I truly believe that all bodies are good, and never more so than now, at the age of 47. All bodies are wonderful; endlessly astonishing, fascinating and beautiful. All bodies, except, apparently, my own.
Recently, I was on the beach in my most colourful swimsuit, my husband taking photos. I tried to stay relaxed when the lens pointed my way; I’m aware that my daughter is of an age where she’s vulnerable to the kinds of bodily insecurities that plagued me coming of age in the 90s and early 2000s, in the era of Heat magazine and circled cellulite.
My daughter lives in a world where plastic surgery and tweakments have been normalised, and where the images she sees have been filtered and photoshopped as a matter of routine. With the advent of AI, many of the bodies she’ll hold in comparison to her own won’t even be human.
Shorts
I know all of this. And yet, when I looked at photos of myself that night, I cried.
