#the yoga place has vegan courgette chocolate cake I think it will probably be a good start XD

[elizabethrobertajones]

Still thinking about how I rolled up to yoga (rehabilitative for people with Problems, largely MS, largely over 40, quite a few over 60, 100% women right now) on the first hot day that coincided with it, and as I walked up to the rest of the group one of the women cooed "oooh have you lost weight?" (I have no idea, I wasn't wearing a huge sweater for the first time they had seen me as such in 2+ years and I breast boobily in sweaters and become entirely cylindrical).

And I was startled and confused and said, "Oh, I don't know, I haven't weighed myself since I was a teenager?" (I'm 32 and starting a pandemic-era white streak in my hair)

And the WHOLE group went silent, dropped their side conversations, and stared at me like I was a creature in the zoo for about 10 seconds with no words, until I vaguely waffled, "I, uh, heard it was toxic...." (trailed off without finishing "to your sense of self and wellbeing" because they were just getting more bug eyed and that sentence may as well have been me making weird bloop bleep alien noises.)

Thankfully my friend there started up more different conversation with me, but. Now I'm just haunted by all these stares of 40-70 year old women who have never even conceptualised that someone gender presenting female might have gone through life not thinking about their weight, and their collective visible shock. Damage done to them over their lives by society and how it is completely normal to think about it all the time, notice it all the time in other people, talk about it (which they do for themselves) all the time.

I understand a lot of them are dieting around complicated health stuff but whenever I buy cake for lunch it's also clear that having to control their food is not something they're unused to and they simply have to adapt what they were ALREADY doing to what they now HAVE to do. They're always shocked and amused when I do it. My heart is kind of broken for them, because body positivity is such a recent moment that they really had no chance and even learning about it now they're so wired to feel that pain...

I don't even know what to do about it aside from keep on ordering cake for lunch. Maybe they will get brave enough to do it too?