Body Image, Food and Mental Health
On the evening of World Mental Health Day, I attended a panel discussion on Body Image, Food and Mental Health in the intimate setting of the Zion Café in Bishopsworth, Bristol. The event, hosted by Freedom of Mind, discussed issues surrounding body positivity, diets and social media from the personal accounts of the six panellists. This included four women; one plus-sized model, three who had dealt with eating disorders and one who had suffered from post-natal depression and owns a swimwear brand in Bristol and one male comedian who had anorexia aged 17. What they lacked in professional knowledge, was made up for in the passionate, emotive debates enacted between them.
A large proportion of the conversation focused on ‘body positivity’ – a movement originally curated by larger women of colour, but which more recently has been usurped by the models and personal trainers of Instagram. This topic prompted a dynamic debate in which two of the panellists stressed their belief that white, ‘normal’ sized women should not be at the forefront of the movement towards more inclusivity in the media and magazines. While I largely agreed with their view that it should be minorities to headline the activism - those who are not usually seen on the front covers and in advertising campaigns - two of the women were especially forceful in their opinions and were quick to shut down counter-arguments suggested by the male comedian. For me, this made the discussion slightly awkward and it felt less of a safe space for anyone to voice their views. It felt more like a panel largely bred from the Instagram sphere, obsessed with using the correct terminology, but less willing to understand that not everyone understands the nuances of the debates surrounding body image and social media.
I found the frank disregard of all panellists against diets refreshing. They spoke from personal experience to emphasise that diets don’t work and that they instead usually result in being even more detrimental to your physical and, ultimately, mental health. But their firm belief that losing weight can’t make you happy emphasised the extremely personal and difficult backgrounds four of the panellists had with food. They failed to acknowledge the importance of active, healthy lifestyles and made no consideration for the health implications of being overweight, and for the most part I found this largely one-sided and problematic. However, I felt that their arguments describing discrimination against people who are ‘fat’ as the main lasting form of discrimination that society deems acceptable, persuasive and interesting as a view I had not considered before.
Most notable for me was the age of the four panellists who had suffered from eating disorders. They were no older than in their mid-twenties and all had already recovered, or were in recovery, from mental health problems associated with food. This reiterated my belief that so many mental health issues begin in teenage years, aren’t helped and then are often exacerbated when people go to university and off into the world. The panellists were good at encouraging the movement towards everyone recognising that mental health is as important as physical health and promoting opening the conversation within society.