Health

There's a [2013 study](https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/stable/26617983?sid=primo) by Dahl, Hoegg, Morales, and Scott that states that whilst clothing sizes don't truly matter, the foundations of most women's self-esteem can be found in the number on the clothing label. They go on to say that "*larger sizes result in negative evaluations of clothing and show that these effects are driven by consumers' self-esteem*". Women have it drilled into them from their teenage years that they are expected to stay one size for their entire lives, and then if you do have to change a clothing size, you are meant to go down, not go up. It's a perpetuation of diet culture: society says you are meant to fit into your clothes rather than buying clothes that fit your body.

When you look at this in conjunction with the rise of social media, it's scary. You can watch television programmes like Love Island - shows where everyone's bodies are very much on display and where everyone comes out with fashion brand deals - and everyone fits into a catwalk modelesque body image that can be seen across the media.

In no way is this body type wrong, but it shouldn't be the only correct one to have.

Coming into the summer months, I realised I was in desperate need of a new, smarter pair of shorts, and after much looking, I found some in a high street shop. I ended up taking two sizes to try on in the fitting rooms. The size 14 was too big in the leg and too small in the waist. The size 16 pair was too big all around - I really needed an in-between size. Sighing, I pulled on the shorts I had come in, when the label caught my eye. They were from a different shop - and a size 10.

Unfortunately, my experience is exceptionally common for anyone used to women's clothing sizes. Men's clothing, and indeed unisex clothing, is based on a small, medium, and large system that is far more forgiving and generalised: a large is looser and designed for taller, wider, and broader people. A small is designed to fit closer, too, for those who are slimmer and smaller. It's universal, understood everywhere, and easy to follow.

Women's clothing, on the other hand, is based on a number system that no one truly understands. You can go into a clothing shop and see a list of measurements for each size, and you're expected to know your waist measurement to select the correct size of jeans, irrespective of bloating, what you've had for breakfast, and the time of the month. These measurements vary hugely from shop to shop, so you, like me, can be in size 14 shorts at one and size 10 at another.

I am tall and have an hourglass figure. I've got broad shoulders and wide hips. I'm firmly mid-size, which is very much the norm nowadays, and I am very much alright with it. Yet women's clothing is designed for one body type - the media-perpetuated, catwalk model body that my friends affectionately dubbed 'Barbie' - so if your body is shaped in a way other than this, you are subjecting yourself to ill-fitting clothing in some way or another.

::post[floatRight]{#yes-i-am-a-plus-size-person-and-that-is-okay}

Despite the prevalence of this media-perpetuated image that we are expected to hold ourselves to, and indeed are often taught, even in school, that it is right to aspire to, there are influencers on social media promoting body positivity and neutrality: Jameela Jamil and Megan Jayne Crabbe immediately come to mind. The active promotion of a range of body types, and not only acceptance but the love and appreciation of how everyone's body works and moves, is becoming more and more normalised and accepted. If you accept this way of thinking, the number on the clothing tag is essentially arbitrary, and we might as well use the same small, medium, and large system that men's and unisex clothing use.

Our generation has grown up with social media but is old enough to remember a time before it. The body positivity movement has been spearheaded on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. I can't help but wish that they had been around when I was tall enough that I needed to wear women's size 6 clothing at age eleven, and both excited, because it was grown up, but also incredibly, awkwardly self-conscious about the fact that there was a now a number on my clothing label - a number that I now realise in no way matters. If women's clothing was sized more liberally and less arbitrarily, like men's and unisex clothing is, perhaps there might not be this issue at all, and not only could we stop subjecting ourselves to trying on ill-fitting clothing, but we could start protecting our self-esteem as well.

You go into a clothing shop and you're expected to know your waist measurement, irrespective of bloating, what you had for breakfast, and the time of the month.

Love your body — not the label

Love your body, not the label.

Some of my friends wake up at 9 o’clock, snooze their alarms, reach for their laptops, open Microsoft Teams, roll over, and fall back asleep. At eleven, they slip on business attire - top only though - for a meeting. The “meeting” takes place, but their cameras are off. One person does all the talking. Everyone is assigned a task, and the meeting adjourns for the day. There will be another such meeting tomorrow.

The meeting over, it’s back to bed, with laptop in tow, to play around with a few spreadsheets until there comes an acceptable time to stop (in my experience, lunchtime).

This, it seems, is the new working day.

The anecdotes that condemn working from home as a facade are endless. “I love working from home” I overheard one day, “it’s the only time I can get the *chores* done.”

Jake Berry MP drew heavy criticism for [tweeting a snide remark directed at striking Civil Servants](https://twitter.com/JakeBerry/status/1620740455444127746). The gist was that the occasion of the strike was the first time for a while that the strikers had visited their workplace.

::tweet{#1620740455444127746}

Responses ranged from the disappointed [“oh mate”](https://twitter.com/lukemcgee/status/1620770353965568000) to an analysis of the [benefits of working from home to the levelling-up mission](https://twitter.com/Mr_John_Oxley/status/1621056540202467328). It was safe to say that, besides the GB News-style commentariat, the tweet did not go down well.

But although criticising his own employees might not have been the most politically expedient thing to do, Mr Berry was absolutely right - and not only because, as a source in Whitehall told me, the strikers had tired of Victoria Street by 11am and had slunk off home. No, it is the plain fact that working from home is just not good, and especially for us young'uns.

I know and understand the arguments for remote working. Working from home has been heralded as a fresh dawn for new parents, as well as potentially a long-needed lease of life for commuter towns and rural villages.

Meanwhile companies are being told that working from home boosts productivity. They are screaming it from their steel-and-glass rooftops. More meetings are taking place! People are working longer hours! Less time is being spent commuting!

Plainly the cost-benefit analysis supports the work-from-home diktat, and companies are buying into it big time. No doubt McKinsey brainiacs have done the sums - let’s cut costs by selling the office space, they say, and, because they’re McKinsey, it really does appear a no-brainer.

All of this might be true, though I do know from my own experience with remote working that certain metrics might not be useful in this case. A work-from-home “meeting” might constitute any use of conference call software, where in the office it involved a chat between two desks, or a trip for coffee, or an idea shared over the water cooler.

