How much do you weigh?
There’s the very real implication of yellow caution tape around weight, especially when it comes to women. One man wrote in response to a Quora page asking why it’s rude to inquire about a female’s age or weight, “If you are not the woman’s doctor, all this is none of your concern.”
This is true. Yet, no matter how far we’ve come in the age of body positivity and self love, weight is still made out to be a key factor in female’s self-esteem.
Essentially, the less you weigh, the more you’re worth — and the more you should feel good about yourself.
The number on the scale doesn’t always correlate with your physical health (in fact, your weight can fluctuate anywhere from five to 10 pounds throughout a single day).
Professor Wittert, an endocrinologist from the University of Adelaide, told ABC.net, “People should not focus on weight, people should focus on health. Then you don’t engage in these diets where you restrict your nutrients, and where people get depressed because they regain weight, which is almost an inevitability. … Be healthy for healthiness’s sake, not for weight loss’s sake.”
Regardless — and this goes without saying — these digits do not define us. So, what if we thought about weight differently?
An Instagram initiative, the I Weigh movement reportedly started by The Good Place actress Jameela Jamil, is challenging us to do just that. It’s changing the answer to the question: how much do you weigh?
Instead of numbers, people are sharing what gives them purpose: the roles they play at work and at home, their hobbies and the struggles they’ve overcome.
“I started this page so that the moments that these women fought back and took pride in their lives beyond their exterior can live on forever,” Jamil writes on the I Weigh Instagram story. “And so that we can inspire other women to do the same.” You can read more about why Jamil started this movement (i.e. body-shamers, society’s unrealistic expectations, the Kardashians) on her website.
She also explained on Twitter that the I Weigh movement is about “life positivity” not body positivity.
I Weigh movement answers: How much do you weigh?
Jamil started the page in March 2018, and it now has over 100K followers. She shared the first post herself, writing, “I weigh: Lovely relationship, great friends, I laugh every day, I love my job, I make an honest living, I’m financially independent, I speak out for women’s rights, I like my bingo wings, I like myself in spite of everything I’ve been taught by the media to hate myself about.”
Here are more participants featured on the I Weigh movement Instagram:
How much do you weigh? How to join the movement
In the I Weigh movement’s Instagram bio, it asks people — men, women, whomever and whatever age — to submit their own pictures.
Below is how to join the I Weigh movement via the page’s Instagram story.
Though you can absolutely feel good about how much you weigh, it should not be a burden — nor should it be an indicator of your worth. Your worth is the quality of who you are, not the quantity of what you are.
So think about this: how much do you weigh, really?
