to get too in the weeds with a lot of things or get really preachy with things, you know, like sometimes these conversations can do. I wanted it to be a book that anybody could pick up and find something that they relate with. And the reason for that is so that we could start to infect the hearts of people who maybe wouldn’t normally gravitate toward these kind of conversations.
[00:29:57] Do you think people who do enjoy what I think its Tyra Banks calls pretty privileged? Do they have a particular obligation to push back on on body stereotypes and body negativity in defense of people who don’t have that privilege?
[00:30:12] I think that we all have. I think that that’s important for everyone. No matter what you look like. I don’t know that it just falls on like one group with pretty privilege. That’s an interesting question. But I do think that that’s something that we all need to be aware of just as humans, right? Just as like people being kind to other people.
[00:30:40] Bethany, you write here about your let’s call it an evolving relationship with your body hair, the kind of shave or don’t shave question. How has body neutrality helped you frame your choices as your choices rather than your obligations?
[00:30:57] Yeah, bsomething that’s so interesting to me because I’ve had quite a journey with it. You know, there was a time when I grew up my leg hair, I think, kind of as almost like ato society. You know, to really go against the grain. And then I found myself not really loving it for whatever reason, you know, is it because I only see smooth legs in magazines? Probably. That’s part some of it. But I think that there was also just a part of me that didn’t really like it. And I found then that I started to feel like, I can’t want to shave my legs because then I won’t be progressive enough or something. And it occurred to me at one point that I was still making these decisions, whether it was having hair or not having hair. I was still making these decisions based on some type of societal rule. And when I realized that, it became much easier for me to think, what do I want and how do I like my legs with or without hair? And what I noticed is when I started to lean into that hair just kind of became hair. And I found that I could shave my legs or I could wax my legs. And there were times when I liked that. And then I could, you know, have some stubble grow and wear shorts and not feel the need to panic, shave my legs, you know, before walking out the door because it’s just hair and it’s there on my legs. And I think the body neutrality really supported that in allowing myself freedom to have hair or to not to have hair.
[00:32:44] You pretty much never. You make it a policy to never comment on anybody else’s body, including when you notice they have lost weight. Can you talk about why you’ve made that decision?
[00:32:56] Yes, I think it’s so important not to comment on people’s bodies. Primarily just from my own personal experience when I was really, really thin and in the thick of an eating disorder and dealing with addiction and not treating myself the way that I should. Often times people would comment, make positive comments about my body, and it just perpetuated that even more. And then I felt like, everyone likes me at their size, so I need to stay this size. And so essentially at the end of the day, when we comment on someone’s body, we don’t really know what we’re commenting on. We don’t know what they’re going through. We don’t have any idea commenting on an illness or, you know, a big life event that has happened. And so it’s best, I believe, to shift our our conversation elsewhere.
[00:34:00] How does a body neutral outlook understand the purpose of exercise or what you prefer to call movement?
[00:34:09] Yes. So I love the world. The word movement over exercise, just in the in the way that I talk about it. Not that there’s anything wrong with the word exercise or workouts, but for me, exercise always sort of insinuated this like very sweaty. Get to the gym, put on your sneakers like this one specific type of movement. And to me, movement means so much more, right? Movement can be going for a walk or having a dance party in your living room or playing with your kid or chasing your dog around the park. Like, all of those things are important. And they and they help us in the long run. So I really love the way that neutrality plays into movement and workouts in and of itself, because I think it really helps to validate all of the movement that we do and to let that be something that counts. So maybe you didn’t get to the gym that day, but maybe you spent the afternoon in the pool with people that you love. Like that counts as well. And I love to talk to my clients and think about how do we simply incorporate more movement into our lives that makes us feel good and that brings us joy.
[00:35:38] How do you talk to a new client who comes in with the kind of very common understanding that one joins a gym and gets a trainer with the goal of changing the appearance of their body?
[00:35:52] This comes up for me a lot with the come project. I have people all the time that will send an email and say, okay, I know that you guys aren’t about weight loss, but my doctor says I have to lose weight. So how many calories is this workout going to burn? And the truth of the matter is, is workouts cannot promise you an X amount of calorie burn or a different body size and shape because we are all so vastly different and we all respond to movement different and all of our bodies have different needs. And so instead, what I like to focus on is the the way that the movement will affect the body in in maybe some other alternative ways, such as strengthening the body, helping to prevent injury, providing longevity. These are things that we know can happen, right? Releasing the mind can support mental health, giving ourselves a little break in the day. Right. These are things that we know that movement can truly support. What we don’t necessarily know is how a particular movement is going to change the way that our body works. It’s, you know, the idea that like suddenly your and get long lean muscles is is not true.
[00:37:22] You write about the importance of not thinking that you must be physically active. You try and frame it as that you get to be physically active. It can be a source of pleasure. But can you help us kind of understand the difference between those two ideas?
