It’s the end of term! And not only does that mean that we’ve made it through this varying year, but also that this is the last big GUFAB newsletter! Truthfully, I can see another final final newsletter on the horizon because there were seven last semester and this is only the sixth one and y’all know I need that sweet symmetry. Also, who am I without a GUFAB newsletter I need to write knocking around in the back of my mind? No one. So, in order to maintain my sense of self I’m predicting that sometime around the sweet spot of revision week, a wildcard newsletter will be making its way into your inbox. So, keep your eyes peeled for that and if you have any end-of-the-year thoughts or things looking forward to the future of GUFAB, feel free to send them to gufabpositivitysoc@gmail.com.
GUFAB committee positions! I’m unsure when we’ll be hosting our AGM and arranging all the committee positions but everyone but little old me is graduating (although legend and co-founder Maddy is coming back from Portugal thank god) so we need you! If you: are interested in what GUFAB have to say; want to help us continue promoting positive relationships with food and our bodies; or have some ideas for what this society could be, please think about becoming part of the committee!
This newsletter includes a reflection on the problematic ideal of ‘health’, several pieces on the impact of health on relationships with food and bodies from The LUNA Project, an IBS confession, and a book review!
Health: A False Ideal
Content warning: discussions of diet culture and fatphobia
Our relationships with food and our bodies intersect with our health in a number of key ways. The justification for diet culture is often that it is beneficial to our health - that restrictive eating is necessary in order to maintain a certain kind of ideal wellbeing. While overlooking mental health completely, this perpetuates fatphobic ideas of what health is, and is inherently limited in it’s understanding. On top of this, our health affects the way we feel about food and our bodies. Health and how our bodies feel can affect all manner of things in our relationship with the food we eat and the bodies we’re in. So, this newsletter deals with two ideas of health. One being a superficial ideal which is used to coerce us into certain behaviours or make us feel guilty. The other being something that we can feel, grounded in our real experience. This makes dismissing unhelpful ideas about health and food and our bodies tricky, as it can be hard to distinguish these two conceptions of health.
It makes sense to want to maintain our health. We feel good, we feel capable, and we can go about our lives. What doesn’t make sense is to hold ourselves to arbitrary standards which supposedly indicate health, such as thinness. Thinness as automatically equated with health is both fatphobic and overlooks the many unhealthy practices that you can practice alongside being slim. Claims of aiming for health, supporting health, or encouraging health too often act as a crutch to justifying attitudes which are actually just fatphobic, or which are narrowly concerned with skinniness over all else.
The fixation with ‘thinness’ masquerading as concern for ‘health’ can be hard to distinguish and separate, even in our own minds. Disentangling our internal aims from internalised diet culture is a difficult feat, and we shouldn’t punish ourselves for struggling to do this. That said, it’s important to address these attitudes once we’ve identified them. But how do we begin to go about this?
What does health even feel like? Perhaps I’ve been living in an ‘unhealthy’ haze for too long, but I have no idea. How are we supposed to aim for health? Health is not a neutral term - it comes with many standards and expectations. It’s easy to see how getting healthy may become aligned with superficial aims, such as that of thinness.
So how do we begin to divorce our ideas of health from those of a fatphobic society? Firstly, recognising a complete idea of health that includes mental health and looks different for everybody is important. This also seems like a good point to say: mind your business. Circumstances where you should be commenting on what other people are eating are few are far between. Don’t validate your own flawed ideas of what health is by projecting these onto other people and verbalising them. Also, do what genuinely feels good. It can be difficult to reconnect with ourselves, but listening to what our bodies want and need - rather than what we’ve been told about health - is important. Navigating our relationship with food and our bodies is always likely to be complex, and this can make finding what works for you difficult. Whatever that is, chances are that it won’t be so simple as the simplistic narratives diet culture perpetuates.