But putting the statistics to one side, and as it’s all the rage these days, let’s think about ourselves for a second and about our *wellbeing*. Let’s turn to the fact that in this country we’re in the midst of a mental and physical health crisis. Let’s ask ourselves why it is that the levels of young people between 16 and 24 who say they are “always lonely” are increasing. Or what might be contributing to rising obesity levels across all age groups.

> Professional friendships? Gone. Company loyalty? Gone. Office Gossip? Gone. Office romance? Gone. Daily satisfaction? Gone.

At times we have to settle on the side of an argument for which the benefits are not easily calculable, but rather because they result in a world in which we would prefer to live.

I love going into the office; I might even go so far as to say that going to work is *fun*. I am more motivated when surrounded by people with whom I share a common goal. I like being able to chat about meaningless rubbish throughout the day. I like the fact that in an age of intrusive technology, my work life and my home life retains a measure of separation. I like the half an hour commute in which I am able to read a book. I like feeling like a valued person, with co-workers who care about me.

I do understand the attractions of working from home. 

So I draw the attention of my peers to an analogy that I believe will achieve some cut-through.

We can all agree that Dunder Mifflin was an awful company for which to work. Paper and office supplies is the most bland of industries. I know of nobody whose professional ambition was to conquer the office supplies market, as the leading expert on grams per square metre, perhaps, or the most persuasive paper salesperson in the country. I doubt that you do either.

That was the operational point of Dunder Mifflin in The Office (US). The inanity of working for such an uninspiring company informed and produced and indeed heightened the everyday beauty of the program.

But that didn’t make the existence of a company like Dunder Mifflin an object for ridicule. We *need* boring companies like that - the world needs office supplies and paper to function. There will always be Dunder Mifflins, and so we need people to work in them.

So can we imagine the success of the same company, or the same series, when operating with a remote work policy? Can we see, at all, why anybody would be drawn to working for Dunder Mifflin? No we cannot.

Professional friendships? Gone. Company loyalty? Gone. Office Gossip? Gone. Office romance? Gone. Daily satisfaction? Gone. All of the reasons why my descendants will watch The Office (US) with a sad nostalgia, should the Work From Home lobby steer their cost-benefit ship to its ultimate destination? All gone.

For the sake of your professional and personal satisfaction, I urge my peers to ditch working from home. Workers of Britain - *Come into the Offices*!

![A British World War II poster of a woman in factory overalls standing with her arms raised and looking up to the sky. The text reads: "Women of Britain, come into the factories. Ask at any employment exchange for advice and full details.|1200x773"](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1676279543/post/come_into_factories_comp_wgpvni.jpg "Workers of Britain - *Return to the Office*!")

Remote working is just not good, especially for us young'uns. Workers of Britain - Return to the Office!

The 'Working From Home' mistake

:style[The 'Working from Home']{block="true" fontSize="54%" lineHeight="1"} :style[Mistake]{block="true" fontSize="178%" lineHeight="1"}

Meeting up with a childhood friend is always weird and strange because it’s like meeting a younger version of you. The younger versions of Chloe and I went to the same schools through primary to college, and split off for University. Younger Chloe loved pink and romance books and traditionally feminine things, and younger me had a blue bedroom and short hair like a boy’s and loved action films. 21-year-old Chloe is beautifully bare-faced and has amazing blue-green hair and is about to begin her Master’s in the Lake District doing outdoor activities and hiking. 21-year-old Melita (that’s me) sits in makeup and a carefully cultivated outfit, writes for a living and adores her femininity. I like pink, and I love clothes, makeup and perfume. But there’s always been one huge difference in my mind that’s never changed; I am fat and she is not, and that will not ever change.

So 21-year-old Chloe and Melita sit down for cocktails and a catch-up, and she tells me “*You look like you’ve come into yourself. You look confident. It suits you.*” The statement confuses me; I’m still fat. I was under the impression that because I am a fat woman, I can’t ever come into myself. I’ll never look confident except if I wear something showing more than the socially acceptable slither of skin for fat people (I hear ‘I wish I had your confidence!’ in my nightmares) and I’ll never look comfortable, because how can a fat person be comfortable? God, look at her, can’t she go to the gym? And then that one simple comment sends me into a confused period of questioning my whole self-perception. I wrote my dissertation on how my life has been shaped by my position as a fat female, and I thought I had it figured out. I was working on the logic that fat isn’t a choice and that I had to just suck up and deal with it because I won’t look the same way forever but I’ll always be fat so what does it matter? If I can’t ever love myself I’ll pour all of the love left behind into supporting the people who look and feel like me.

The first part is true; fat isn’t a choice. Fat people are demonised to the extent that I couldn’t even eat in public. It’s a pretty common experience for fat and plus-size people, going out in public and then scoffing our faces the moment we close our doors in shame. I used to do that, and that wasn’t my fault. God forbid the fat girl eats during her busy day to stay alive, so I’d starve all day and binge once I got home to ‘protect’ people’s perception of me. I was putting people first constantly, even above my health. Society and the media ‘[tend to dramatize, moralize, and individualize body weight, particularly when referring to higher weights](https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article-abstract/30/5/869/83346/Weighing-Both-Sides-Morality-Mortality-and-Framing)’ and all plus-size people are aware of it, so we hide ourselves in baggy clothes and don’t eat, and once some of us are done binging, we make ourselves sick and repeat it all over again. That was my life, and I was smaller then, a size 14. I’m a size 16 now (the literal average size, mind you) and although I’m bigger, I eat a lot healthier. I’m happier. I’m stable. I make chicken alfredo, a meal I always wanted to try but never dared to because of the calories in the cream, and allow myself to have the same sugary cocktails as my friends. I didn’t have these things for years at all and tried to lose weight and I was miserable. Funnily enough, I hated vegetables back then because I refused to use oil or butter or garlic or anything that would make it taste flavourful, so I tried not to eat anything at all. Now I fry them up with butter and garlic and eat spinach with my eggs, peppers, baby corn and mangetout with my chicken. It’s healthier. I’m healthier, and I’m bigger, but who cares? I go back to that old almond mom saying - ‘a moment on the lips, forever on the hips’ and - come on. If we all say that every time, then none of us would eat anything good at all.

