From global to local the news is hyper-focused on all things pandemic right now. When this is over, and eventually it will be, by design we’ll go back to our regular doses of human behaviour made possible by our need for comfort and individualism.

Meanwhile after heaps of socio-economic deprivation and loss of life, I ask myself will our various global societies and sub-cultures within cultures finally learn to value what truly matters most to humans in general? I’m of course making the assumption you’ll agree with me on what counts here. Will we finally start treating each other and the planet with larger helpings of respect, slathered over with additional toppings of taking a walk in “someone else’s shoes” more often?

I hope I do. I keep hearing there will be a new normal, but what will come of old norms? They surely won’t disappear as fast as the coronavirus rudely appeared. It takes 21 days to break a habit and 90 days to maintain that progress in order for it to be considered a successful breakaway.

Humans are creatures of habit. Despite the establishment of new norms for short-term survival, our former norms including those bad habits left unchecked, will remain unchecked. With any luck they’ll make a blip on the radar as something to change once we’re up for it. When we can no longer come up with excuses not to change and are left with a nagging sense that “it’s time”, only then are we likely to finally take action towards mindful improvements.

I don’t know about you, but that’s how I operate. I need to make those unhealthy decisions a few times over before I can spot the patterns. Even once spotted it’s not until I’ve acknowledged my poor actions and behaviours that I can devise a plan to advance in the direction of self-improvement.

Pandemic or not, I’m not fooling myself. There will be unwanted habits for me to deal with after a vaccination is released and I’m inoculated from this coronavirus that’s got “life” on hold more or less.

Passing bad habits on 

Care of my daughter on COVID-19 Mother’s Day, it was made plainly obvious to me what my next critical bad habit is to break. She’s reached the intensely impressionable age of thirteen. She’s also keenly aware of my obsession with bodybuilding and fitness now that I’m prepping for my second competition.

My daughter is a tall drink of water with legs up-to-here, and I’m ashamed to admit I’ve silently envied her body type since before she was in pre-school. This admiration has been a source of internal shame because I knew I was wrongfully placing value on my own child’s body type even if it was only secret insider-thoughts. Self: “Don’t make it a thing. And DO NOT make her aware of it! Lucky her though – that will take her far!” 

In her first days of life, she came out so skinny I was terrified I’d done something wrong in utero despite my so-called perfect eating to gain a proper baby-carrying weight. Turns out I did nothing wrong, except according to the OBGYN assigned to my difficult delivery I “gained too much weight”. Fifty-five pounds to be exact.

I soared up to 200 lbs on the scale by the week of her birth and was re-assured by my mid-wives I would slowly lose the excess weight in reverse once breast-feeding took hold. I did slowly lose some of the postpartum pudge over time but that didn’t change the message I received loud and clear from the man who cut me open to pull her out: I was too heavy for a pregnant lady.

How was this insensitive medical practitioner about to deliver my newborn to know that I was once-upon-a-time an anorexic girl? I wanted him to crawl into a hole and die, but only after delivering my infant.

Being once a thirteen-year-old who felt she had to starve herself in order to be anyone of value to anyone, two decades after the fact it didn’t take a surgeon to figure out that talking about my weight was still a trigger for me. Weight gain on its own, baby or not, made me feel unworthy.

Fat shaming

As with domestic-violence, body shaming survives through cycles passed down by generations. When I was young and my own divorced single-mother felt abandoned, she badgered herself in front of me shouting “Look at these jiggly thighs! No wonder no man wants me!”.

My other untold shame is that the fear of weight gain for a possible second time is one of the main reasons our small family has just the one child. It wasn’t because I couldn’t get pregnant. I refused to “get fat again” for fear I would repeat the destructive tendency to rake myself over the coals.

Anorexia or any breed of body dysmorphia is tragic for a young girl to live through. Eating next to nothing while convincing an aching belly “This pain is good for you.”; “Eat any more and no one will love you.”; (warning: EXPLICIT) “You’re such a fat fucking waste of skin, stop eating!” I was terrified this evil inner demon would return to me as an adult if I was to get pregnant again.

How devastating that someone bullied me like that at thirteen. But it WAS me. Even after losing 30 lbs. too fast and obsessing at my local fitness centre after school I looked in the mirror and made obscenely vehement comments to the object of my disgust, simply because my body didn’t fit the ideal of the magazines of the day.  I wouldn’t let anyone talk to my daughter the way I once talked to myself, or my mother to herself.

Yet somehow, despite trying so hard to not make her body type a “thing”, this Mother’s Day I learned my own thirteen-year-old beauty is acutely aware of what it means to idealize a body type. Not because she doesn’t love her own! It’s her friends. She tells me they’re envious of her body. “This one” thinks her own hips are too wide. “That one” thinks her own thighs are too thick. They aspire to achieve some elusive thigh gap goals, and they claim my daughter’s legs are “perfect”.

False ideals

Being the confidante she is, my young teen only expressed this concern to me in private. With the opportunity presented, I reminded her about what I call “false-ideals”. I reminded her of conversations past that “No body, and nobody, is perfect. There is no such thing. Girl X is beautiful and Girl Y is equally so. As are YOU! You’re just all different. It’s how we’re made.” She said she knows this and tried this approach on her friends, but it fell on deaf ears.

I expressed disappointment in hearing that this thigh-gap crap I aspired to have as a teen in the late 80’s and early 90’s was still alive and well. How is this even possible? When will society stop telling young ladies that any body type has significance whatsoever on our state of wellbeing, or our success?

I could have sworn this changed since I was thirteen. I’ve watched enough kid shows in the late 2000’s with my girl, and enough Netflix since its inception to witness a movement towards celebrating diversity in body types. Even Instagram and Tik Tok influencers seem more diverse in range. I thought things would be different for my own teenager than they were for me. Not much has changed.

It starts with me

I’d love to say this has nothing to do with my own habits and that somehow I’ve lost the plot of my own post, but my daughter’s friend’s world-view of their own bodies has plenty to do with me. I must accept my own role in this and not simply blame the media and society. True, I’m one of many, but it starts with me.

No matter how much more I value those who are precious to me in these pandemic-days, and no matter how much more I value myself on the inside, it’s divinely clear I have much work to accomplish to break the habit of talking about my external appearance. Especially when in front of my daughter and her friends (once physical distancing ends).

By attaching too much value to my physical conditioning and bodybuilding prep, I’ve unintentionally sent the message of its extreme importance to impressionable young minds. As I prepare for my next fitness show I need to strike a balance between being obsessed with the art and science of bodybuilding and nutrition while remaining indifferent to the outcomes of the work I put in.

It’s not going to be easy, but I’m ready to carry the weight of this burden so that young ladies who inherit the future can stop walking around in the tired old “false ideal” shoes from generations past.

By Penny Greening

• Masters Figure and Fit Body athlete, WNBF Canada
• Planning committee member for National Health & Fitness Day 2020