We’re the real yummy mummies!
Wobbly bits, stretch marks and all – the mums fighting back against the tyranny of body perfection
Cradling her newborn baby daughter Molly in her arms, Krystel Perez reflected on the enormity of the changes to her life.
She expected sleepless nights, of course, and the fact that from now on this tiny human being would be at the heart of everything she did, a prospect both overwhelming and exhilarating.
One thing she didn’t expect, however, were the changes to her body. as someone who had always eaten healthily and been very fit, she assumed she would quickly revert to her slim pre-pregnancy size 6/8 figure, just as celebrity mums always seem to do.
Fast forward six months, however, and the 33-year- old is still wearing her maternity jeans. With Molly perched on her hip, she pats her once taut ‘jelly belly’ and describes how her ‘muffin top’ wobbles when she’s in her underwear. Far from feeling embarrassed about these physical souvenirs of motherhood, Krystel, a buyer for a printing company, is determined to be proud.
‘i’m definitely more confident in my skin — and i love my bigger boobs,’ she says. ‘i’m eating healthily and i’m walking everywhere, but i accept that there are some things that you can’t change no matter how much you work out. i’m so much happier now i’ve realised it’s unrealistic to expect to have the same body you did before you had a baby.’
Krystel joins a growing band of mothers who are finding it empowering to share pictures online that rejoice in their post-birth wobbles, stretch marks and scars.
dubbed the ‘mum bod’ movement, in a nod to the recent ‘dad bod’ phenomenon that celebrated the less-than-perfect bodies of men over 30, the aim is to bust the yummy-mummy myth for good — and now celebrities are also joining the backlash.
Presenter davina McCall recently shared pictures of her wrinkly tum on instagram to encourage women to accept their flaws. after three children, she likens her stomach to a wrinkly shar pei puppy.
Just this week, during her royal tour of Poland, the duchess of Cambridge was given a t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan ‘i’mperfect’, by a company that encourages mothers not to feel they have to be flawless.
Online clothing giant aSOS, meanwhile, has been praised for its recent decision not to airbrush out models’ stretchmarks in swimwear shoots. these are positive steps for mums, says Jane Ogden, professor in health psychology at the university of Surrey.
‘this shift in normality makes it easier for people to accept who they are,’ she says. ‘ Women are then happier to celebrate the changes to their body as a positive thing.’
But the pervasiveness of the yummy-mummy ideal means it’s an acceptance many women still struggle to achieve. a survey for one baby magazine found 72 per cent of new mothers are unhappy with their bodies, and more than 60 per cent would have plastic surgery if they could afford it.
Krystel, who lives with her partner Ben dale, 35, in Ealing, West london, admits she didn’t immediately appreciate her postbirth figure. ‘When pregnant, the message from friends and social media was that my body would “bounce back” into shape and i assumed six weeks after giving birth i’d be back in my pre-pregnancy jeans,’ she wryly observes.
‘When Molly was 12 weeks, i distinctly remember the sense of dismay when i looked in the mirror and realised that actually my body hadn’t bounced back.’
Sophie daniels, 30, also admits she ‘instantly hated’ her body after her first baby was born. She’s now mum to three sons Kian, 12, Colby, ten, and theodore, 11 months, and lives in northampton with her husband tim, 32, who works in investment banking.
‘i couldn’t come to terms with the fact that the stretch marks on my hips and tummy were permanent, like tiger stripes,’ she says.
‘i religiously rubbed in olive oil and lavender essential oil to try to get rid of them. But while they faded, they were still so visible and for years i wouldn’t wear a bikini.’
Her attitude started to change after theodore was born.
‘i saw online posts from other women showing photos of their post- birth bodies and finally grasped that i was perfectly normal,’ Sophie says. She then bought a black halter neck bikini and matching bottoms for a holiday in Crete.
‘initially, i covered my tummy with a top, but eventually i realised that if you don’t worry about what you look like, then no one else is bothered. When we went to dubai earlier this year, i was in my bikini again.
‘ today, i subscribe to the philosophy that my children aren’t always well-behaved, yet i still love them, so why shouldn’t i have the same attitude about my body?’
the pressure to have the perfect body can be tied up with the fact many middle- class women struggle to come to terms with
motherhood. Wanting control over their figures is often symptomatic of a wider desire to regain control. ‘There’s often a sense of chaos post birth,’ says Professor Ogden. ‘I remember my health visitor telling me it was the women working in demanding professional roles who needed her the most.