So I go back to Chloe telling me that I look confident, and go even further back to the Melita she knew in college, the 17-year-old who couldn’t wear white and hated tucking her shirts in case someone paid too much attention to the curve of her stomach. It overthrows every notion that I’ve had firmly planted in my brain since I was young and first dreamed of cutting my fat off with scissors. And sure, I still panic and turn to the side and stare at the slope of my stomach, but I shrug it off and put on bolder clothes and a tighter dress and let my friends talk me into buying the food I want in a restaurant. I look at Chloe, and I see her for who she is, someone who’s inevitably been through things and grown in the time we haven’t seen each other - and I look at myself in the mirror when I get home. Sure enough, there’s a line of ease in my shoulders and a sense of contentment in my face, and I’m not sure when it got there. I’ve healed and recovered and bettered myself without losing weight. Maybe one day I will lose weight, maybe I’ll gain more. But what I do is between me, my doctors, and my friends, so I suppose being content as a fat person isn’t impossible. I hope all people who feel like me, who look like me, find that ease and contentment with themselves without causing any harm to themselves, because it is possible. It’s always been possible.

Feeling ease and contentment as a plus-size person doesn't have to mean losing weight.

Yes, I'm a plus size person. And that's okay.

Yes, I'm a plus size person. :color[And that's okay.]{color=#2CF5D0}

The dimming lights, the darkness. The big screen in front of you illuminates and an echoing voice fills the room, reminding you in no uncertain terms to turn your phone off. You sink back into your seat as the opening credits of the newest blockbuster roll over you, and you lose yourself completely in the picture. Two or so hours later, you emerge from the darkness, blinking in the comparative brightness of the foyer. You thank the people behind the counter and go on your way.

What I have just described sounds like something that a lot of people would consider to be a fairly usual evening out. A trip to the cinema, perhaps to see the newest Marvel blockbuster or a rom-com. With prices for tickets skyrocketing in the cost of living crisis, it surely isn’t as frequent as it used to be but it is certainly common. However, take a moment to relive that visualisation again and work out exactly who you are with, in that scenario.

I learned recently that most people don’t go to the cinema by themselves by casually mentioning on a first date that it was one of my favourite things to do in the evenings, that I usually went once or twice a week. “By yourself?!” he exclaimed. I nodded, unsure as to why this was such an unusual thing. After this, I began asking my friends, many of whom were also shocked: the cinema is something you go to with friends, with your family, on a date. To our generation, it simply isn’t something you do by yourself.

It seems to have been drilled into us by years of childhood birthday parties at the pictures that going to the cinema by yourself is inherently lonely. That to do so is to have admitted defeat, to say that you don’t have anyone else to go with. I have texted group chats, trying to find someone to go to see a BFI release that is only playing for one screening because I was too scared to go on my own. Yet when you look at it realistically, if you were to see someone by themselves in a museum or an art gallery, or even in Primark, you wouldn’t think twice about it. They’re by themselves, some alone time. It’s self care and doing something you enjoy. Why is the cinema any different?

Dr Libby Watson, a clinical psychologist at the University of London [said in an interview](https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/health/wellbeing/the-key-to-happiness-spending-time-alone) that:

:::quote
“Alone time can be restorative and replenishing, providing psychological benefits in terms of stress reduction, understanding the self, and in identifying triggers of stress and other harmful states.”
:::

If you look at a trip to the cinema logically, it makes sense that it is something that you would do by yourself, as it is intrinsically a solo experience: everyone will interpret a film differently. You may go with someone else, but you will sit in the darkness in silence, and understand the movie in your own, deeply personal way.

It’s easier to organise as well. There’s none of the back and forth about when and where, which film you should watch, who is free on what night. You aren’t having to debate the merits of the different rows, whether the back of the cinema does genuinely give the best view or whether you should plump for the luxury VIP seating. You can make your own plans for what you want to see, when and where.

If we take doing so many other things by ourselves as self care - museums, shopping, even going for walks - why is the cinema still so different? Why is it still believed to be a lonely thing to do by yourself, even though you are unable to talk whilst you are there? Is it, perhaps, the fact that we are conditioned to believe that we should go with others? There are countless examples in pop culture of the cinema being used for friendship groups to meet up, or dates, with [*Heartstopper*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10638036/) being the first recent example to come to mind, even if that scenario does not end well for the characters.

Film and the cinema, especially independent cinemas, need our patronage more than ever. If Netflix is your way of switching off, maybe it’s time to try sitting in the dark, getting lost in the big screen instead. It can be put down as an act of self care, it is proven to reduce stress, and it’d be so much easier to organise than going with someone else. It certainly isn't easy to completely ignore social convention, especially in an age where the internet and the TV are telling you that what you are doing isn’t the norm. But if it’s what you love, then it can seem like a fair trade-off.

On a first date, I mentioned it was one of my favourite things to do. “By yourself?!” he exclaimed. I nodded, unsure why this was such an unusual thing.

Solo cinema trips aren’t admitting defeat - it’s self care

Solo cinema trips aren’t admitting defeat - it’s self care.

I half-promise to improve my diet every other week. Guilt-ridden by the latest spate of takeaways or a hearty roast dinner, I’m prone to proudly rustle up a colourful salad, only to return - appetite unsatisfied - to the biscuit cupboard a few hours later. It doesn’t help that food culture is a minefield of mixed messages. To diet, or to Deliveroo? A 2017 BMJ study found that [nearly 30 times as much money](https://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j4677) is devoted to junk food advertising than the UK government spends promoting healthy products. Meanwhile, many individuals swear by supplements as miracle cures, alongside a telephone directory of 5:2, keto, and paleo diets. One can even pay $10,000 for an 11-night cleansing and detox yoga retreat in Thailand, with the option of a pure water fast to eliminate ["negativities and pollutants"](https://phanganist.com/thailand-travel-guide-yoga-healing-article/fasting-retreats-thailand-detox-and-weight-loss).

