Second Puberty
In fourth grade, every girl is given “the talk” by the school nurse. You learn the basics: boobs are coming, hair everywhere is coming, and the grocery store aisle containing the words “deodorant” and “feminine products” will be your new home. For those really lucky, you’ll also be given American Girl’s Keeping and Caring of YOU: The Body Book for Girls. You know the one. Throughout the book, puberty and how your body will change is spelled out clearly (and in colored-pencil sketches). The moral of the story is that you’re now prepped for womanhood. You understand that you’ll never be the same, but that the journey is going to be wonderful and exciting.
Now enter your mid-20s. You’ve been experiencing the “wonderful” womanhood for over a decade and still wear your favorite high school skinny jeans (mom jeans be damned!). You and your friends joke about the reliable sports bras you’ve had since 17, and it’s all good fun. But one day, you can’t fit into those jeans anymore.
For those who, like me, just finished the brunt of eating disorder recovery, it’s unnerving. I’ve had a better relationship with food and have been a good steward of my body for over two years. It hadn’t really changed in recovery, so what gives? I’ll tell you what gives: second puberty.
The term “second puberty” doesn’t exactly exist in medical journals. There’s no pamphlet warning teens that there's more to come. Nowhere in the Body Book did they talk about SECOND puberty! Well, I’m here to lodge a request that an addendum be added to the end of that book. If you’re a fan of Game of Thrones all I can say is: Winter is coming.
Suddenly I needed new jeans. Shakira was right that hips, in fact, do not lie.
I was shocked. Shouldn’t my “birthing” hips have come in college, and shouldn’t I retain the adult body I had at 22 until I actually had kids? The more I wondered, the more women I talked to. And you know what they said? “Oh yeah that happened to me years ago” and “You didn’t know that?” Of course, I didn’t know that! How could I know about this monumental change when no one says a thing? To be clear, weight gain happens to everyone differently and at different times. And at no point is your body changing a bad thing. I just didn’t realize how common this was! I felt unprepared for any change and my mind instantly reverted back to my pre-recovery anti-fat views and lack of self-love.
If you want to join a sorority in college, you must first go through recruitment. During recruitment, the existing sorority sisters get to know potential new members by having many mini conversations over the course of a week (to properly vent about that experience I’ll need another blog entry) and then decide who they’d like to invite to join. When I was being prepped for this intense conversational week, I was taught to not talk about the five Bs: booze, boys, body, Bush/Biden, and bible. Translation, anything potentially controversial should be avoided. Not saying the world acts like sorority recruitment, and maybe it’s a Southern thing, but there is something to say about how we talk to others. I’ve heard a few times from either older women or from movies: “Don’t air your dirty laundry in public.” “Don’t let others see that something is wrong inside your house or mind.” Don’t let on that you aren’t in fact #goals.
In 2023, I’m grateful to see that our society now likes to know about all the laundry. We want to know if someone is struggling with their mental health. Celebrities, athletes, and politicians are making mental health the forefront of campaigns and causes. Reform in the workplace is starting – employers are encouraged to care about how their employees are doing.
So if we’ve taken steps to shed the stigma around mental health and want our friendships to not be superficial, why are we still having an issue talking about bodies and body image?
Whether you’re in eating disorder recovery or not, you might have to mourn those pants, that romper, that top. (Bri Campos, @bodyimagewithbri on Instagram, is a great resource for finding body acceptance through body grief.) My hips were bigger, my shoulders wider, and my arms had more circumference. It’s disheartening to shop sometimes when you frankly don’t know your size anymore. And that’s if stores even sell clothing in your size. The average US woman is now a size 16 or 18, but many clothing brands don’t make those sizes (or even larger to fit the entire scale of sizing). I love it when fashion makes sense, don’t you?
My point is to not shame women who don’t want to broadcast to the world that they hate everything in their closet because nothing fits. What I’m saying is this should be a call to arms. Friends, women, countrywomen, lend me your ears. Body image and how you feel in your clothes hold the same amount of importance as if your romantic relationship was in turmoil. Calling a friend because getting dressed has negatively impacted your morning is just as valid as calling them with relationship struggles. Bring your community into the insecurity that comes with being a woman. Because chances are, they’ve felt it too.
Now a word to my fellow eating disorder recovery warriors. It can be extremely triggering and disheartening to have this change happen. I myself needed to therapize all over again because this was a new body to love, accept, and embrace. But I’ll give you a shred of hope. Your body might be shaped differently but there’s victory in it. Personally, I reframed how I think about the changes. My arms are strong enough to help my parents move things in the garage or carry a niece or nephew around. My hips can hold up jeans. Now that I’m almost 30, I have the time and money to buy nice formal dresses to replace the cheaper ones that I’ve hung on to. In no way am I saying that I’m #goals. I still need to go to therapy and have check-ins with my dietician. But adapting to the new body is possible. And it's especially possible in community.