Collaboration with The LUNA Project
For this newsletter we reached out to our friends over at The LUNA Project to see if any of their members would be interested in contributing. The LUNA Project is a charity run with the aim of supporting young people with chronic illnesses, disabilities and long-term health conditions. We’ve worked with them in the past - you can check out our collaborative resource on food and body positivity in the context of chronic illnesses and disability on their Instagram:
Plus, they did a whole body month in January where they shared some great perspectives on the interaction between disability and chronic illness and bodies. Check it out on their website: TheLunaProject.Org
Skeletal Bodies Normalised
by Amber Daw (she/her) from The Luna Project
Content Warning: malnourishment, weight loss, diet culture
It's 2021 and we're still glamourising malnourished bodies
The toxicity of diet culture; the online pandemic of our generation
Media perpetuating that small equals successful
Teens growing up believing that malnourished is beauty
Adults believing they need to shrink to succeed
I can tell you for certain this is not the case
For my malnourishment is not a choice
And it is far from pretty.
It's the weight loss, the hair loss, the bruises galore
It's the dry skin, sunken eyes and the cold feet
It's the breathlessness, dizziness, the tremors too
The discomfort and nausea and pitying looks
And all people can say is they'd kill to look like you...
You wouldn't not really if you had an insight
For this body right here is shaping my life.
Its doctors waiting before intervening even when it's well meaning
Crippling symptoms with no known cause
It's my GI system screaming at the slightest of sips
Framing food as the enemy as it passes my lips
But food is fuel you hear them say
You know this deep down but it's hard to believe
When every bite leads to an unrelenting agony for hours on end.
So you continue to try each and every day
One bite at a time
Heat pad pressed to your stomach
Knowing the forthcoming consequences of every meal.
“Skinny suits you” they say
“You look so good”
But boy I don’t feel it
And I know for a fact I look poorly, washed out and drained.
So your well meaning compliment is far from kind
It shows how distorted our image of “health” has become
Sick, skeletal bodies normalised
And that just adds to this hellish fight.
How does having food allergies affect your relationship with food
by Ayah Wafi (she/her)
My relationship with food is an odd one, I love food but food doesn’t love me back. In fact, food can potentially kill me or at least severely harm me, sending me into anaphylaxis. I have severe food allergies to tree nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, kiwi, lupin seeds and a variety of other seeds and Oral Allergy Syndrome to a variety of fruit and vegetables depending on the season (as well as asthma and eczema).
This makes eating particularly challenging at times. I have to double and triple check labels to make sure what I am eating is safe and even then, I get anxious. There have been times where I have eaten something I thought was safe and then within a few minutes developed an allergic reaction to an unknown trigger. I find it very difficult to trust what people tell me and I have to physically check for myself with regards to food labels.
I remember when a friend had bought back some dried dates from her travels, bearing in mind I love dates. She offered me some and after double checking the labels and feeling confident there were no allergens, I ate one. Within an hour my whole body had broken out into acute urticaria. It was so severe that my GP had to call in other GP’s to have a look and ended up telling me to go to A&E due to fear of delayed anaphylaxis. It took two and a half weeks for my skin to completely clear and many itchy and sleepless nights. It would be fair to say I have struggled to love dates since.
Even preparing food can sometimes be tricky. I cannot cut raw potatoes as this makes my hands swell and go very red although eating cooked potatoes is fine. Stress and anxiety can make me over eat and take risks like eating chocolate with a ‘may contain nuts’ label.
Being spontaneous is impossible as I always have to be planned and prepared. I definitely stick to what I know, which means I often miss out on the joy of trying new foods. Even eating some fruit or vegetables can be challenging with Oral Food Allergy Syndrome. Oral Food Allergy is affected by the pollen/season and this can make choosing what to add into my salad, for example, hard. Often, I avoid eating at social occasions where I feel unsafe and have even avoided eating at restaurants at friend’s birthdays because of not trusting the staff.
Having food allergies has made me more conscious of everything I am eating which can be good and bad. It allows me to understand what I am feeding my body meaning I eat food that my body thrives off of, but any mistake could potentially be fatal. I think having food allergies has made me aware of how to treat my body and be gentler with the way I treat myself and view things like my weight.
Finally, we’re pleased to be able to republish this piece of writing from The LUNA Project’s Blog. Check out the other great posts they have on there if you’re interested in learning more about the lives of young people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. Look out for their latest post from Ayah too!
Coming to terms with looking different because of an energy limiting condition
By Hannah (they/them)
Content warning: discussion of eating disorders
Being a recovered anorexic, my relationship with my body is complicated. When starting to recover, I compensated for eating by overexercising. That is until I couldn’t anymore due to an energy limiting condition. I fought it for a while, went to the gym through excruciating pain and pushed myself to do even a little exercise even when every minute felt like torture.