Such unsustainable, pseudo-scientific nonsense fuels disordered eating and has multinational conglomerates rubbing their hands together with glee. The 10 largest food companies made profits in excess of $100 billion in 2018 by pumping their products full of chemical stimulants to leave us hungry for more. It is by design that [over two-thirds of American adults](https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html), and [64% of their British counterparts](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN03336/SN03336.pdf), are medically overweight or obese. At the other end of the scale, the NHS Confederation reported last year that referrals for children with eating disorders were ["through the roof"](https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/mental-health/number-of-children-needing-eating-disorder-support-through-the-roof-30-05-2022/). How do young people, trapped in a social media comparison bubble, even begin to make healthy diet choices?

The answer - to coin a phrase - is *education*, *education*, *education*. Fallacies about fat, vitamins, food labelling, and even exercise have been exposed by recent scientific breakthroughs. Several weeks ago, sleep-deprived after an evening of heavy snacking and the acute nocturnal indigestion that followed, I listened to a podcast with the nutrition expert, Professor Tim Spector. As co-founder of the [ZOE food study](https://joinzoe.com/), his day job is to myth-bust the "dangerously inaccurate" information that comprises much-established wisdom about nutrition. Spector explains how the composition of our gut microbiome - the collective term for the microbes that inhabit our digestive tracts - influences everything from short-term energy levels to longer-term indicators like sleep quality and mood. The problem is that much government and even NHS advice is struggling to keep up with this rapidly accelerating science.

To take one prominent example, we are surrounded by calories: from “traffic light” indicators on packaged foodstuffs to the newly-introduced counts on British restaurant menus. But the fact is, as Spector elucidates in his excellent book *Spoon-Fed*, that a calorie is a meaningless indicator of what health benefit a foodstuff will give someone. Myopic focus on the calorie feeds into our yearning for control but is illogical when applied to actual people. A woman of 6 foot will be told she needs 2000 calories a day, while a man of 5 foot 6 is advised to eat 2500. Go figure. “Recommended Daily Allowances” neatly classify sugars, fats and salt as if these are monolithic categories worth measuring. But a quick comparison between an ultra-processed if allegedly “low fat” American diet of ready meals and Diet Coke, versus a Mediterranean offering rich in oils, breads, cheeses and red wine, confirms these are poor indicators of health and quality of life.

![The “traffic light” indicators on a packaged food item. |644x508](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1678096529/post/food_traffic_light_comp_ojqlzm.png "It’s time to dispense with meaningless “daily allowances” to take account of individual needs. Source: Getty Images.")

Beyond calories, further research has transformed my attitude toward several foods and practices. I have often guiltily eschewed breakfast, only to find that food science is far more forgiving of personal preferences than the “most important meal” mantra. The important thing is to restrict meals to a 12-hour period - say 8am to 8pm - to allow your gut to rest and recover as you would any other major organ. Spector discards another cardinal rule in “five fruits and vegetables a day”, replacing this with “as many as you can manage”. We should aim for a diet rich in vegetables, seeds, nuts, spices and fruits of all colours, since they are rich in polyphenols. These “good” bacteria stimulate the gut microbiome into an intricate tapestry. The same is true of probiotics: fermented foods like yoghurts, kombuchas and sauerkraut.

To boost polyphenols we must avoid “ultra-processed” foods. You can spot these from their long lists of increasingly dubious ingredients. They might appear healthy, but are filled with chemicals to boost shelf-life, taste or shape. I was stunned to read that between 50-70% of daily calories in the UK and the US are consumed in ultra-processed form, from the seemingly innocuous seeded loaf to a supermarket lasagne or a carton of orange juice from concentrate. These are different from plain “processed” foods - milk, or dried and tinned products - and the main enemy for anyone striving to eat more healthily.

The food myth I’ve fallen for most egregiously is that you can eat whatever you like as long as you exercise. I’ve used a run or a cycle as psychological justification for all manner of overeating: the achievable goal of 10,000 daily steps seems like a simple ticket to “burning off” calories and fat stores. I’m clearly not alone - First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to tackle obesity among American schoolchildren followed a similar logic. But the body has a defence mechanism against using exercise to shed weight. If you work out without taking on extra energy, your metabolism will slow, you will feel hungrier and tire easily. I experienced this last week when resolving to run 10 kilometres home from work instead of a more direct 5. I got home and made two portions of curry: one for dinner, one for lunch the next day. You can count on one hand the number of minutes between my scoffing of each portion.

::post{#yes-i-am-a-plus-size-person-and-that-is-okay}

Eating better is a slow, experimental process, determined by individual metabolisms as much as general precepts. So far, I have restricted my snacking by buying as few as possible: crisps and biscuits being my great weakness. I’m eating more fruit, vegetables and pulses, often motivated by rapidly approaching use-by dates; my foray into probiotics had me ID’d at Sainsbury’s for accidentally buying a kombucha with CBD. I’ve spent weeks deciphering what irritates my gut, and resolved to avoid the starchy panini and fruit smoothie combination that contributed to my post-lunch energy slump. Finally, I’m trying to cook more from scratch - using liberal quantities of olive oil after the revelation that it’s healthy - and to avoid ultra-processed supermarket meals.

Overhauling an entrenched diet, however, requires a considerable devotion of time and money to be long-lasting. What for me might be classed as a food rut - eating the same unhealthy lunch continuously - may be a deliberate decision for an individual on a tight budget. And where is the impetus to change? I vividly remember visiting a Walmart store in the US where an 8-piece fried chicken box cost less than a freshly-prepared fruit salad. So long as the food industry supports the cheap and easy consumption of ultra-processed foods compared to plants, then the ecosystem of junk foods, fad diets and disordered eating will remain. If anything, the gulf in price will grow; the broadcaster-turned-farmer Jeremy Clarkson has advocated that prices in the UK for farmed goods [should be doubled](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/jeremy-clarkson-food-prices-farming-b2232760.html) on account of the ‘soul-destroying’ toil that goes into their production. Amid a cost-of-living crisis, with [food prices rising 16.5%](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/risingcostofpastabreadandothereverydayfoodsleavesmostvulnerabletheworstoff/2022-12-22#:~:text=Food%20and%20drink%20prices%20rising%20at%20fastest%20rate%20since%201977&text=Despite%20this%2C%20food%20and%20non,ONS%20Consumer%20Price%20Inflation%20bulletin.) in the 12 months to November 2022, any drive to reduce the cost of nutrient-rich plant foods would place intolerable pressure on the agricultural sector. Government subsidy could be an option, but it’s hard to see healthy foods ever competing in the marketplace with junk brands whose nutrient-deficient content is the very reason for their low price.

