On ‘Bikini Season’
This week, I diverge from the ongoing discussion of nutrition science to subjectively address a topic that looms large on the horizon in fitness facilities around the northern hemisphere: Bikini Season.
As coats and oversized sweaters get stuffed back in closets, clothes with less fabric make their way to the front of drawers. The emergence of American-themed Murph apparel, swimsuits and beach weather is a beautiful thing that makes my heart sing (I grew up in Texas, so the love of summer runs deep).
Unfortunately for some of us, this season is also associated with feelings of unwelcome vulnerability, or anxiety at the thought of exposing more skin than we have seen in months. While media and marketing have come a long way toward normalizing a wider range of body types, it wasn’t long ago that the expectation for flatness was pervasive.
Eating fat and having body fat (both of which are essential to hormone regulation, brain health, metabolic function, temperature regulation, vitamin storage, etc.) were demonized for an unbelievably long time, to the point where an entire generation of (largely white) women became known for shaming both themselves and their daughters whenever their limbs appeared to be an arbitrary amount of “large” in photos. And women aren’t the only ones affected - men have also been targeted with messages of aesthetic expectations, but often in the opposite direction. Instead of being told to ‘Have Less Body,’ all ads typically point to ‘More’: more muscles, bigger arms, etc. An opposite, but similarly ridiculous, expectation.
As previously mentioned, I believe we’ve made progress. Thanks to the hard work of a few brave, rebellious souls choosing to speak out against these paradigms, and supportive communities (like CrossFit, Rugby, Powerlifting or Weightlifting - where every body type has a wheelhouse). Still, we haven’t recovered. I know this for certain because I still hear unsatisfied murmurings of “not ready for swimsuit” and “should do more ab work” and “need to stop eating [x]”.
I was once in a place, as a competitive runner, where those murmerings were constant voices in my head that dictated everything from how I conducted myself socially to every food item I ate. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was how I attempted to control my controllables. I know this is an extremely common experience for many athletes, especially those competing in sports that depend on making weight, or require strict adherence to an aesthetic ideal. I am lucky to say that while thoughts from my previous eating disorder sometimes try to emerge, I now take joy in squashing them with reminders of just how far from self-serving they are. My hope is that everyone who can relate to this experience can currently, or one day, say the same.
Here’s the thing: I will never be in a place to judge someone for their fitness or aesthetic goals, or support anyone else’s tendencies to do so. But my challenge to everyone - all of you who find common ground with any of the above - is to do a very real, very honest self-assessment of your goal, for the purpose of discerning its root motivation. You know, the classic method of: Keep asking ‘Why?’ until you know that you’ve arrived at the honest-to-goodness, no b.s. answer.
If your goal is truly health-related, it’s probably not a bad idea. But if this goal, feeling, or association with food and body shape is preventing you from enjoying your life with friends and family, nourishing your body, fueling your activities, or functioning in an undistracted manner from the rest of your life - then you owe it to yourself to ask ‘to what end do I want to achieve, feel or focus on [x]?’
Often times, the alternative to starving, running, dieting or sit-up-ing yourself into misery is existing in your fullest, most present form at the beach, pool, or very hot gym workout - when you take your shirt off to prevent overheating, and realize that Bikini Season is the time to celebrate fun activities in the summer sun, not the season to shame yourself for failure to achieve impossible perfection.
