How I got a body like Jennifer Aniston: A fable
Once upon a time there was a woman named Emma. She was in her early 30’s and had led a fairly privileged life, especially when it came to body image. You see, Emma had always had a thin body (with a little bit of a belly if we’re being honest) and she had never worried about her size. She could buy clothes from any store, everything fit well and she always looked great. Sometimes she’d even buy clothes without trying them on because she knew they’d look good.
One day she was at work and she received an email from her boyfriend who was travelling overseas. He said, “I no longer love you and I am breaking up with you.” For weeks her (male) work colleagues had teased her saying, “there’s no way your relationship will last, not while you are so far apart.” Emma always insisted that everything would be fine. And then it wasn’t. The day she received the horrible email, one of her colleagues said at lunch (in front of a large group of people), “How’s your boyfriend?” and Emma had to admit her colleagues had been right. He’d broken up with her. She pushed her lunch to one side and left the table.
For weeks, maybe even months, Emma couldn’t stomach eating. While her love life was in turmoil, her work was extremely stressful and she could barely eat. Very quickly she lost weight and became very thin. She even stopped menstruating for a while. One day she was at work and a (male) colleague who was visiting from out of town saw her and said, “Wow Emma, you look great!” This was the pick me up that Emma didn’t even know she needed. Up until that point she’d felt unlovable, overlooked, and invisible. Emma decided that being thin was a great way to get noticed and be happy.
Once she started to feel happier she started to eat normally again. And of course her body started to gain weight. In fact, she was also going out a lot, having a few drinks, not cooking for herself very often so she gained more weight than she’d carried before. For the first time in her life, Emma started to worry about her weight. Now she was in her 30’s her metabolism had changed. She had to buy clothes in larger sizes and she couldn’t guarantee that clothes would always look good.
Around this time, Emma decided Jennifer Aniston would be a good role model. She loved how Jen’s body looked. Jen was a bit older than her. She seemed to live a fairly healthy lifestyle. They both didn’t have kids. So it seemed reasonable to Emma that she could have a body like Jennifer’s.
And so began about 10 years of constant dieting, exercising to lose weight and daily disappointing dates with the scale. Emma’s entire day was focused on how her body looked, what she should eat, how much exercise she should do and which diet she should try. During this period, Emma was diagnosed with endometriosis and had multiple surgeries, couldn’t exercise all the time and dealt with a lot of stress. This made her even more determined to have a body like Jen’s. Jen seemed so healthy, so happy, so successful - if you ignored the constant tabloid harassment of Jennifer and her childlessness.
In 2017 Emma had a full hysterectomy to treat the endometriosis. She would never have children, which was okay because it hadn’t been a big dream for her. But Emma was instantly in menopause and her body would never look like Jennifer Aniston’s. From this moment, Emma decided to look after her body with love and respect and learn to appreciate it no matter it’s size. It was a huge healing journey for her and she finally realised that she could never have Jennifer Aniston’s body, because Jennifer Aniston had it.
In 2022, Jen let the world know that she had always wanted children but it just didn’t happen for her. All those years she was hounded by the press, she was trying to have a child. Not only could she not have her dream, but the whole world was watching. When Emma found this out, she was heartbroken for Jen.
This story is a fable, because fables are true stories that have a moral and a lesson to learn.
This the moral of this story:
Don’t comment on people’s bodies. You don’t know what they are going through. You don’t know if it could trigger a decade of disordered eating. You don’t know what medical conditions people have. You don’t know if they have other things happening in their life that contribute to their size. And you don’t know if they are trying to have a baby. Every single person is more than a body. They have hopes, dreams and insecurities. Please, only comment on someone else’s body if that person asks you to. Otherwise, keep your thoughts about other people’s bodies to yourself.
Oh and if you want to know how I got a body like Jennifer Aniston’s, well, our bodies don’t look anything alike, but our bodies didn’t produce children. That’s it!