This piece is an excerpt from Ambivalent at Best, a longer memoir work. Every summer my family and I spent time in the Alaskan wilderness, living in a cabin my father had built in the 1970s, which we improved and amended over the course of about six summers. The first summer there I was nine…
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things I learned in a Whistler winter I was twenty-three when I moved to Whistler in British Columbia, Canada. I moved on little more than a whim and a vague sense of the urgency to change what had become dangerously apathetic circumstances. My younger brothers had both spent time in that part of the…
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‘I started daydreaming about a world with different beauty ideals from our own’, says film maker Tessa Musket about her 2012 film Fatland — the story of a world where it’s cool to be fat. Fatland follows the life of Phoebe, a 19 year old girl who suffers from a disorder that prevents her from…
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How do we grow into our beautiful bodies when we don’t see real portrayals of them around us? A Beautiful Body Project uses photography and book-making to celebrate women who have bodies and stories and all things that maintain their beauty as they change. This week we spoke to Jade Beall, founder of the A…
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**Trigger warning: Discussion of eating disorders** (middle school) The tiles were cold against my skin. In the pitch-black of the night, in our tiny box of a bathroom, I sprawled out. The scratchy blue rug – the old one my father had been begging my mother to throw away for years – acted as my…
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In September 2010, Abby Holt began working for Westpac as implementation manager. Within weeks, she was being subjected to bullying by team leader Emily Lowson. Holt, who weighed about 53 kilograms at the time of her employment, claims that Lowson referred to her as a ‘Breatharian,’ because she rarely ate at work. Lowson also…
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For the sake of this article, I’m just going to assume that you’re a feminist. You may not be, and I guess that’s your call, but just put yourself in my shoes for a moment anyway. The other day, I ordered a new pair of jeans from an online store. I was pretty excited, as…
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To add a healthy dollop of guilt to our days, women are now being told we’re responsible for other women’s body image issues, maybe even their eating disorders. This week, researchers at the University of Notre Dame’s Body Image and Eating Disorder Lab revealed just how distasteful women are who dare to share their insecurities…
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Disney has announced a new Princess: Merida from Pixar’s Brave. They’ve given her a makeover to celebrate the promotion, and many of her fans believe the company has robbed the character of her very being. Their anger has led to a petition with more than 93,000 signatories. When Pixar and Disney released Brave in…
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Very few things get talked about more than ‘self-esteem’, or rather, the lack thereof. And after many news articles and prime-time television special reports, we are all very aware of the fact that when it comes to their looks, the majority of women (and men, I might add) are not feeling all that impressed…
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The pursuit of the ‘perfect’ body is not something new; one only needs to look at Classical Greek sculpture to realise that. And the idea that this kind of body exists and is attainable – if only we stick to the right diet – is a dangerous myth. Every week, it seems, a new diet…
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Hey body, It’s time for us to talk about your little renovations. I know you’re 25 now, and you’re thinking about settling down, but I’ve got a bone to pick with you. You’re too big for all of my clothes. I guess we could call this “retaliation”. I put you through a pretty hectic summer….
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This is an article that I have been wanting to write for a long time, but have never known how to go about it. It was originally sparked by the fat acceptance movement – a movement designed to encourage acceptance of ALL body shapes. It is, for obvious reasons, a movement that I am strongly…
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‘Dear fingernails…I’m sorry it took me so long to realise your cracks and peels were beautiful and alive. I’m still coming to realise that my cracks and imperfections are beautiful, too.’ This is an excerpt from Attention: People with Body Parts, a collection of words offered by various contributors to the project, now published in…
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