Body positivity — I’m not 100pc there yet

IAM totally on board with body positivity — the movement that eschews the skinny hot dog legs and thigh gap shots that have become so pervasive (especially on Instagram) and instead triumphs the splendid scope and span of our bodies. And yet, despite the fact that I know it has done wonders for many men and women who have learned to love, or at least like, themselves a bit more because of it, I’ve not been able to apply it to my own body.

I think, I hope, things are a bit different for girls growing up now, but when I was an adolescent, it was very much the era of shaming women whose bodies weren’t emaciated — pictures of their cellulite were blown up, circled in red and slapped on the front of weekly magazines written by and for women.

That would not fly today. They would be boycotted and rinsed on social media and rightly so. I was raised in a house where the Weight Watchers points system was law and every week a group of my mum’s friends would arrive and they would car pool (known as the ‘fatty bus’) to their weekly weigh-ins. They would return elated (‘down three pounds!’) and tuck into their first meal of the day, or depressed (stayed the same/up 0.5lbs) and devour the contents of a biscuit tin. That’s just the way it was. Food was the enemy, something to feel guilty about, to ‘cheat’ with, giving into it was to fail, the only way to win was to get used to being hungry.

In the last two years, I have gained weight, but I have also learned to enjoy food, look forward to lunch, even dip my toe into cooking (not literally, that would be gross) and I hope I’m on the way to a much healthier understanding of what my body needs.

I’m not 100pc body positive, but I’m getting there.