Nia

[can be better in landscape on phones]

When I was in my mid-20s I developed type 1 diabetes. I lost a tonne of weight in a short period and hated my body the least I ever had.

But I was dying, I was so poorly, I was getting praise for how much weight I’d lost but it was because my body was in full panic, burning whatever fat and muscle stores it could to power itself because it could no longer use the most basic nutrients you intake.

[Injuries on the way to take the photos – oops]

My hair was falling out, I was exhausted, I could hardly function – but I was skinny, and that’s what people felt was worth commenting on. Coming to terms with a changing body is hard work.

Harder work when part of it means becoming an organ – becoming a full-body pancreas – there’s so much more to your body’s ticking, tocking rhythm than you know before something devastating happens.

Getting well again meant getting fatter. And fatter and fatter. I felt scared and out of control, wondering where it would end, having to think more about food than I had since being a teenager trying to subsist on half a cucumber and a couple of ginger biscuits every day.

I never quite bought the idea that you should just appreciate your body for its ability to carry you through this world, this earth, all your experiences.

The most powerful idea I came across in my desperate hunt for a sense of body positivity was “Hey. Body positivity is hard. How about we aim for body neutral?”

It’s so alien when we live in a world where worth is linked to your body – what it can or can’t do, what experiences it does or doesn’t pull you through – to think that we could simply… Not feel so strongly about it.

So here I am. Alive, 34, a cyborg, tech attached to me 24/7 pausing some of that labour to take the place of a single failed organ. Trying to find body neutrality.

Trying to keep chugging along without being pulled down by the burden of being, existing, having a corporeal form.

I feel like I should be in my prime, but there’s still a whole world around me pulling at my edges that are frayed from a lifetime of living. I’m never going to love my body, but I have learnt to tolerate it so long as I don’t look too hard.

This shoot was an invitation to myself to look as hard as I wanted, and to take a deep breath and invite the same from unknown others. The more we see normal bodies, the more we recognise that we ourselves exist in a normal body.

I’m glad to see the back of Size Zero, but we should keep driving forward and reminding everyone that life is about so much more than whether you have rolls of fat, how much space you take up on the bus, what size your clothes are, whether you’ve got tiny tits or double chins or chicken legs or hairy toes.

I want us all to feel neutral about ourselves and each other, the way we do about the people we love (or even just the people we rub along with every day!).

I remember the slow journey I took to wearing skinny jeans when they felt like they weren’t for People Like Me.

Wearing a revealing top for a night out and not worrying too much about being judged.

Going topless at a small club night. Going topless at a huge festival parade.

All part of this search for neutrality, for existence without fear, for accepting that I am what and who I am. Scars, divots, dimples and all.

It’s a constant work in progress but I’ve had glimpses of that freedom and it’s been something to utterly relish!

Nia’s Offering

The dick snowglobe symbolises joy and silliness, both of which are so important to grasp in life. Also, nudity is quite joyful and silly, isn’t it!

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