![*A five-year comparison of food and catering prices against the average rate of consumer price inflation shows a drastic decoupling in the last nine months.|1608x1336](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1678096529/post/Consumer_Price_Index_vs_Food_Price_Inflation_comp_jupzaa.jpg "A five-year comparison of food and catering prices against the average rate of consumer price inflation shows a drastic decoupling in the last nine months. Source: [ons.gov.uk](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices).")

It’s remarkable to think that for 25 years, my knowledge about the food which has kept me alive has been rudimentary at best - false at worst. Nutrition science should be mandatory teaching in schools. We are taught the value of physical education at an early age, yet even by Year 6, a stunning [23.4% of British children were obese](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03336/#:~:text=10.1%25%20of%20reception%20age%20children,and%20published%20by%20NHS%20Digital.) in 2021-22. Dietary change is the missing ingredient. It’s a daunting task, especially when it requires decoupling from the lodestars of received wisdom in calories or daily allowances. I’d recommend that anyone read Tim Spector’s *Spoon-Fed*, which breaks down the vital precepts into a 12-point plan. Many of these require minimal effort or financial means. And some of the book’s 23 chapters - each a food myth debunked - will be applicable to all. Coffee drinkers will be pleased to hear of its benefits for digestion; alcohol lovers that a glass of red each night will be welcomed by your gut microbes.

The main lesson is to think more critically about the food we buy: its source, the number of ingredients, its sustainability, and its impact on our individual gut microbiomes once consumed. If we treat gut health with the attention it deserves - on a par with physical and mental health - we will lead happier, more vibrant lives.

To diet, or to Deliveroo? Spoon-Fed by Tim Spector reveals the misconceptions about food and nutrition you've been believing all your life.

Spoon-Fed lies: Stop eating junk food for the sake of your 30s

:color[Spoon-Fed lies:]{color=lighter}
Stop eating junk food for the sake of your 30s

Have you ever been watching a film at home and 10 minutes in, your phone will just magically appear in your hand? Ever get the urge to scroll Twitter while you’re filling your car up? Are you unable to wait in line at the shop without checking your notifications? Well… me, too. And it needs to stop.

Now, I’ve never been one to act like the crotchety old grandpa who waves his walking stick in the air, ranting ferociously about how social media is evil, technology is poisonous, and that those blasted young people are all obsessed with their phones. Because that’s a generalisation and an unfair stereotype (not to mention tiresome and annoying).

But it also isn’t entirely untrue.

Keeping your phone in your pocket (or even, in your hand) at all times is a slippery slope to becoming a slave to that sweet, sweet instant fix of dopamine. That immediate gratification that our poor addicted brains feel with every scroll. It’s easy. It’s satisfying. But it’s time for an intervention.

Years ago, I had no trouble sitting through a movie without even thinking about Twitter. I could let a game’s loading screen pass me by, and not feel the need to absentmindedly open Instagram, only to instantly close it again. But now, that’s all changed, and it’s thanks to these bewitching rectangles. I can’t even remember what I used to do with my time. The idea of just sitting patiently for a few seconds without obsessively absorbing words from a tiny screen seems alien. I think that’s a little worrying, and maybe a sign that I need to remember to put that thing down sometimes.

And if any of this sounds like you, then perhaps you do, too.

![Five friends sitting around a table at a restaurant. No one is engaging in conversation. Everyone has their eyes glued to their mobile phones.](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1677147555/post/friends_around_table_social_media_comp_pcecgy.jpg "Our phones are drawn to our hands like a magnet, even when with friends and family. It’s almost hard to notice, but our social lives are crumbling because of it.")

It isn’t nice to feel reliant on some tiny device in my pocket. Due to how much of my free time I throw away on pointless devotion to reading what strangers online have to say, it’s tough for me to recall many meaningful, tangible interests I once may have had. And honestly, that makes me feel like I’m losing my sense of self a little bit (not to be dramatic or anything).

My ability to make real-life conversation is suffering due to how jittery my thought processes often are. I sometimes find that my phone is drawn to my hand like a magnet even when I’m with friends and family. My social life is crumbling so gradually because of this stupid issue, that it’s almost hard to notice. And the sad thing is, I feel like this is something that practically half of our age group can relate to.

Now, it’s not entirely our fault. Social media apps are all designed to be addictive. That’s almost the whole point. They promote and encourage endless scrolling. Bump after bump of quick, easy dopamine. They’re built to entice us and keep us in a chokehold, making us feel like we rely on them. Like we can’t live without them. Like we need them.

But we don’t.

Okay, so, we all know that it’s a waste of time to be absorbed in your phone. Everyone’s aware of that. No one is delusional enough to believe that falling victim to hours of TikTok is productive. So what? We don’t need to be productive all the time. What’s the problem?

::post{#productivity-culture-is-not-living-up-to-its-promises}

The problem is exactly what I mentioned earlier: through our growing appetites for constant stimulation, our attention spans are suffering. We’ve become ravenously, and concerningly, dependent on keeping our brains busy 24/7, like a toddler in a shopping trolley entranced by the pretty colours and shapes on his iPad.

It’s important to understand how exactly overuse of our phones can affect our minds, so that we know how to better care for our brains. Those poor, squishy things have a lot to worry about as it is.

A [study conducted in 2019](https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2006/8/3/article-p395.xml), published in the *Journal of Behavioural Addictions*, tasked 414 people with solving anagrams. Some were told to use their phones while taking a break halfway through the puzzle, and others were instructed to use something else to keep themselves occupied – like a computer or a piece of paper.

So, what was the result?

Those who used their phones during their breaks went on to solve the remaining anagrams a whole 19 percent slower than those who didn’t, and solved 22 percent fewer to boot. The conclusion drawn was that this is down to how our brains struggle to rapidly switch from one task to another. We’re putting our little noggins through the wringer by dividing up the day with short phone breaks every time we find a spare second. We’re making our minds sluggish. We’re destroying our ability to concentrate.

