The useless usefulness of opinions about woman’s body

I have never loved my physical appearance particularly.
Perhaps because, at the end, I’ve never been obsessed with it.
I do not remember a particular day of my life when I felt really beautiful, at least not for more than five minutes.
With age and time I learned to accept physical defects that always caused me insecurity.
A scar that I carry around since I was a year old, or my calves, shaped by years and years of skating, which have always made me look more like Roberto Carlos than a Victoria’s Secret angel.
I had accepted them, even if I’ve never loved them, because they were part of the person I was and without them, I could not be the same person.

Then, two years ago, I got pregnant.
I had promised myself that I would be careful, that I would not eat too much, that I would do Pilates and swimming during pregnancy. I did not do any of this, I had too much work to do, too many commitments or perhaps too many excuses that I gave myself.

I gained 22 kilograms.

I cried a lot, in that body that with the time I had learned to accept I did not recognize myself anymore.
In addition to feeling inevitably guilty, because after all if I had gained all those kilograms the fault was only mine, the people around me were not particularly helpful.
There were those who said “xxxx gain only 8 kilos!”, and then others who said “xxxx is back immediately to normal, she does not even look like she just had a baby”, or ” to me xxxx will never go back to the way she was!” (it had been only two months since the person in question had given birth).

It seemed of vital importance for everyone to judge the body of a pregnant woman.
Because fundamentally it is so, if you’re not like Chiara Ferragni you’re wrong.

And I felt terribly wrong.

Then one day, it had been four months since I had given birth, they took a picture of me. I looked at it. There was nothing of me. I had stubby arms, huge breasts, generous hips. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, or going back to crying in the bathroom, I thought only: “who cares?”.

I had given birth, I had a baby in my womb for nine months, I was taking care of him, my body was no longer a priority. I would have come back to it but not now.

The truth is that every single judgment on the body, whether you have faced a pregnancy or not, is absolutely devoid of substance.

Nobody knows if you have taken or lost weight due to your particularly delicate personal situation, an illness, a grief or a moment of high stress.

The judgments of people, of society, of sensationalist journalism are simply judgments. Moreover, they are useless.

You and nobody else are the masters of your body.

A body that you love, hate, whether you care of it or not, because at a certain point in your life you have decided to follow other priorities.

It is your body and nobody has the right to make you feel wrong.

You have the time to start the gym again, get back to eat helthier, avoid sweets and carbohydrates like the black plague, or to gain a few kilos if you have lost too much weight.

Give yourself time, love yourself and your body. Choose to live in a “healthy” body, but not for society, only for yourself.

There will always be someone ready to judge you anyway, anywhere. Maybe for a lipstick, a hairstyle or a wrong dress.

The answer is always one only: “who cares?”.