Your Body is a Means for Joy

Emily Anderson in foreground in lilac sleeveless dress doing a side bend
 at a shoreline, small waves in mid-ground, city skyscrapers in background

by Emily Anderson


We think about our bodies in terms of what they can do---for us, for work, for production. We measure our bodies in accomplishments---steps walked, push-ups completed. We track and compare against standards we ourselves did not create and terms to which we did not agree. All of us, every person with a body, suffers under these standards of body productivity and body image. And people with fat bodies carry the millstone of these rules and regulations with more weight, dare I say, than most.

These body standards, impossible to measure up to, divorce us from a relationship with our bodies. Some of us begin to hate our bodies---maybe even violently---and others slip into cold indifference. Our bodies become the enemy, and not the capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist systems that have warped our relationships. Under these standards, we turn inward and we isolate. These systems show us an ideal body, and more than that, an ideal experience. Unless we obtain this ideal, we will always be measuring, counting, and weighing our value (and truly, even if the ideal is obtained, the measuring, counting, and weighing never ends).

But our bodies are meant for so much more than measuring. Our bodies can bring laughter, pleasure, peace, and yes, joy. Joy, the antithesis of what diet culture teaches about fat bodies. The path to joy is not necessarily easier than adhering to body standards---it is a different kind of hard work. The path to body joy is one of intentionality. It requires radically changing how you consume media, what you value, and why you’re motivated to get up in the morning. Intentionally choosing body joy means releasing the lifetime of training from media, family, and community about all the ways your body fails to meet “standards,” and realizing the way those standards have failed you. It means realizing the way those standards stopped you from basic simple pleasures, and from pursuing big dreams, and from holding an equitable place in society.

To reject those standards is to laugh in the face of our society’s oppressive standards. A big, loud, belly laugh that others will hear. And if misery loves company, joy engenders comrades, collaborators, co-conspirators. Joy is a candle that is meant to light others, joy is the overflowing cup. Joy is meant to be shared. Our bodies bring joy, disrupt the systems of oppression, and work together for each other.

How would your day change if joy was the reason you chose to move today, and that joy was the reason you showed up for your community? Could the decision to live outside of body standards and rules influence the way you think about other societal “rules,” and give you a more expansive view of the world? Could your joy in body liberation inspire you to work for the liberation of others?


Join Emily Anderson, Kimberly Dark, and Dr. Jennifer B. Webb in the Yoga & Diet Culture panel discussion moderated by Amber Karnes at Accessible Yoga's Conference Online October 14-17, 2021. They’ll share from their lived experiences as folks in marginalized bodies who incorporate body acceptance and disrupt diet culture in their work and yoga practice.

Emily Anderson of All Bodies Welcome Yoga is an Accessible Yoga certified teacher based in Pittsburgh, PA, the unceded ancestral lands of Osage Nation and Shawandasse Tula. She left a corporate management job in 2021 to become a full-time yoga teacher. Emily supports folks as they connect with their minds and bodies in defiance of a fatphobic, diet culture fixated society. She is also the founder of Pittsburgh Fatties Social Club, a community led group creating fat positive experiences and resources. She enjoys making her own clothes as a hobby sewist, and a chaotic tabletop RPG night. She lives with three fluffy cats, one mostly hairless dog, and her sweet hearted husband.

This post was edited by Patrice Priya Wagner, Managing Editor of Accessible Yoga Blog and member of the Board of Directors.

° FOLLOW Accessible Yoga on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

° REGISTER here for our next conference.

° DONATE here to help us bring yoga to people who don't have access or have been underserved, such as people with disabilities, chronic illnesses, children with special needs, and anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in a regular yoga class.