![Two friends walking through a wooded forest during a sunny day in winter.](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1677149972/post/friends_walking_in_woods_comp_v3_ztc9ha.jpg "Sometimes it's nice to take a break and just enjoy the company of a friend, away from the temptations of our phones.")

Checking our phones all the time only enables this addiction. We’re rewarding that behaviour, which only leads to wanting more. And more. And more. And before you know it, having a cheeky gander at your TikTok ‘For You’ page between day-to-day tasks becomes a natural part of your routine. We don’t even think about it anymore. It just happens. We’re no longer in control.

So, isn’t it time that we take that control back?

Don’t worry – I’m not about to suggest we all quit cold turkey, deleting all social media and pledging to never retweet or nose-laugh at anything ever again. What would we do then? Get a hobby? Not likely.

All I’m suggesting is that we try to be a little more mindful of this habit. Next time your arm reaches out with a mind of its own towards your device, give it a firm slap and tell it “no”. Whenever you’ve got a minute or two to breathe and you feel compelled to spend it on your Instagram ‘explore’ page, ask yourself why. Let’s break this addiction to mindless content consumption. I believe in us. Every time we resist that nagging urge to pick up our phones, we’re rebuilding our attention spans, piece by piece.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not saying I’ve mastered this, myself. Truth be told, I checked my phone at least a dozen times while writing this. But I’m trying. I can stop anytime I want. I swear.

Addicted to dopamine - our phones are killing our attention spans.

Do you need a Digital Detox?

Your best friend has just been promoted to their dream job. You’re elated. They’re making strides, you say, ‘I'm so happy for you!’ but, in the background, a gnawing feeling starts to rear its ugly head and you think: why isn’t this happening for me?

Familiar with the scene of wandering through social media profiles of your friends, peers, colleagues, and their friends, their peers, and their colleagues, feeling like you can never match up to their perfect lives? Feeling that you can never be as smart, accomplished, physically fit, or popular, the list goes painfully on, as them?

Social comparison was once a beneficial evolutionary strategy that has become twisted through our heavy use and reliance upon social media. Just as we drain our phone batteries through the constant searching and scrolling, comparing ourselves to others can be a monumental drain on our self-esteem.

Social comparison can sometimes be beneficial. We can compare ourselves to people that we admire – an artist, an influencer, maybe a successful school friend – scouring their profiles to take note of what they’re doing so that we can add it to our list of goals. Assessing ourselves against people that are doing ‘better’ than us can help to motivate and inspire. It can be healthy, in small doses.

![A sad teenage girl looking at her phone in a dark room.](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1676304099/post/social_media_girl_phone_a5npwi.jpg "[Teenage girls are most at risk](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/04/depression-in-girls-linked-to-higher-use-of-social-media) from the social media comparison culture, with higher rates of anxiety and depression. From [Getty](https://www.freepik.com/author/dragana-gordic).")

However, judging ourselves against someone else is unsustainable. We place unrealistic and unattainable expectations on ourselves and engage with harsh self-criticism.

We also compare ourselves to those who are worse off. Maybe a friend who dropped out of uni or a connection on LinkedIn who’s just been made redundant. It might provide a short escape from comparing yourself to a list of 30 billionaires under 30, but it can encourage us to adopt a skewed sense of superiority.

And, apart from being an unfair assessment of another’s life, does this constitute a healthy habit? Is placing ourselves on a pedestal, only because of how another lacks in comparison to us, a sustainable way to promote self-esteem and self-worth?

It’s said that social comparison is a [‘natural human behaviour,’](https://www.verywellmind.com/the-stress-of-social-comparison-4154076) helping us to [‘learn from each other, and to keep us from falling too far behind our potential’](https://www.verywellmind.com/the-stress-of-social-comparison-4154076). But when we take social comparison and breed it in a digital environment, it becomes toxic and harmful to our mental health and well-being.

As we become less connected through physical sight and touch - through real, tangible connection - our digital communities become a replacement to stave off those feelings of loneliness. We now seek most of our social connections through a screen; physically and figuratively.

Every single profile that you see - that you consume - on social media, is engineered. It’s as if each profile has had a team of diligent advertising agents work on it; every intricacy is finely tuned to reach a preferred target audience. We are constantly bombarded with an endless facade. Whole careers are built upon it.

Social media profiles are essentially an advertisement of the self. Comparing yourself to carefully curated face-tuned selfies or a TikTok that has been edited a thousand times runs a serious risk of cultivating a warped sense of identity; affirmed by the idea of not being enough.

Why is this bad for me, you say? Isn’t this just an adaptation that we have to learn to live with, given our lives are increasingly more digital and we seem to exist in two planes; the self in front of the mirror and the self on our Instagram page?

Maybe this is just a modification to modern life, but I think that it is imperative to understand that the way we now use social comparison - for the majority of the time - is in a toxic environment. One in which the person you are comparing yourself to is heavily crafted - no matter how real it seems.

In a world where [‘93% of youth aged 14-22 use social media, most daily’](https://youthmedicaljournal.org/2022/01/12/the-impact-of-social-media-on-peer-pressure-in-adolescents/#:~:text=Statistical%20reports%20confirm%20that%20in%20the%20USA%2C%20adolescents,a%202018%20study%20by%20the%20PEW%20Research%20Center.), most of our interactions in the pixelated age are performative. So, then, what does it do to our understanding of ourselves, when we spend 7 (probably more) hours a day performing an embellished, fabricated, perhaps even false version of ourselves for an audience to validate?

How do we harmonise between who we present on social media and who we are, truly? How harmful does it become when we start to appreciate, love, even deeply covet the version that is accessible only through a screen?

Like something straight out of Black Mirror, the future of social media seems to be heading into a frighteningly blurred dimension between reality and technology. With the advance of Meta, hailed ‘the future of digital connection’ by its creators - the same creators whose prototype for social media was a misogynistic game of hot or not - the majority of our lives could be destined to be lived on social media.