[00:37:39] Yeah, I mean, I think well, I do think a lot of it is kind of shifting the way that we think about movement or exercise in general and really noticing how it makes us feel and how we are approaching it. I think that when we look at workoutsigho be able to find something that truly brings a smile to our face or that we can enjoy in some kind of way. Right. I mean, maybe it’s not your typical form of enjoyment, but that can can really make a difference, especially for longevity and for staying with something. Like, I think a lot of times people start some type of workout that is like not their thing. And I’ll give an example running. There was a time in my life where I was like, I have to be a runner. I don’t know why. I just felt like all the really fit people were runners. Running does not work for myself. It does not make me feel good and it hurts my legs. Like I just. I don’t understand it. It’s not for me. And I really spent a long time, like, trying to turn myself into a runner. And I just think, why? Why was. Why was that the thing? It didn’t make me happy. It didn’t make me feel good. A type of movement that does make me feel really good is more like yoga, right? So once I was able to shift into something that I enjoyed, I was able to stick with it as opposed to running, which I would do once I would be so sore, then I would stop and then I would beat myself up because I stopped when in reality it was just like going against my body and what it really wanted to do.
[00:39:27] Yeah, I think for me, Bethany, I used to think I didn’t like to be physically active. What I don’t like is competitive sports, and I discovered it later than I wish I had in my life that I love being physically active. I just don’t want to be in a competition with somebody totally.
[00:39:43] And, you know, that’s really interesting that you say you didn’t discover it until later in life, because I do think that when we’re young and we’re kids and we’re kind of introduced to things, there is very much like a standard of what you’re supposed to enjoy. And, you know, competitive sports is like one of those things for, for kids. Like they’re not often put into maybe a yoga class or like and other things. And I think that if we could broaden our idea of movement, it would benefit all of us so much more. I mean, way back when, nobody was going to the gym, you know, you were like you were gardening and farming and that’s how you got your daily activity.
[00:40:28] Are there good ways for people who don’t feel comfortable or don’t feel welcome in a gym or don’t feel understood in a gym to find a place that actually will make them feel like they belong?
[00:40:40] Yes, the gym can be a really scary place. Workout classes can be a really scary place, especially if you’re still starting to feel comfortable in your body. One of the benefits of the pandemic is so much more became available for online workouts that you can do in the privacy of your home. I started the come project pre-pandemic, but it was that was why online classes were really important to me because I think a lot of people need that safety or a lot of people live in a place where they don’t have access to go somewhere by finding something that can support you. So if you want guided movement, finding an online resource can really, really be beneficial. Also, I, you know, I don’t think that we should underestimate the power of a walk or going to a park and swinging on a swing or, you know, kind of finding some of these other places where we can enjoy movement, even if that’s like in the garden gardening, doing things in the house. These are all valid.
[00:41:53] So people take a lot of different paths toward an attitude of body neutrality, just a sense that their body is what it is and they are more than that. One person that you interviewed said it was helpful to get in the habit of when they were alone, just walking around their home naked all the time.
[00:42:10] Yeah, I was like my favorite tip that anybody that we interviewed gave it. She was like, Just get naked. She was like, But you know what was so interesting about her talking about that when she was saying that oftentimes, you know, we look in the mirror and we pose when we’re in front of the m and, you know, you’re pulling you’re turning to the side and sticking a leg out or pulling your stomach and sticking your chest out. And then we go put on our clothes and we go about the day. And so there was something to be said about being in the nude in your house if you can safely do so for a longer period of time because you stop posing at some point, Right. And you start to really see your body as it is. And that can be so powerful in ostering acceptance.
[00:43:04] Should we change our, if not our eating diet, our media diet?
[00:43:10] Yes, we should. We all need to change our media diet. You know, a suggestion that many of the people I interviewed gave was to diversify your timeline on whatever type of social media that you’re using to make sure that you’re seeing a variety of bodies with a variety of point of view. And I just couldn’t agree more. I also do think there’s something to be said, kind of where I am in my life right now is just looking at it less and focusing more on what’s actually going around us in our homes, in our families and in our communities. So often we’re asked to think about the world and about this very big playing field of things, which I don’t really believe humans are designed to do. You know, pre cell phones like we didn’t have pre Internet. We didn’t have that kind of access. And sometimes kind of turning it all off and zoning in on what’s really going around, you can help bring so much joy and again, help us realize we’re so much more than our body.
[00:44:20] So I was going to ask you initially about how we measure our progress toward body neutrality, but that feels like a very kind of body positive obligation thing. I’m going to ask you instead how we learn to give ourselves some grace, some compassion on the days when we sort of want to be body neutral, but we’re not feeling so neutral.
[00:44:42] That is actually what I love about body neutrality the most, is that there’s not really a place to fail. You know, you can have the really terrible body image day and that day can exist and it can be valid and it can be part of it. And then you can start to use some of your body neutral tools again throughout the infertility and the pregnancy process. Like I was just so whipped back into some of those really body shame feelings. I’m having these feelings because there are things that are going on in my life and that’s okay. And still my body is valuable. It serves me and I am so much more than my physical sel.
[00:45:33] Bethany C Meyers is founder and CEO of the come Project and author of I Am More Than My Body The Body Neutral Journey. Bethany, thank you so much for the conversation.
[00:45:43] Thank you.
[00:45:44] Again, I’m Krs Boyd. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
