A personal commentary, 15th July, 2020, aged 19.
Content Warnings: Body dysmorphia, eating struggles, calorie counting.
Cover Image depicts me, the writer, aged 19 around this time during a self-made project called 'Duality', a project commenting on the manipulation of body image and Photoshop within media. The project never got published due to body self consciousness.
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The human race has this obsessive, compulsive drive to reach and aspire towards what conforms within their societies into the term ‘complete perfection’. Often shaping our lives around such a term as we appear to develop tunnel vision in the desperation to become what our community would perceive as ‘perfect’. And we are no strangers to this apparent lifestyle of what I personally consider to be delusional ambition and frankly at times, capitalist, consumerist manipulation. This character has been a part of our collective natures for as long as history can remember.
Art within the Renaissance period looked to observe the beauty of the human form, celebrating works that depicted women standing in shells as if the Roman goddess Diana, with immaculately toned figures and lustrous locks of blonde hair as they gazed at their companions sporting chiselled facial features and similarly matching statures. The period itself saw the controversial age long debate blossom over whether the depiction of the naked form should be looked upon as shameful, or merely, appreciative and celebratory in its pronouncement of utter perfection – ‘imago dei’. Falling further back in time, we look to the Ancient Greek period – which arguably, influenced many of the Renaissance styles – that similarly looked towards the human form as a temple. Regarding well-built men with sharp features and a life-long supply of olive oil to be ‘the cream of the crop’ as they strived to be the toughest athlete – a prime focus to be the ‘image of the immortals’. Life celebrated physical beauty and athleticism, showering the acknowledgement of ‘perfect’ physical form through immaculate statues of partially naked immortals towering magnificently over the feeble members of humanity.
Don’t see this the wrong way. Both those periods of culture and art are personally my favourite – admittedly partially due to the very reason that both strike up the debate of the physical form and see through what we now would regard as sexualised and inappropriate, as a mere regard for the human figure and an appreciation for humanity’s creation by whatever Creator each culture’s belief held. Both forms of art strived to tackle the debate over the suitability of showing the naked form and normalising the idea of using the human figure within artwork. Whilst each period did have its subsequent negative aspects, they are two eras of art and culture I respect much due to this.
But this doesn’t negate my initial point. Both eras and many before as well as many after, strived to fight for complete perfection. We see it every day across social media, within news articles and advertising campaigns. We attend school and form an image in our mind of what is classed as ‘perfect’ because it is what the ‘cool kids’ look like, but you will never achieve. We spend hours gazing at celebrities and influencers because ‘their lives are just perfect’ and it’s something you could only ever dream about. When in reality, those ‘cool kids’ become pressured to perform the daily act of seeming ‘complete’ and ‘perfect’, shrugging off the stress and anxieties of life as they balance the pretence of an easy, popular life on their shoulders. Those celebrities and influencers are challenged by the bombardment of media daily, threatened to seem ‘perfect’ as only the slightest slip up could be considered a colossal damage to their careers. No matter what it seems, our lives are driven by the obsession with wanting to look and feel perfect, to see perfection and wish it upon those when we believe ourselves it is not something we can achieve.
Even now, sitting here on a mattress in my friend’s study room during lockdown, typing away because I had a sudden urge to create a commentary and forfeit my sleep schedule, I spent the last ten minutes before sitting down ensuring my teeth were a respectable colour, applying cream to my spots in the hope they would go down and searching the internet for ways to reduce black bags. I watch my weight despite it fluctuating under 45kg frequently, I count calories and tell myself it’s to ensure I have enough energy for my exercise, when in reality its to ensure I lose weight in my face, to appear slimmer, to have sharper facial features.
Without quite realising it, over the space of a few months, I have become obsessed with building muscle and owning abs, obsessed with exercising daily so I can burn the calories from food I have eaten the day before. I have to justify eating my meals, having snacks or drinking tea or alcohol. I constantly criticise the attitudes of my society that focus on the beg for complete ‘perfection’ and yet, here I am subconsciously creating an unrealistic goal of ‘perfection’ for myself that I will never be able to achieve. Even when writing these words, understanding my impossible challenge, I know it won’t stop.
The other week I was so focused on burning calories from a large dinner I had eaten the day before and not returning home before I had run over 7k, that I skipped breakfast and ran in 23 degree heat. The last 1k had little shade, I was tired and lightly rolled my ankle enough that I needed to walk the last 0.5k. This was enough to mean that as I reached home and finally ate something, I got bad heat stroke and my blood sugars plummeted. I was forced to cancel my plans for the day as I promptly threw up and spent the next few hours lying in the coolest room of the house, sipping flat coke and holding wet flannels to my forehead and neck. Waking up the next day my energy was completely drained. I was so scared of what had happened the day before that I convinced myself I would see a change.
Change my goal of complete perfection and strive to build muscle in a healthier way, eating enough calories and protein to give myself the strength I wished to obtain. I deleted my intermittent fasting app and changed my goal on my calorie tracker to ‘maintain weight’ rather than ‘lose weight’. But clearly the idea of perfection is so ingrained into every-day life, that it’s not as easy as that to lose sight of such a ridiculous, petty aim. Now, a week and a half later, I have just re-installed my fasting app and get panicked if I even reach up to ¾ of the amount of calories I need to merely maintain my weight. Even the slightest overeating, perhaps one or two many high-sugar doses or the smallest bump in my stomach and my brain screams that I am a failure.
Perfection is reiterated and envisioned so deeply within each of our demographics and societies that it is not a lifestyle that simply can be escaped from. It shapes and controls our lives to the point where we subconsciously veer towards yearning for such a state, even if we do not realise it. Perfection comes in many different forms – it’s such an abstract imagining that my idea of physical perfection could be wildly different from every other single reader’s, perhaps my own personal vision will be ridiculed by some as petty or seen as striving for very little as I create the wrong imagining within my mind. Whilst we are aware of such a travesty, while we fight and struggle to challenge the claims of required ‘perfection’, sparring against such a word with terms such as ‘uniqueness’ and ‘individualistic perception’, it is far more difficult to personally and subconsciously escape this obsession for ‘complete perfection’ and arguably, we never do.
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