Thanks to adidas for sponsoring this post. I love how they empower women to celebrate their bodies at every size, champion gender equity in sports, and create leggings that move with and support every body.
Growing up, I had a toxic relationship with my own body. I believed I was overweight even when I wasn’t. Even more damaging, I learned to see bigger bodies as being flawed instead of simply another valid and beautiful way a body can exist. I still struggle with that way of thinking.
Those thoughts didn’t come out of nowhere. They were something I learned. Growing up, my dad often commented on my weight, especially in those formative pre-teen and teenage years. To me, it felt constant and heavy, and contributed to feelings of shame and depression. But I was shocked when, in a recent phone call where I brought it up, he didn’t even remember saying these things. The very comments that had shaped how I saw my body weren’t even memorable to him. On top of that, he said he didn’t think I was overweight when I was younger. And he’s right. I wasn’t. Still, the memory of those comments has stayed with me, quietly shaping the way I view myself.
My mom also influenced how I saw my own body. She didn’t make direct comments about me, but the way she talked about her own figure shaped the way I viewed mine. She often criticized herself out loud and constantly spoke about needing to ‘lose weight,’ even though she was smaller than I was. Hearing that sent a powerful, unspoken message: if she thought her body wasn’t good enough, what did that mean about mine?
Those messages impacted me more than I could ever have imagined. Those words and behaviors became the soundtrack in the background of my life, shaping how I looked at myself in the mirror and how I measured my worth. I internalized the belief that my body was a problem to fix, not something to care for. And because that messaging came from the people closest to me, it felt less like opinion and more like truth.
Now I’m a mom to a daughter, and I refuse to pass that mindset on to her.
The truth is, I’m overweight now. I live in a body that doesn’t always feel easy to love, and I struggle with how I look and how I feel. But even though those thoughts arise, I try my hardest to keep that inner dialogue to myself because she’s watching and she’s listening. The way I speak about myself, as a mother, will shape how she sees herself. I refuse to be part of the reason my daughter would hate the body that grew inside of me.
I want my daughter to love herself. She deserves to grow up feeling beautiful no matter her size. She deserves to know that her worth isn’t measured by a number on the scale or by her pant size. I didn’t have that, and I desperately want it for her.
Am I perfect at it? Of course not. Are there days when I slip and make a comment about my body? Yes. I’m still unlearning years of negative self-talk. But every time I choose silence over self-criticism, every time I swap self-judgment for self-kindness, I take a step toward healing, both for me and for her. These small, intentional choices are my rebellion against a lifetime of shame. Because my daughter deserves better and, after all these years, so do I.