The Intersection of Identity, Pregnancy, and Body Image
An Interview with A.R.
“Before my second pregnancy, I…found HAES and skipped dieting… I was much happier with my body, and breastfeeding was easier.” -A.R.
Trigger warning: This post has content related to pregnancy and fatphobia. There is a brief use of explicit language.
1. Describe the most important aspects of your identity in one to three sentences?
My identity is probably best summarized in a couple of words: pansexual, mother, and teacher.
2. With which of these descriptors do you identify? Please explain.
Age: Young, middle-aged, old, or other? Body Size: Thin, fat, or other? Race/Ethnicity: White, POC, or other? Sexual orientation: Asexual, demisexual, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, or other? Gender: Cisgender, transgender, agender, genderqueer, non-binary, or other? Ability: Able-bodied, disabled, or other? Eating Disorder Status: Struggling with an eating disorder, recovered from an eating disorder, never had an eating disorder, or other? Other ways in which society marginalizes (or does not marginalize) your body or identity.
I am a middle-aged, fat, white, pansexual, able-bodied, cisgender woman who has never had an eating disorder. I think I’m often marginalized as a woman.
3. For people who are not aware of pansexuality, can you describe what that means and how your identity as pansexual may lead you to experience the world differently than somebody with a different sexuality?
So I identified as bisexual for most of my life, but I changed as the terms changed. I don’t believe there are two genders (to me bisexual means two genders you could love). Pansexual means I am open to love from any gender. I think because I’m a mom it’s often assumed I am straight, so that is challenging — if I’m going to have a label, I want it to be the right one. My spouse is female but is often confused as a male, so we are often like looked at as a heterosexual couple when we get none of the benefits of being heterosexual.
Thus, in a spouse or partner I look for connection and commonality first and don’t really care too much about gender.
4. In what ways have you experienced marginalization as a woman?
The ways that people have marginalized me as a woman most often have to do with knowledge and experience. It’s often assumed that I don’t know what I am talking about, most often by cis, hetero white men. I’m also often treated by that same group as though I am just a body, and since it’s not a body that most of them want, I am insignificant to them.
5. What was your relationship to food and your body like growing up?
Food was sometimes scarce growing up. My mom struggled to keep enough food for me and my siblings. Neither one of my parents knew how to cook, so we relied on eating out a lot. Thus, my relationship with food wasn’t particularly positive growing up, but it made me teach myself how to cook.
6. How has being pregnant affected your relationship with food, your body, and your body image?
I liked my body the most while I was pregnant. It’s just sort of amazing what it can do. With my first pregnancy, I tried to diet fairly soon postpartum and found a lot of dissatisfaction there. Before my second pregnancy, I had found HAES and skipped dieting altogether. I was much happier with my body, and breastfeeding was easier without the diet.
7. Where/how did you find Health at Every Size (HAES)? In what ways were you dissatisfied during your dieting days after your first pregnancy?
A good friend introduced HAES to me. I had to read it twice before I began to get it.I felt dissatisfied with the dieting after my first pregnancy because it was very hard to lose weight, and, if I did lose, my milk supply tanked. It was also expensive and time-consuming.
8. How has your intersectional identity affected your body image during pregnancy?
Note: According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, intersectionality is defined as “the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.”
Sexuality didn’t really affect my body image during pregnancy. But, I did feel lots of pressure both times as a woman to look a certain way.
9. What way did you feel you had to look? From whom did you feel the pressure to look that way?
I felt I had to looks thin, pretty, feminine. I felt that from society as a whole, the media, not so good friends, my family — every angle except from my spouse.
10. If applicable, how has your relationship to food, your body, and your body image changed postpartum? And, how has your intersectional identity affected your body image after pregnancy?
HAES changed the way I think about my body during pregnancy and postpartum.
11. What advice do you have for other people who are or may become pregnant as it relates to food, body, and body image?
Find a care provider who supports your choices and doesn’t make decisions based on your size. I’m a plus size mama who gave birth to my twins at home, and all was well. You don’t have to do what I did, but you should find someone who listens and respects you.
12. Did having twins have an impact on your relationship with your body at all? In what ways was your pregnancy with twins similar to or different from your other pregnancy?
Having twins did impact my relationship with my body. I was lucky to have a midwife that encouraged me to listen to my body and did not ever feel it was necessary to weigh me. That was really freeing.
My singleton pregnancy was easier in that I didn’t get sick. I was sick for a long time with the twins and threw up every day for several months. I lost weight in that pregnancy. Actually, I gained more weight with one baby than I did with two.
13. What can individual people and society do to better support people during pregnancy as it relates to food, body, and body image?
Society as a whole can start listening to pregnant people and not judging something many people may know nothing about.
14. In what ways did you feel judged during pregnancy? What do you want the people who made you feel that way to hear?
I felt judged about what I ate and how I looked as I moved about my life. I feel that way now actually, not pregnant.Honestly, I want those judgemental people to hear me say, “F*** off.” Seriously, it is nobody’s business what I eat or how I look. Just mind your own.
Editor’s notes:
A.R., thank you so much for this authentic, vulnerable sharing of your experiences of identity, pregnancy, and body image. Your story will certainly help others feel less alone, and it will hopefully also encourage people to stop judging others, pregnant or not, on their food choices, exercise choices, and natural body size and shape.
My heart aches for those of you have lost pregnancies or children. My thoughts are with you.
Reader, if you have been or are now at least six months pregnant and would like to share your story about pregnancy and body image, I would love to hear from you! Reach out to me on the Facebook page, the Contact Me section of this website, or in the comments below!
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