I made myself sicker, and eventually, I had to stop. Understandably, I gained weight and a lot of it quickly. Being on a range of medications and having a GI tract that prefers low fibre food, I find weight hard to maintain. Sometimes it goes up, and other times it goes down.
Initially, gaining weight was hard. It felt like losing part of myself. The fit, healthy, active self that was so much of my identity. I also just felt too big for my body, like the extra weight was hard to navigate in how it felt on me. But eventually, I learnt to accept my body: my stretch marks, cellulite, tummy and thighs.
I still have my bad days, my bad weeks. Those days when none of those pretty dresses fit or look flattering. Those days where everything feels tighter or I’m more bloated than usual and look 9 months pregnant. Those days where I wish I could restrict and exercise it all off without making myself sicker.
But I’ve come to learn there’s more to life than weight or shape and being that little bit overweight or on the higher end of a healthy BMI is nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, I’m much healthier heavier. I have more energy, and it gives my body that buffer if I do have a bad enough gastro flare to cause weight loss.
I’ve learnt weight and body shape isn’t so black and white. Our bodies all have their own setpoint ranges. Some of us naturally sit above or below the healthy ranges. I’m not lazy, nor am I greedy for having an extra layer of fat on me. I’m simply doing the best I can with a difficult situation. To get smaller, I’d have to restrict, which would likely cause a relapse of my anorexia or I’d have to self-inflict a gastro flare. Both of which aren’t healthy.
I’ve learnt true beauty comes from confidence within oneself. From a smile and authenticity. Not from a number on the scale, a clothes size or a bra size.
Learning to accept my sick, less functional, and larger body has been a process. It’s taken time, but if you’re reading this and struggling with your relationship with your body, you can too learn to accept it. Surrounding yourself with positive role models where possible and curating your social media feeds to minimise negative input from society definitely helps.
Just because your body is different now, it doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful.
Eating: a complicated process
Content warning: discussion of eating disorders, restrictive eating
Having a tumultuous relationship with food is difficult at the best of times. There are many things to consider - from if you feel able to eat certain foods to how you’ll feel mentally after you’ve eaten. Adding physical complications into this can only exacerbate the problem. Having a consumption related condition, a gastrointestinal disorder for example, can make eating increasingly complex.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal (GI) disorder. It’s often not all that serious, and lots of people don’t even realise they have it. If you’re a young woman and you go to the doctor describing digestive issues, it’s fairly likely that they’ll posit IBS as the cause. At least this was my experience. It’s also my experience that if you mention you’ve got IBS to a group of people, at least one of them will nod knowingly in commiseration. It might just be my ‘For You Page’, but digestive issue TikTok seems to be having a real moment. As a GI disorder, IBS is affected by the food we eat. Our digestive system is often the most obvious meeting-point of the food we eat and our health, and it’s where these things might begin to interact most immediately after eating.
The NHS advice for coping with IBS is to keep track of what you eat and to avoid certain foods. For anyone with a history of disordered eating, these are hardly the habits you want to actively seek out. Like any condition or broader health aim that is linked to our food consumption, it’s difficult to manage without slipping into potentially controlling or restrictive behaviours. Depending on the type of IBS you have, different medications are available. I was prescribed an anti-spasmodic medication, which basically just means something to stop my stomach going bonkers every time I ate. But, after the medication failed to mediate the worst spell of IBS I’ve ever had (Freshers Week 2018 what is UP), I stopped bothering to take it.
