I was having lunch in Trinity one day, taking a break from my work as a tutor in the Access programme. Coffee in one hand, phone in the other, scrolling.
Facebook first. Kirstey looks well! My old pal from Dublin 1 has posted a “before-and-after” picture. She is tanned, face beaming, hair done in the “after”. I screengrab, worry for a second she will be notified of this. Then open it, and zoom in.
Wow, she’s lost at least two stone – three dress sizes down, she claims. It’s more like two with a two-stone loss. A stone equals one dress size, according to the Slimming World leaders. Her abs look great, though. And she seems happy. I heard she’s bagged herself a new fella too. Probably all due to the newfound confidence in her body.
I browse back to Facebook, read her post. She has been working with Pure Fitness. She is thanking someone called “Ger” for her new body. I note the roll of fat hanging over my jeans. I catch sight of my double chin in the reflection of my phone.
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I screengrab Ger’s details.
I will follow up with him later.
I live in the grip of the fat-girl algorithm: Instagram, Facebook and “before-and-after” pictures are my daily dish. Everywhere I look, women are posting their “before” pictures, their fat pictures, their failing pictures, alongside their “after” photos: their thin, successful pictures. Women are talking into my screen about how they did it, how they succeeded in their transformations. So many year-to-change-my-life stories. I feel sick and alone, and like I need so much more than a year to change my life.
The side-by-side images remind me of pictures I have shared: a middle-aged woman standing in her bra and knickers, showing her failings and her successes to the world.
Rolls of fat and cellulite and sadness appear in the left-hand pictures, the “before” pictures, and the left-hand life. In the right-hand pictures, the “after” pictures, is the woman who has “done the work”, “committed” to herself, stayed “on plan”. She stands tall: taut, toned abs, fake tan and curled hair – success in the form of skinniness.
It’s the norm now for my working-class friends to be poking and prodding themselves with needles and fillers
All the comments are directed at the woman in the right-hand world – encouraging the “after” girl, telling her, “That’s awesome” ... “very inspiring” ... “your waist is so tiny” ... “Way to go!!!!!!!!!” ... “Keep up the good work!!!”
The woman’s face is always sad in the left-hand world, in the “before” pictures. Even if she’s not “fat”, if her body is smaller or curvier or bigger, she is sad in the left-hand world. The thing all “before-and-after” women all have in common is the desire to alter how they look. To fit. To get to that place where they feel thin.
[ ‘Our house was wild and unpredictable. I was starved and cold and unloved’Opens in new window ]
Where they feel like they are enough. Everyone in my algorithm is trying to buy a ticket to the right-hand world.
“Hi, Jenny, how are you?” I hear them chatting, look up from my phone, watch their interaction.
“Hey, Mel, I’m good ... yeah, good ... busy with marking. You know yourself ... but good.”
I avert my eyes, try to hide. I don’t want to have to exchange niceties. Mel orders her skinny cappuccino, Jenny an Americano with no milk. I watch them move, my university colleagues. They walk to a table together, at ease in themselves, smiling, chatting.
“You look so well, Mel ... You still doing the Yoga with Lucy in the sports centre?” Jenny looks her up and down, smiling in approval at the tightness of her friend’s body.
“No, I’m with a private instructor on Camden Street now, 5am starts, but I feel so connected to myself – and the practice ... Ashtanga ... it’s changed everything!”
They smile, more words, something about the benefits of spending two hours a day before work in yoga poses. I can see the benefits: their tiny frames, the sinewy veins that protrude from their necks and arms. The shadow of muscle definition in their legs. The way they fit perfectly into the modest uniform women in academia often wear: Oasis or Warehouse dresses, tight enough to skim their perfect forms, but not too tight to be considered sexy or slutty.
I self-consciously tug on my River Island jumpsuit, aware that the square neck is revealing just a little too much tit-line. I wish I had the commitment or the command of my body to over-yoga myself into thinness like most of the women in this world.
A picture of a friend pops up on Instagram. She looks different, lopsided. Her lips changed, puffier. One side a tad bigger than the other. Her eyebrows dip in the centre – forehead smoother than I remember. Her post reads: “Jen’s injectables have transformed the way I feel about me and my body.” She tags Jen. I click through.
Swaths of women’s faces open before me. Rows and rows, columns and columns of lips and foreheads, “befores-and-afters”. I click the reels. A half-famous Instagrammer from Tallaght is getting gifted some lips and eyebrows. I turn it off as the needle goes in. It looks sore. First time I have felt grateful for my “blow job” lips.
[ Emer McLysaght: I’ve changed my mind about BotoxOpens in new window ]
It’s the norm now for my working-class friends to be poking and prodding themselves with needles and fillers; to be getting facials and starting restrictive food plans. Last week, one of them stopped me, pointed to my sun-lined forehead and said, “Have you thought about getting Botox before that gets worse?”
I watch them transform in front of me. Not just their bodies but their faces and features too – plumper lips, higher cheeks, smoother brow lines, tattooed eyebrows. Nobody looks like themselves any more.
The contrast between my people and the people I meet in the university is stark. Academics don’t get lip-fillers. Their eyebrows are mostly their own. They are not posting before-and-after pictures on Instagram. Or on LinkedIn.
But they don’t escape the fat algorithm – they just respond in a different way. The university women stay extremely thin. They over-yoga. They eat rice cakes or salad or couscous. They run. They have been taught to control their bodies too, but in ways that seem healthy and are masked in wellness and achievement.
They don’t fly to Turkey in groups to get cheap surgery, to fit in. They don’t let their newly qualified beautician pals pump chemicals into their top lips to fit in. The pressure to be slim and young, thick and curvy or thin and waif-like affects all of us – but what we do to get there differs based on where we are from.
Hungry: A Biography of my Body by Katriona O’Sullivan is published in Trade Paperback by Hachette Books Ireland
If you or someone you know is struggling with body image or disordered eating, support is available through Bodywhys Ireland (www.bodywhys.ie) or your GP