‘These are women who’ve always been able to control their lives, up until having children. But they are often the very people who struggle as it’s all taken away.’
Sophie Daniels agrees: ‘After my first pregnancy, I lost my sense of identity. I couldn’t wear my pre-birth clothes and I’d lost the figure I used to have, too.’
The origins of the yummymummy ideal can be traced back to Demi Moore’s 1991 Vanity Fair cover, in which she posed nude, sexy and defiant at seven months pregnant with her second child.
Before that, expectant mothers’ bodies were hidden away under maternity smocks and initially the actress was praised for showing the voluptuous curves of pregnancy were beautiful, not shocking.
A string of high-profile women followed suit with similar shoots, including Cindy Crawford, Natalie Portman and Claudia Schiffer. But apart from their curvaceous bumps, the bodies of these women remained slim and toned.
Models like Heidi Klum continued the trend for glamorising motherhood by modelling lingerie on the catwalk just weeks after giving birth. But instead of empowering women, images like these fed into a culture that made many women feel inadequate and anxious about their own bodies, say those who work with new mums.
‘The media portrays mums in a certain way when, in reality, things are not like that,’ says Janet Fyle, of the Royal College of Midwives.
‘Mums should have an understanding that having a baby is not just one-off event and then you go back to wearing your jeans.
‘We need to shift the focus away from how mums look. We should be focusing on mothers being healthy — physically and mentally — as these issues contribute to how they feel about themselves.’
Mum Saira easton, 34, believes that part of the problem has been that new mums don’t talk enough about their bodies to one another. Married to lawyer Alan, 36, she runs a yoga and coaching business and they live in enfield, North London, with their ten-and-a-half month-old baby Aisha.
‘It is hard for women to accept their post-pregnancy bodies,’ she says. As a yoga teacher, Saira had been a lithe and toned size 8, but pregnancy caused her to crave croissants and chocolate instead of her usual healthy organic food and she put on three-and-a-half stone. ‘I thought it would instantly fall off and it didn’t. When my daughter was born I was surprised to find I was a size 14.’
Having taken up yoga and running again she’s now a size 10, but Saira admits: ‘I’ve had to go through a lot of “acceptance” in realising I won’t be toned around my waist any more.
‘Instead, I have a muffin top that just won’t shift. But any time I worry, I look at Aisha and remind myself that my body made her. She is utterly worth having a few stretch marks and wobbling bits for!’ Three years ago, a government report highlighted the pressure new mothers feel under to lose weight after birth and how negative feelings can be unconsciously transmitted to children. Charlotte Harris, 40, is a full-time mum from Cheltenham with three children: George, 11, Grace, eight, and Rose, six months.
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says she’s decided to accept her mum body, in particular her ‘ bigger, wobblier tummy’ because she doesn’t want her children to grow up with any body issues.
‘I looked at the body positive movement online and realised that mums have a massive impact on how children — especially daughters — feel about themselves.’
Having more natural images reflected back at you is vital if you want to maintain a healthy perspective, says Professor Ogden.
‘It’s about validation and affirmation and if comparing yourself makes you feel better because there are people who look like you, then that’s great.’
Research also suggests that appreciating your body for what it can do for you rather than what it looks like is important to finding body acceptance.
For Fiona Brown — mother to Seth, three, and Zachariah, one — the scars of childbirth are literally that — a five-and-a-half inch scar which circles up her right side, a legacy of her second birth.
‘ I had a difficult labour and needed an emergency Caesarean section,’ says Fiona, 37, who is married to Phil, 34, an operations manager and lives in Shoebury, essex.
‘While incisions are usually made horizontally just below the bikini line, mine had to be done where my baby got stuck.
‘The recovery was difficult and for weeks all I could see in the mirror was the scar. It took me time to accept that my tummy looked different and it would never be toned again because they had to cut through the muscle.
‘Gradually, I was able to remind myself that the scar saved both of us and that’s all that matters.’
But it’s Krystel who sums up the new anti-yummy mummy mood best of all: ‘My body is gloriously imperfect and that’s a message I want to give to my daughter, too. Perfection is an illusion.’