9781626569768

partially-bald head would never be the default and by extension never
normal. In our society, normal is the pathway to worthy and beautiful.
Body-Shame Origin Stories
If I asked you to recall your first memory of body shame, it is likely that
your story, like Keisha’s, would have at least one of the following elements:
• Developed in your youth
• Was a response to rapid or unexpected body change
• Occurred when you became aware of difference
• Led you to assume there was some “should” about your body
• Was reflected or reinforced by familial, social, cultural, and political
messaging
• Was attached to a story or belief about your value and worth in the
world
Having travelled the country and listened to thousands of body-shame
stories, I observed patterns that elucidated how our indoctrination into body
shame shares some key characteristics. For many of us, our first shame
memories occur before we even enter our teenage years. It is unsurprising
that early on we internalize these negative messages. Being young and
particularly impressionable, we take cues from the external world about
who we are and who we should be. In childhood, when we are highly
impressionable and in the infancy of developing a sense of individuation
and identity, it is no surprise that the earliest seeds of body shame might
begin to take root. A Yahoo Health survey of 1,993 teen and adult
respondents found that the average age of body-shame consciousness was
between thirteen and fourteen. Additionally, it found that respondents were
experiencing body shame at increasingly younger ages, some beginning at
nine and ten. 1 In the workshops on radical self-love offered by The Body Is
Not an Apology, participants are asked to share their earliest memories of
body shame. 2 Here are some responses:
I was around seven years old and a little boy in school, named James, called me fat. I think
that was when I started dieting.
-KATHLEEN