Ugly Ducks & Tummy Tucks
This time of year is always challenging for my confidence. Sweater weather calls for hot chocolates, Christmas cookies, and comfort food, which generally also comes with guilt and insecurity.
I, along with most women, have a fraught relationship with my body image. In high school, I fell into problematic calorie counting. By the end of university, I had gained 20 pounds. There were times where I covered myself in saran wrap and coffee scrubs to eliminate cellulite. I distinctly remember a time where I drank litres of lemon and cayenne pepper-infused water as a form of detox.
This self-consciousness goes almost as far back as I can remember. As a young gymnast, the tight bodysuits gave me anxiety. Sometime in elementary school, I wrote a poem about cutting off my belly fat.
…That one’s dark.
My inner demons hyping me up for the holidays
With time I’ve been able to ease most of my inner criticisms. Today, I’m in the best shape of my life, exceedingly proud of my body, and dance in high heels and lingerie for fun.
In the back of my mind, I’m horrified that progress will go away. Deep down I’m still the same 11-year-old girl, pulling at my competition leotard, and scheming up the bleakest poetry you’ve ever heard about thigh jiggle.
In the age of body positivity, it feels like a confession to say I’m not happy with my appearance 100% of the time. It’s hard to unlearn the patterns of diet culture, and I’m not above having an “ideal weight.” Most women (and men) grew up understanding that they needed to look a certain way to be beautiful, and that internal mindset doesn’t evaporate with a #bodypositivity hashtag.
We need a full rewiring.
Science
Modern Day Fairy Tale
Speaking of large procedures…..
Recently I wrote about how Victoria’s Secret fed on body image issues of the early 2000s. The VS fashion show was a parade of emaciated bodies, many of which were created by extreme bouts of starvation and drugs.
While a main contributor to the problem, VS wasn’t alone in the shame game. One show that messed me up in particular was The Swan.
If you weren’t lucky enough to catch this in 2004, The Swan was a reality series that made over “ugly duckling” contestants with life-altering plastic surgery in preparation for a beauty pageant.
Honestly, it could the premise for the next big dystopian sci-fi novel. (Does anyone remember Uglies?)
The Swan ran for two seasons before getting cancelled, and you can still watch the highlights online. Even at the time, many critics thought it was a step too far. One article referred to the show as “equal parts aspirational and gore porn,” which perfectly highlights the damage it was causing. As a viewer, it was horrendous.
As a contestant, it was worse.
The show notoriously preyed on vulnerable women with intense self-esteem issues. Most were selected based on how many surgeries the doctors thought they could perform. I mean, is it really a transformation if you could only give them a nose job?
After being selected, the audience heard dreary testimonials about the women’s lives. For the most part, they felt ugly and outcast from society for their appearance. Rewatching, many looked like normal women you’d run into at the grocery store. In need of some confidence-boosting and self-esteem-based therapy? Absolutely. Multiple months of invasive cosmetic procedures? Probably not.
Contestants were then put in front of a panel of surgeons who would confirm that they were, indeed, hideous. Often, they drew all over their faces and half-naked bodies, pointing out flaws they may never have considered. It was straight-up public stoning of the final shreds of confidence these women had.
The rest of the show followed contestants through months of plastic surgery. None of the contestants had access to mirrors in an effort to maximize their reaction at the final reveal. And, I can only assume, to psychologically torture them throughout the process.
The worst part of the show is undoubtedly the competition element. Each episode chose a winner, telling the other woman that, despite months of painful surgery, they still weren’t beautiful enough to advance. The winners were then made to compete in the finalé beauty pageant from your worst nightmares. The contest included gown, swimsuit, and lingerie rounds before a Q&A to decide the winner.
Though the results were drastic, The Swan liked to pretend that it was focused on internal transformations more than the physical changes. Throughout the process, contestants saw ‘therapist’ Dr. Lynn Ianni. Unfortunately, Dr. Lynne only has a sketchy online certification, and the sessions were clearly built to drive content over legitimately helping the women.
One contestant, Lorrie Arias, has been vocal about her less-than-enchanting experience on the show. Ten years after her time on The Swan, Lorrie told HuffPost that she was depressed, bipolar, agoraphobic, and continues to suffer from body dysmorphic disorder.
‘I had the most surgeries of any Swan in the history of the show and it has all gone to absolute s***. I am a 300-pound mess of a person who is afraid to go outside.’
Not exactly the transformation the producers were hoping for.
