I Treated My Body Like Crap. My Values Were All Screwed Up.

What are your core values?

Your core values guide your beliefs and behaviors. They define what matters the most to you, what sort of person you want to be, and how you want to live your life.

If you’re unsure what your core values are, there are numerous resources online to help you figure them out.

Some of my core values are kindness, respect, integrity, trust and freedom.

Conditioned to Value Thinness
There was a long period in my life when my relationship with my body was not informed by my personal core values but rather by what our culture values, especially the thin ideal.

Like so many of us, I had been conditioned to value my appearance, especially my weight, above almost everything else and never stopped to question if this was what I truly valued.

When I was trying to shrink my body, my beliefs and behaviors were not grounded in kindness, respect, trust, integrity or freedom. 

I wasn’t treating my body with kindness or respect when I spoke harshly about it, when I underate and overexercised, when I denied it what it needed and wanted.

I wasn't acting with kindness or respect when I beat myself up for eating something "bad" and then punished my body by restricting and exercising more to make up for it.

Instead of trusting myself and my body, I put my trust in a toxic system that profits greatly off of body shame and lies about the results it claims to deliver.

Oppressing Myself and Others
I wasn’t prioritizing freedom when I gave my autonomy away to our oppressive diet culture and appearance ideals.

Although my desire was, understandably, to be accepted, by submitting to diet culture’s rules and trying to take up less space, I was contributing to my own oppression.

Regrettably, I was also contributing to the oppression of others as my fatphobic beliefs and behaviors were helping to uphold our weight-stigmatizing culture that discriminates against bodies that don't conform to a very narrow ideal instead of accepting, respecting and celebrating our natural diversity.

As I became imprisoned in a harmful system that operates with zero integrity, I felt my own integrity slipping away. Filled with shame, I began withdrawing, lying, sneaking and hiding.

Obsessed with my weight and what I ate, I lost connection with my true self and what truly mattered to me. I became someone else—someone I and those around me no longer recognized and frankly, didn’t really like. 

Realigning with My Values
A big part of my healing journey was realigning my relationship with my body with my values.

Focusing on my values helped me walk away from diet culture, reclaim my power and free myself from the body shame prison so many of us find ourselves in.

When I struggled with my body, I practiced responding according to my values.

Instead of trying to “fix” and manipulate my body, I stopped seeing it as a problem to solve and started trusting its wisdom and treating it with kindness and respect. 

Rather than fight or ignore it, I began honoring its needs and desires whether it was for food, rest, gentle movement or something else. 

Aligning with my values also helped me uproot my anti-fat bias, ultimately enabling me to change not only how I viewed my body, but all bodies.

I didn't do any of this without some fumbles and stumbles. I am human after all!

Nor have I reached a final destination; I don't think there is one. Values-based living is an ongoing, evolving practice, one I'm deeply committed to.

Compassion is Essential
One of my core values is also compassion, which is essential for the healing process. 

If your relationship with your body is out of sync with your core values, I encourage you to treat yourself with compassion.

From a very young age, most of us were programmed to put bodies on a hierarchy—​​​​​​​and to value bodies over beings.

It's never too late, however, to challenge these oppressive, dehumanizing social constructs and return to what truly matters the most to you.