Reflecting on the first week of RED January

Trigger Warning: Contains mentions of weight and body image

For the third year in a row, I’m participating in RED January. For those who don’t know, RED January stands for ‘Run Every Day’ January, which aims to fundraise for Mind the Mental Health Charity by encouraging participants to get out of the house and participate in some kind of sporting activity every day throughout January. Not only is this supposed to help raise money and awareness for people struggling with mental illness, it’s also supposed to benefit your own mental health by getting you out of the house each day.

This year, I’ve felt really conflicted about doing RED January. This is because, for the last few months, I’ve been really struggling with my body image. I am well aware that I’ve put on weight since starting my PhD. It happens whenever I’m a student. I don’t have time to think about what I’m eating or how much exercise I’m doing. Not to mention, I really struggled when I moved to Bristol. I was so far away from my partner and family, and I found it really hard. So I’d binge eat to make myself feel better, and some days would barely move from my bed. Suffice to say, my weight wasn’t really my focus at that time. Since coming home, I seem to have become fixated on my weight. Everywhere I turn I’m confronted with dieting adverts, slimming world adverts and negative narratives about curvy women. I know that I should be happy with who I am, I don’t want to succumb to these anti-feminist narratives about the ‘ideal’ body shape. I just feel so filled with hatred towards my body at the moment.

So RED January has come at a bad time for me. I don’t want to make RED January into some kind of weight loss mission. It’s not healthy for me and it’s definitely not what RED January is about. It’s supposed to benefit mental health, not worsen it. So, whenever I go out for my daily activity I will be sure to remember what RED January is really about. And also, I’m going to try to be kinder to myself.