I feel like shitting is one of few taboos to remain in our time. Perhaps it’s the sheer functionality of it that embarasses us. Much like admitting you need to eat (and therefore admitting your human mortality) might have been the impolite practice of the past, chatting about crapping is the undesirable of the day. Maybe if I was a student in 2030 and not now, I’d have co-founded the GU Digestion And Poo Positivity Society, making this a very different newsletter. (As an aside from this aside, I honestly just keep this ridiculous stuff in the newsletter at this point so that as my flatmates read it over the next few days they can quote it back at me and we can laugh at how stupid it is). Anyhoo, the poo taboo has meant that my IBS mainly impacts my life because I am always anxious about needing to poo, whether it’s actually a valid concern or not. Lockdown life has actually been a blessing to me in some ways, as I’m never far from my favourite toilet (the one in my own flat which is inherently grotty and so isn’t vulnerable to being desecrated by my defecation). Now, to actually move on from this disaster paragraph…
How do I reconcile managing my IBS with not wanting to eat in a restricted way? I don’t! I’m lucky in that my IBS is not so bad as to make life impossible, although it can make me very anxious. Because of this, I just continue to do what I’ve always done and hope for the best. My unruly eating habits then mean that if I have a particularly bad IBS patch, I’m not sure whether I should feel guilty. Diet-culture food guilt finds it’s validation in foods which don’t agree with my digestive system, undoing the hard mental reprogramming lots of us have to do to divorce certain foods from labels of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. And the interconnectedness of food issues and IBS doesn’t end there, as some eating disorders may cause us to develop digestive issues. This can in turn make the increased consciousness necessary to cope with IBS even more troublesome.
Clearly, I have little to offer in the way of practical advice for maintaining a healthy relationship with food and your poor, vulnerable tummy. My strategy of ignoring things has worked decently well so far, but the likelihood may be that this won’t last. I suppose if you’re attempting to eat in a particular way for the sake of particular body processes, the key is to do so in a way that leaves you plenty of variety in one way or another and which doesn’t feel as if it’s depriving you. Any eating pattern which doesn’t do these things is likely to be unsustainable, both in how it affects you physically and mentally.
Review: Spoon-Fed: Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Food is Wrong by Tim Spector
A spectre is haunting conventional food science - it’s Tim Spector. In Spoon-Fed, Spector delves into the commonly-held (and commonly promoted) myths about food which are based in inaccurate science and funded by market stakeholders. And as much as I love a conspiracy, something about this book just didn’t sit right with me. For full transparency, I haven’t actually finished this book. In true any-time-of-the-year-that-isn’t-summer fashion, my reading capabilities haven’t been thriving lately. But I bought this book for this edition of the newsletter, and review it I will!
From what I could gather from the first 18 pages of this book (a pitiful readership attempt on my part), the main thrust of this book is based on the idea that food is processed by everyone’s bodies differently, and so nutritional advice is generally bogus. On the face of it, I like this point. Anything that discredits nutritional advice is a score in my book. Not because better ways of calculating what we’re eating exist, just because I think we should all be allowed to eat what we/our bodies/our minds want to eat. We don’t need the scientific discovery of the impact of the microbiome to reject the damaging constructions of dietary advice and calorie guidelines.
Tim also writes a lot (once again, in the first 18 pages) about widespread dietary-related health conditions. Somehow this sits uncomfortably with me. I don’t know if it’s because mental health is my priority or because I’m overly sensitive, but discussions of illnesses caused by diet make me a bit angry somehow. To Tim’s credit, he does emphasise that people’s health is in the state it is because of the way that food industries have normalised highly-processed, high-sugar foods, and doesn’t blame it on us for eating those things. The problem is, I love eating those things. I can recognise my privilege here as a slim person: me proclaiming my love for creme eggs is generally seen as a quirky trait rather than something which grants strangers the right to comment on my health.
To me, Tim Spector’s book has its uses. And those uses are in challenging people fixated on diet and health by using their own language and ideologies against them. For those of us that are looking to reject these conceptions of health entirely, it’s not so great. Perhaps I’m judging this book too harshly (for the last time, only 18 pages into it), and its merits will come later. If I get to the end of it, I’ll include a little note on my thoughts in the wildcard newsletter due in revision week. If you’ve read it (18 pages or more) and you’d like to share your thoughts, email gufabpositivitysoc@gmail.com - I’d love to hear them.
Bye folks!
Perhaps it’s because this newsletter is on a highly professionalised topic such as health, but it’s made me realise how unqualified I am to be platforming what are generally individually-held personal opinions of my own! That said, I am very appreciative to everyone that’s been reading them this whole time and I hope that there were some tidbits of helpful thinking, humour, or at the very least some great personal information about me to use to cause embarassment if we ever bump into each other. I hope everyone enjoys the time off before exams xx pls get in touch at gufabpositivitysoc@gmail.com with truly anything at all
This newsletter was edited by Thalia Grou (she/her), with contributions from Amber, Ayah, and Hannah from The LUNA Project.