ED and Self-Image in Trump and Epstein’s America
This post is written by our founder and president, Kala MacDonald. She is 500CYT yoga certified, holds an MA in Yoga Studies from Loyola Marymount University, and is currently completing her MA in Mental Health Counseling at NYU. For more on this topic, listen to the “Self-Image” episode of the Yoga Therapy podcast.
As a woman who grew up in the 90s under the curated spell of Hollister, Abercrombie, and Victoria's Secret, I have an almost hyper-awareness of my body through the lens of the male gaze. I can recall several conversations with older men when I was a preteen, imploring that I not become “fat” like their wives. “Don’t become another useless woman who just shops with their husband’s money and takes care of the kids,” they’d say. Yes, seriously.
And of course, at 11 years old, I wanted to be impressive and liked. I didn’t get straight As for nothing, you know? So I took on this lifelong assignment to always be small and self-sufficient, to take what a man says to heart in order to “win” against the other women.
I giggle as I reflect on and write this. Not because any of it is funny, but because. thankfully, somewhere along the way, I realized the old saying is true: Girls rule, boys drool. At least the boys and men who think women and femininity are things to conquer, tamp down, or control drool.
I disclose I have carried an all-too-common case of body dysmorphia from my childhood into my 30s. This causes me to over-exercise in response to stress and trauma, while harshly criticizing myself and my body. We don’t compare trauma in this house, but so many people struggle here, far beyond my own experience. Eating disorders and body dysmorphia don’t develop in a vacuum. They flourish in cultures that reward smallness, and where hunger—literal or metaphorical—is shamed and reprimanded.
Now, at 36 years old, I peer backward from my current POV and see the comments, the insinuations, and the ad campaigns pushing thinness at any cost as desirable, and what I dreamed I could replicate from a young age. I now realize the voice in my head that has been telling me to be thin, pretty, well-dressed, long haired, shaven, quiet, polite, and neat is a man’s voice. Actually, it’s many men’s voices: fathers, onlookers, CEOs of the aforementioned tween brands targeting girls and women. These men, who seemingly, allegedly, adore only the feminine vessel that is prepubescent. So how dare we girls grow up to be older human bodies with smile lines, forehead wrinkles, grey hairs, or curvy figures?
And the voice wasn’t just a man’s. It was also a champion of only those who are white, wealthy, able-bodied, heteronormative. The brands and icons we were made to worship sold a very specific kind of girlhood: thin, tan, straight-haired, flat-stomached, seemingly rich. Oh, the HOURS I spent ironing and flat ironing and chemically manipulating my hair to be thin, flat, and straight! That image was never meant to fit everyone, it was meant to be exclusive. It was curated to include some people and marginalize others.
Beauty standards have always been political.
They reward adherence via proximity to power and punish deviation. Black bodies are hyper-sexualized and policed. Fat bodies are pathologized. Disabled bodies are ignored and avoided. Trans- and nonbinary bodies are legislated. When I say the voice in my head wasn’t mine, I mean it’s systemic. It’s capitalism, it’s white supremacy, it’s the American patriarchy.
I recently saw a TikTok in which a woman discussed so poignantly that beauty standards have been set by abusers and pedophiles. The current president himself has openly discussed groping and grabbing and kissing women without consent, commented on his own daughter’s hotness, and takes every opportunity to call out women he doesn’t deem as young, pretty, or nice enough. It’s the epitome of men saying they’re “visual creatures,” as if they can’t help but love a hot, young thing, meanwhile they don’t meet their own standards of health or self-care. A sky-high bar for us, and no bar in sight for them.
In the latest Yoga Therapy podcast episode, “Self-Image” I discussed becoming enraged and saddened when YTC board member Victoria and I were brainstorming more video content. In the middle of the conversation, we were complimenting each other, “No, YOU should be on video, you’re so beautiful!” While ripping into ourselves, “I hate the way I look on camera, no one wants to see that, LOL.”
It stopped me in my tracks.
It felt like the abuser-goggles placed over my eyes as a child finally slipped off, loosened by the exhaustion of the news cycle and the fatigue of watching powerful men evaluate women as if that is their right. I cried as I replied to her: “Enough of this.”
The voice in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, young enough to promote my passion through my organization wasn’t my own. It was an echo. It was Trump. It was Epstein. It was every grown man who thought it was appropriate to tell a literal child “When you grow up, don’t become fat and useless like she did.” The critical voice in my head was inherited—cultural, political, systemic—not a personal failure of mine.
So, what do we do now?
First, identify the voice in your head
Is it you? Is it someone else? Whose interest does the voice have in mind? How does it feel to hear what’s being said?
Second, notice your patterns without judgment
My own bodily harm tends to show up as over-exercise paired with a hypercritical lens. Acknowledging that—and tracing where it was born—has been so powerful. Awareness without shame can become a radical act, and it feels good to flip the proverbial man off by recognizing my bodily needs and tending to them; to eat, to rest, to skip the gym or yoga, sometimes for weeks.
I reconnect to calibrate via simple practices: a body scan where I move from point to point, noticing sensations, and sometimes even offering gratitude: “I am grateful for my arms and hands, which allow me to write my stories, hug my friends, and tend to my garden with an episode of Giggly Squad playing in my AirPods.”
Plus, a body scan reminds me I have a body, and takes me round to all the parts and pieces. I’m reminded I’m not an ornament to be ogled, not a project to be fixed, but a living, powerful, lowkey magical vessel.
Third, recognize the political, societal, systemic origins
This is perhaps the most difficult, rotten piece of this. But when we recognize this, we can overcome it. If they want me to be small, I move to be expansive. They want me to shrink, but I do all in my power to take up space. Not just physically, but politically. Not just aesthetically, but ethically.
Taking up space also means widening the lens beyond my own reflection. It means asking: who was never allowed “in” in the first place? Whose bodies have been regulated more harshly, more violently, more publicly? Standing up must include support for trans women, for nonbinary youth, disabled bodies, for Black and brown folks whose bodies are policed early and often, for aging women rendered invisible.
Body control has always been a strategy of social control. Resisting it is both personal and collective work.
So how do you stand up for your girlfriends, your mothers and grandmothers, the future generations? How do we stand up?
How do you stand up for yourself?
Maybe it begins here: by refusing to shrink.
If you or a loved one is experiencing an eating disorder, resources like the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), The National Alliance for Eating Disorders, or Eating Disorder Hope can help connect you with the help you need. Remember, managing and eating disorder can be a long-term challenge. Establishing a support system with people including a mental health professional, a medical professional, and trusted loved ones can help support your recovery journey.