::post{#rebrand-not-enough-to-distract-from-facebook-mountain-of-scandals}

Companies like Meta expertly design their apps to be addictive, with our brains reacting to Instagram and TikTok in similar ways they would to a drug high or a gambling win. They feed off our insecurities like parasites. One of the allegations made against Facebook in 2021 by whistleblower Frances Haugen was that the algorithms [‘harm children’](https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036519/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-algorithms/). The callous engineering of platforms is designed to keep us in toxic feedback loops to drive profit. As teenage girls viewed negative content concerning body image, the algorithms would feed more of this harmful content back; keeping them stuck in a tragic loop.

Social media has allowed us to have the world at our fingertips. We are constantly surrounded by a mass of individuals, yet most of the time, it only serves in making us feel lonelier than ever. In this toxic environment, social comparison can become a direct assault on our identity. Magnifying feelings of guilt, loneliness and self-deprecation, our self-esteem and mental well-being are eroding with each scroll and tap.

Constant comparison drains our phone batteries as surely as our self-esteem.

Social Media: A tale of two selves and the poison of comparison culture

:style[Social Media: A tale of two selves and the poison of comparison culture]{fontSize="90%" lineHeight="1"}

Beethoven playing in the background, classical texts everywhere, group peer pressure - no, you're not in the 1810s, you're pulling an all-nighter with your "Classical" study playlist on repeat.

Despite the aesthetic Instagram posts, matching highlighter sets and… TOTE BAGS, life as a student is pretty difficult. I know what you're thinking, bloody teenagers moaning again, but I make a serious point - just bear with me. Being a student is not just about turning up to school (with your tote bag in hand), guzzling coffee and writing essays - despite what my profile may suggest - it is about having your life reduced to one mere moment.

We all await the day when that brown envelope tells us whether we can move forward with our lives or not. And with that, we can liken students to regency-era debutantes. Once young, aristocratic girls had thrown off the shackles of childhood, they were commodified in fine frocks and [brought to the marriage market](https://anhistorianabouttown.com/the-ins-and-outs-of-being-a-regency-debutante/#:~:text=What%20a%20debutante%20could%20expect,was%20where%20this%20might%20happen) - regardless of how they felt about it. Students today are dressed up in grades and UCAS points ready for the higher education and job markets. Whilst being reduced to an object and receiving your A-level results are two different things, debutantes and students have one major similarity - they are both failed by politics.

Student wellbeing has come to the foreground of university policy in recent years, but our failure to take serious action has meant that stress, anxiety, imposter syndrome and depression disproportionately affect younger people - especially those in further or higher education. Despite a few psychologists, psychiatrists and professionals debunking what was believed to be madness up until the early 20th century, for much of history, mental health issues have just been dismissed. What is madness is that only recently universities and schools have realised that for students to succeed in their studies, they need the right support and the right environment that fosters that success.

> On the cusp of adulthood and freedom, students should be able to look forward to the adventure that awaits them.

Education is an inherently political issue, and so it is only right that we should expect substantial action from the top, from the government. But the turnover at the Department of Education is as volatile as Truss' premiership has been, with the department's buildings barely having enough room to hang the portraits of all the Education Secretaries gone by. Indeed, it is right that we should expect some sort of action on mental health, but our expectations are too high for a government department with a history of catastrophe and a litany of bad decision-making. As schools, sixth forms and universities were disrupted by the pandemic, an algorithm was used to replace exams and teacher-assessed grades, and the consequences were missed university offers, grades that weren't representative of the students and pressure to adapt to such rapid change. As if proud of their incompetence, the government decided to award the culprit, then Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, [a knighthood](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/03/gavin-williamson-his-blunders-in-full).

![Students protesting in London in 2020 against the enforced A-level algorithm-altered results](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1667318071/post/student_health_protest_comp_ntzyey.webp "Students protested in 2020 against the enforced A-level algorithm-altered results, calling on education secretary Gavin Williamson to resign. Source: [The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/a-level-protest-london-student-hyde-park-grades-university-a9671916.html).")

Such a disruption, due to the pandemic, has inflicted a permanent 'loss of learning' on the groups of children affected, so much so that [the Department of Education is hosting sessions to address this](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3694516-department-of-education-hosting-series-to-address-pandemic-learning-loss/). For A-level students, this has meant mounting pressure to perform in the exam halls to try and make up for this shortfall in learning, and ensure that they can take their 'next steps' as teachers and education workers like to call it. Anxiety as students face exam papers and university applications distorts what should be one of the most exciting times of their lives. On the cusp of adulthood and freedom, students should be able to look forward to the adventure that awaits them at university, apprenticeships or the world of work. But no, the pressure to ensure that they get the top grades means that the future is clouded. Students are so focused on handling their exams and the stress and anxiety that comes along with them that they find themselves unable to appreciate the excitement that should be. We need to take action to prevent a future where more students feel overcome by stress and worry.

After all, shouldn't education be a priority? Is it not beneficial to society as a whole to have an educated public, which, by extension, leads to a healthier economy and a flourishing democracy? I would've thought so, but inaction on student stress, health and wellbeing precludes students from tapping into their vast potential. This has led us to be fixated on the here and now, not the there and then. Our future leaders and citizens are currently in lecture halls, apprenticeships, classrooms and libraries, and we are failing to see that. Among the benefits of good, strong, healthy education, we can count tolerance to immigration, increasing civic engagement and economic growth. The effects of education are even felt at the ballot box. In the 2015 general election, turnout was 79.6% among those with higher education, [versus 73.1% for this without](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/210994949.pdf).

![Voting intention in the UK 2019 election by age. It shows the majority of conservative voters tend to be older in age, compared to labour voters being younger in age.](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1667318071/post/student_health_poll_jxnhrh.webp "Voting intention in the UK 2019 election by age. Source: [YouGov](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/17/how-britain-voted-2019-general-election).")