On the show, Lorrie had around $300,000 worth of work done, including a tummy tuck, buttock lift, dual facelift, lower eye lift, endoscopic brow lift, rhinoplasty, and breast augmentation. During the reveal, she fully broke down. The cameras turned off, and she remembers screaming “I want my face back!” to the producers.
After the show, it didn’t get much better. Lorrie’s sons told her that she didn’t look like their mom anymore, and her newfound confidence was a flash in the pan. In her words,
"I thought a tummy tuck would give me all the self-esteem in the world. Of course, it didn't. All I want now is for my story to help others, so they won't think that going under the knife is a cure-all…everything still comes back up."
The Swan Frankensteined these women and abandoned them to navigate the transformations alone. It’s unbelievably exploitative content. The show was built on shock value at the expense of already insecure women. The moral of their story is that all ugly ducklings can develop into swans at the hands of the right surgeon.
A new nose isn’t going to fix years of insecurity, but, as an 11-year-old I didn’t get that. Instead, I watched the producers go on and on about the power of confidence found in physical change. In the end, they turned the contestants into carbon copies of each other, reinforcing the idea that there is one (and only one) way to be beautiful. Surgery, clearly, was the only way to get there.
No wonder we all have problems with our self-confidence.
Every influencer on my newsfeed
Toxic Positivity
We’re 17 years out from The Swan, and body positivity is on the rise. It’s a better climate for self-confidence, but a lot of the damage has already been done.
For years I bonded with women over what we disliked about our bodies. Like that scene in Mean Girls, we found comradery in wanting to change pieces of our appearance and asking if our outfits made us “look fat.” My university experience was a chorus of, “at least you have boobs,” and “I wish my hair looked like yours.” We constantly lifted each other up by tearing ourselves down
Advertisers preyed on these weaknesses more than anyone else. I’ve ordered shapewear, diet supplements, cellulite creams, hair growth serums, jade rollers... You name it, and I bought it because I felt shitty about something.
Today we’re expected to ignore everything but extreme positivity and self-love. Embrace the jiggle. Love your belly. Flaunt what you got. Yadda yadda yadda.
The result is me feeling doubly insecure: I still have parts of my body I’d like to change AND I feel guilty about it.
Toxic positivity is our new reality. We ignore and reject anything negative, which in theory sounds great. When you avoid unpleasant emotions, however, you unintentionally make them bigger. As Mr. Rogers says, what is mentionable, is manageable.
What isn’t slowly takes over.
It’s expected that we adore our bodies unconditionally. Stretch marks have become “tiger stripes,” belly rolls the new cute accessory. Every inch of ourselves that we once called an insecurity is being rebranded into a point of pride. There’s no longer room to complain about what you dislike without being told “stop being so hard on yourself” or “you’re perfect just the way you are.” Maybe I’m weak, but I’ll hate wearing shorts no matter how many times I read “I love my womanly thighs” in a caption.
Good for you babe, but these legs prefer pants… And damn, does it ever feel good to admit it.
Hilariously, the body positivity movement has created shame of its own. Big women are afraid to lose weight, less they are bullied for buying into diet culture. Lizzo was fully attacked for talking about a juice cleanse. Adele has gotten flack for her body transformation, as if it were her responsibility to be a spokesperson for curvy women forever.
In both cases, these women were branded as traitors for not loving their old bodies enough. The snake is fully eating itself at this point, no? If we’re really being positive, can they not exist without incessant online commentary?
On the other hand, plastic surgery has never been more widespread. In 2020 patients spent more than $9.3 billion on aesthetic procedures, and we applaud women for going under the knife however they see fit. The Kardashians have glamourized updating your body like a haircut, and seemingly there’s no excuse to not love the skin you’re in.
We’re in a weird stage of teenagers getting Botox and body-positive influencers screaming at us to love our flaws. Honestly, I don’t think I fit on either side of that coin.
To me, body positivity is about grace. You can have a bad body image day in the same way you can have a bad hair day. When we beat ourselves up for not being positive enough is when it becomes an issue.
To truly love yourself is a process - like any other relationship. Ignoring the parts of yourself you dislike or want to improve is denying the full experience. For example, I would love it if my husband cleaned out the sink after he shaved. I don't hate him because he doesn't.
Loving yourself is less about body positivity, and more about body acceptance. The goal is for your body to house a happy mind and heart, and you can have that whether or not you’re trying to lose weight, gain muscle, or not change anything at all.
