My relationship with my body has always been a complicated one from a young age. I was taught that it didn’t do what it was supposed to, for medical professionals promised that they were going to “fix” me. Fix is a word that sticks in my mind—to make normal. I guess that’s what I fixed on. The medical model of the ’90s taught me that my body was wrong and that other people had the answers, so I became frustrated with it. I learnt to hate it, and in my mind, I just closed the shutter on it like it wasn’t there. I couldn’t see it, which is why when other people did—normally through taunts and sad mimics—it made me really sad, because I couldn’t kid myself in that moment.

Catching sight of myself in shop windows was always a shocking moment. Wow, is that really what I look like? God, I look so stupid. I do still try and avoid shop windows to be honest, but I’m happy to report that the way I think about my body has changed.

I think it becomes quite complicated by the fact that I’m also a woman and the standards that society holds a woman’s body to. Also, I’m a woman that’s birthed two children, and whilst they were both born via C-section, it would be wrong to say that birth didn’t change my body, because it did. As a teenage girl, I obsessed over the paunchy little belly that I’ve always carried—it’s still there, just drops a little! And all women are ever taught is how to fix themselves, how to improve themselves, how they’ll be happy if only they lose a few stone.

I lost over a stone in weight through one of the most stressful periods of my life, simply because I was desperate to have something to control. Kev and I lost a parent each in the space of just 7 months, so the weight loss didn’t really mean anything then. There was no time to be happy about it. There was no moment at which it would have been okay to say, “Look at me, I’ve lost a stone, am I acceptable as a woman now?”
The problem is that disability relates to that, too. I realised I needed to lose weight because I could feel the strain it put on myself to drag the extra weight around. I’ll be honest, at this point Immy was nearly five—I could hardly call it post-baby weight still, could I? I got to a healthy weight, but not with a healthy mind, so it didn’t stay that way.

As it is, my children are now ten and six, and I am still overweight according to the metrics, and some of my clothes don’t fit the way I’d like them to. I have spent so much time calorie counting, restricting on all the goodies that I’m missing, and I’m happy to report that the other day I had an epiphany.

Your twenties are for questioning whether you’re good enough, whether you look good enough, and your thirties are for stabilising—for deciding what’s important, deciding what you will care about, deciding what you will spend your energy on. And God knows, as somebody living with cerebral palsy, my energy is in short supply. Then, of course, I’m a mother too, so the energy gets halved again, and halved again if you consider I have two children.

The other day, when I was looking at the videos and photos scrolling through our TV—because that’s how we like to display our memories in the Fox household—I realised that in some photos I thought I looked fat and wondered why I hadn’t done something more about it. Then, a photo from the very same moment, just from a different angle, and I’d be looking at it going, I look great.

So why do I spend all this time hating on myself? I realised that all these memories and photos are just a representation of a moment. I can’t be fat and fine in the same moment, can I? I realised I had to pick one. And I suddenly thought: with all the pressure that there is in the world—as a woman, as a mother, as a disabled person—to conform, to be normal, to be right, to be fixed, why am I adding to my own pressure?
I’ve slowly learnt over the last couple of years to dress better, to wear cuts that flatter my body and hide the bits I’d rather weren’t on show. So why do I need to hate it? I think I’m choosing not to, even as I stare down the inevitable Christmas where everyone gorges because it’s Christmas and we deserve it.

Decorations are up and on all over the place. We love Christmas in our house. The Christmas tree will go up on the 15th of November, as it does every year, because we’ll have celebrated Kev’s mum’s birthday the day before. She’s allowed her birthday in all its glory, and then Christmas arrives so we can enjoy the season, every chocolate at a time.

I’m not going to lament not indulging this year. I won’t gorge. Thankfully, my insides hate sugar and dairy now, so the gorging that my brain says I should do for the season isn’t possible because the after-effects just aren’t worth it. What I will do, at last, is give myself permission to enjoy. I know how to take care of myself healthily now.
Exercise is still a problem because I’m not sure what works for my foot, for my energy levels, for my gait, and all kinds of things—but I also know that even just looking at my nutrition, I can look after myself better.

So, I’m choosing to gift myself love and acceptance. This is the body that has endured cerebral palsy since birth. This is the body that’s given me two children. This is the body that has carried me through three 5K Race for Lifes. This is the body that, in 2023, walked over 1,000 miles just to prove that I could.

Side note, I couldn’t, it made my foot so much worse and hastened the need for the surgery I finally had in 2025—but maybe I needed that. Maybe I needed to get it over and done with and know that I could come out through the other side with so many new things to look forward to next year.

This year, I’m studying for Sign Language Level 2. Next year, I’ll begin my Master’s. I have time to spend with friends, to spend with my lovely new pug, and I’ll do it all in this body, wearing clothes that make me smile—and I won’t close my eyes when I walk past shop windows. Not even if I’m using the walker.  These days I’ll drop back in admire my outfit or my lovely red heavy winter coat. And why shouldn’t I? This body has been through enough. It’s time it was loved. Appreciated given a bloody big. Well done