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Jun 24

Why people like Khloe Kardashian need to stop talking about the term ‘revenge body’ – INSIDER

How to lose weight quickly Comments Off on Why people like Khloe Kardashian need to stop talking about the term ‘revenge body’ – INSIDER

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The revenge body may be doing more harm than good. Getty/Alberto E. Rodriguez

Breakups are tough. When we're wronged or feel rejected by an ex, many people may try to improve themselves, while others strive to get their former partner back. Sometimes, they might try to do both at the same time by aiming for a "revenge body."

A "revenge body" refers to when a person loses weight after a breakup as a way to make their ex jealous whether intentionally or not. The term is generally seen as a positive act of self-improvement or a way to "get over" your former significant other.

And while it's been used to describe everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Janet Jackson, most recently Khloe Kardashian has embraced the term. She shed some weight after her split with Lamar Odom and suddenly that's all people could talk about. Kardashian's body and Odom's betrayal were directly linked it even spawned the E! show "Revenge Body with Khloe Kardashian."

On the show, people who go through breakups or hardship are challenged to lose weight quickly to enact a sort of "revenge" against the person who had wronged them. People took to it so much that it's been renewed for season two. Kardashian took the term "revenge body" that was being thrown at her by tabloids and branded it to be about empowerment.

Body-positive activists take issue with the term for many reasons, health coach Beth Clayton told INSIDER, including the idea that your body or any physical factors can be altered in such a way to manipulate someone into wanting to be with you again.

"If you are changing your body for someone else, you are the one that loses in the end because you are still letting that person dictate your life and your body and you are doing it for their approval," body positive coach Michelle Elman told INSIDER. "So what happens when you don't get it? Despite the person being it for whatever reason, they remain the focus of your life and it also sends the implicit message that the reason they should've stayed with you is for your appearance, which I believe should never be the sole reason you are with someone."

A "revenge body" instills an idea that the person who left the relationship wouldn't have if the other person had just been smaller or more traditionally "attractive." It makes weight and physical appearance a scapegoat for the problems in a relationship, implying that your fat or larger self was inherently flawed and that weight loss has made you better.

"Whenever we are using our bodies as a currency for love or validation, or to prove our own worth to ourselves, we are playing a game that will never end with our winning," health coach Beth Clayton told INSIDER. "We are making decisions out of fear of not being enough rather than genuine desire to be loving toward our bodies and ourselves."

If you want to get healthy, do it for you.ND300/Shutterstock

Breakups or other traumatic experiences that people emerge from with "revenge bodies" are extremely stressful life events. Stress can make people lose weight in an unhealthy way and even signal the presence of a mental illness. Weight loss is not always a positive thing, and assuming that it is can have dire effects on someone's physical and/or mental health.

Even if you mean it as a compliment, commenting on someone's weight if they have an eating disorder can be a huge trigger. If you praise someone for losing weight but they've lost it because they've been too depressed to eat, that may trigger them to go another day without food in an effort to get even more exterior validation.

Obviously, not all weight loss is bad. Kardashian was public about how she found an escape and a type of therapy in going to the gym and the weight loss started to follow from there. Other people develop better eating habits out of a relationship because they're not cooking for two or they're less busy. But it's important to keep why you're doing it in mind, not just the how.

"I think stereotypically when you are in a relationship you have less time than when you are single so it's understandable to not only have more time for workouts but to use the gym to get out negative feelings around the breakup," Elaman told me. "But to twist that motivation into 'revenge' is what's the problem and to associate working out with simply appearance based results."

If you're looking to get healthier and weight loss happens to be a factor in that, then great! There is nothing saying that can't be a part of your healing after a breakup. But comparing yourself to an ex's new fling or the people on "Revenge Body" (which has been criticized for showing an unrealistic portrayal of weight loss) is not a healthy way to go about it.

And using the term to describe someone else's body can have even worse consequences.

So the next time you feel the need to praise someone on their "revenge body," think twice about using that term. Try a compliment that gives them ownership of their own body like "you look so radiant/happy/strong" instead.

Or better yet, just keep your mouth shut unless they ask for your opinion.

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Originally posted here:
Why people like Khloe Kardashian need to stop talking about the term 'revenge body' - INSIDER

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