EXCLUSIVE Women are being brainwashed - author and anorexia survivor Megan Jayne Crabbe challenges diet culture and beauty standards in candid Mail podcast
Megan, 31, is a social media star known online as Bodyposipanda, an anorexia survivor and anti-diet enthusiast who advocates for fat acceptance and body positivity.
She's the author of the bestselling book Body Positive Power, which has taught thousands of people how to stop dieting and make peace with their bodies.
Speaking to Mail columnist Bryony Gordon, Megan criticised the relentless pressure on women to lose weight, constantly shave and wear makeup to satisfy the male gaze.
'Everything I watched when I was young presented this one incredibly narrow vision of beauty', the author said.
'You had to be thin, white, able-bodied, cisgender, young and straight – that was the beauty standard.
'For the majority of my young life, I believed reaching that standard wasn't even an option.
'I am mixed race, I was chubby as a child, I was never going to turn into Rachel Green from Friends – but in my head, it felt like the only option.'
Born in the 'fatphobic' mid-nineties, Megan revealed she began experiencing body hatred as early as age five.
During her teens, these feelings escalated into an eating disorder so severe she needed treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
'My body image issues started from the first day of primary school', Megan told the podcast.
'I thought there was something wrong with me because I looked different. I latched onto dieting as a way of solving the problem.
'By age ten, I was consistently trying to lose weight. That spiralled over the next few years and developed into anorexia nervosa.
'I am very lucky to be sat here right now. I was hospitalised and had to spend time in a psychiatric institution for young people.
'Recovery was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. When your weight has been restored – people tell you you're fine.
'But then you go back into a world where disordered eating is everywhere and so normalised. Everyone's tracking calories, body shaming themselves and obsessed with how much they weigh in the morning.
'It's a complete minefield – trying to recover within such a diet-obsessed society.'
Megan's new book, We Don't Make Ourselves Smaller Here, expands beyond body positivity to explore female sexual empowerment and beauty standards.
The issue of shaving features prominently throughout the collection of essays, with the influencer asking her audience to examine where women's urge to remove body hair actually comes from.
'Like all women and girls, I was taught that body hair was disgusting', Megan began.
'I believed it was unhygienic, unfeminine and that you must shave it. There was a point during lockdown where I hadn't been as diligent with shaving, and I realised that I didn't want to do it anymore.
'I asked myself: who am I doing this for? The reason why women feel the way they do about body hair is very similar to the reason they feel the way they do about thinness.
'There are huge amounts of money, massive industries that have successfully brainwashed all of us into thinking that we must be hairless to be beautiful.'
Megan explained that building body positivity and confidence begins with small, everyday practices of self-care that help 'rewire your brain'.
She also encouraged women to reject the various manifestations of diet culture, from the recent Ozempic craze to wellness fads.
The author advised: 'Start with something simple – sit in your bedroom and look at yourself naked. Challenge yourself not to zoom in on all the things we have been conditioned to see as flaws.
'Do not make a mental list: notice when that negative self-talk pops up and try to redirect it.
'This takes practice – I did not flip a switch one day and become the most confident person on the internet. I started by challenging myself to wear shorts at home and not be disgusted with myself.
'You have to decide once and for all that your body is not a trend. It doesn't matter what is in or what is being sold, we all deserve to just exist in whatever variation and diversity we exist in.'
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