How to Write About Body Image

If you had to write about your body, what would you say?

First, let me define body image: it’s how you think and feel about your body, it’s shape and size, how you see yourself in the mirror, how you feel in your body.

Writing about your own body might feel a lot like walking through town naked. But I’m not here to encourage you to strip on the page, though a certain amount of stripping is required in order for our readers to get to know us as real human beings. The more important question is, when writing about your own body, how do you avoid the pitfall of naval gazing? Through metaphor, imagery, the five senses. When writing the following piece, my aim was to do just that – become intimate with peaches – to smell, feel, taste, touch my way toward a more positive image of my body. I chose peaches because they are one of my favorite fruits, and it was a peach I last recall holding before an elderly driver ran into me at a farmers’ market several years ago. So I guess you could say I’m obsessed with peaches and what they, particularly the one I held at the market, mean to me: changes in the body,  acceptance, re-newal, survival. I wrote with those interpretations in mind when crafting the following narrative:

I gently roll a peach between my palms, its downy coat tickling my fingers. I study the curves and arcs of its plump body. I’m searching for the perfect peach: golden hued with no deformities. But I notice that it has  a soft spot with a purplish bruise, and place it back in the display. I stand among the peaches for another fifteen minutes, picking up a scarred one, a wrinkled one, then another with a slit in its skin. These damaged peaches must taste like wood, I think. I choose one more, and bring it close to my nose. I inhale, smelling earth. I’m tempted to buy it, but notice a blemish at the base, and motion to place it back among the ones that are disfigured. I pause, and tell myself to give this peach a chance. Maybe it will taste better than it appears. I buy it, and as I walk away from the farm stand, sink my teeth into it, its blushed skin forgiving. Pulp bursts with warm juice. I stop, swallow. Summertime trickles down my throat. Sweet. Perfect. 

Do you have a body image narrative to share? If not, I hope this post inspires you to strip, just a little.