So if education is beneficial for all of us, why does the government neglect student mental health and wellbeing? It probably has something to do with the fact that, overall, the incumbent Conservative Party finds it electorally prudent to direct their campaigns and policies to the older generations. According to a poll by *YouGov*, for every 10 years older a voter is, their chance of voting Tory increases by around 10% and in 2019, 56% of 18-24 year-olds voted Labour, [whilst 67% of people over 70 voted Conservative](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/17/how-britain-voted-2019-general-election). This data perhaps gives us a reason as to why young people's mental health is not prioritised by those in power. Yet, this may change when they realise that solutions to mental health leads to better standards and improvements in education, which in turn leads to more political participation amongst young people. I have no doubt that the party who acts on this, will surely be rewarded with the votes.

When will we realise that education policy is not just for teachers, students, examining boards and universities, but it is for us all? In the same way that society still has a long way to go before reaching gender equality, precious little has been done to ensure education and young people are high up on the political to-do list. Education should be regarded as a public good. But that means treating student health as a priority, because, after all, the health of our students is the health of our nation's future. Don't believe me? - Talk to this guy:

> The foundation of every state is the education of its youth

 ~ Diogenes

Like debutantes, students are reduced to commodified objects by the state.

What do A-level results and Bridgerton have in common?

Job losses, quarantine, and the avoidance of most social interactions in the last two years have negatively impacted the mental health of most people, but especially the younger generations. Almost half of young adults now report "poor" or "very poor" mental health, while signs of psychological distress have increased by 10%. Symptoms such as lack of motivation, difficulty sleeping and loneliness are on the rise, and the same goes for diagnoses of depression and anxiety. Statistics and surveys paint a worrisome picture. But my question is another. Focusing on the frame, you can forget the details, the deeper perspective and the emotional impact. So simply, just how does it *feel* to be a young person during the pandemic?

The pandemic hit us during an already complex process of identity creation through which we were constructing our sense of 'self". During a transitional stage in which career choices, social relationships, and education combine to define ourselves:  young people "were developing their own freedom and space, and during lockdown, they lost what they had just started to experience." To put it bluntly, the pandemic "froze" us for almost two years while exacerbating an already precarious socio-economic situation.

> It feels like I wasted a year and a half of my life, - a crucial year and a half –, while the situation I will face at the end of my studies is becoming harsher and harsher.

Indeed, younger people have less economic stability. Most of us still study, and those who work have a less reliable income than older generations. Think about those family gatherings where your grandparents kept telling you that, at your age, they already had a stable job, a house and a family. Fair point, grandpa, but getting a job straight out of high school is far less probable, and most positions now require further education, which, regardless of sector, do not pay as much as they once did. And while property prices increase, the prospects of starting a family decrease. Supposing I want to get married and have a family, I live in a student house with three other people; how am I supposed to start a family with my partner? To make things worse,  other forms of capital – for instance, social and cultural capital - are less available for young people today. Frequent moving between cities or countries to pursue professional or educational careers negatively impacts their ability to form friendly or romantic relationships as they are required to reshape their social landscape every few years, either partially or totally.

See grandpa? This is why I don't have a family, house and stable job at my age, and why I am not very hopeful about all this.

This is the landscape in which Covid-19 spread. The pandemic exacerbated the feelings of hopelessness younger people might have felt in the face of the delicate transitional period they were going through and the 'not rosy' environmental and socio-political situation we envisioned. Still, writing on a piece of paper the words' depression' or 'anxiety' does not fully grasp the emotional extension of the phenomenon. Diagnosis and incidence surveys are important parameters but often feel too general or too abstract to answer the question we pondered in the beginning: how does it feel?

## What's the point?

Despite the "progress", our generation, whose reach spreads from London to New York all the way to Buenos Aires or Tokyo; who can form meaningful connections between countries or even continents; who is fluent in a 'global language' like English, and who seem to understand and master the landscapes of a global world the most, transcending national and cultural borders, is suffering the most. But why? The answer, I reckon, is 'uncertainty…'. I want to bring my personal experience to illustrate this point.

As a student, 'uncertainty' has accompanied me my whole academic career. First, when I moved from my hometown to a bigger city, secondly, when I moved to another country, and, thirdly, when I temporarily settled in Manchester. My university path has sometimes led me to struggle to build relationships due to these continuous and frequent relocations. I developed the feeling that these setbacks were the natural consequence of the times I am living in; that volatility and uncertainty were on the other side of the coin of necessary relocation because my passions and goals were not achievable as they were for my parents’ generation who had a stable and remunerative position in the country or region they grew up in.

The struggle to build a sense of community was the natural consequence of chasing my objectives. As an immigrant, I believed that building relationships was impossible for me, or at least not as easy as it had been in the past. The meaningful friendships I had built in my home town or in London are not significantly present in my life now, as my "community", and the resulting sense of belonging, is spread between different continents. And the more I moved the more spread it got. I felt that the necessity to emigrate necessarily complicated my ability to form a sense of community. In all honesty, I am forever grateful to my younger self for having decided to take this path, but living in five different cities - and three different countries - in eight years has not helped in making me feel a sense of belonging. Maybe, this is just my experience, or perhaps it is actually a familiar feeling nowadays. Nevertheless, the uncertainty is still there.

And from a career standpoint, uncertainty is still accompanying me… Where and in what position will I work in? This question is still pending for many of us, as often, passions and education do not dictate your career path. Many of us have no idea what we will do in the future, nor when and where we will find a sense of certainty and balance. It seems that our social, economic, and work position will be accompanied by a sense of precariousness. It is not clear where I will have to move to find a position that will sustain me while fitting my education and skills. Nor am I sure if I will find such a position in the future at all. Will l be required to jump through different employments? And for how long? Will I reach a sort of economic stability, one that will allow me to purchase a house, or a car, and, for those who want to, have a family? Such questions are just one aspect of my generation's condition.

In my case, Covid had a huge impact on my already stressful life plans. First, I had to interrupt the PhD research I was conducting in Cuba and go back to my hometown. And now I find myself having to change my PhD route within a scenario where employment opportunities are shrinking due to the pandemic. It feels like I wasted a year and a half of my life, - a crucial year and a half –, while the situation I will face at the end of my studies is becoming harsher and harsher. Hence the question, "what's the point"? In the last year and a half, I felt like I was floating in a never-ending limbo, unsure when and if I wanted to continue what I had already started. Will I have the energy to pursue what I started? This question was already in my mind before the pandemic, but it surely aggravated throughout almost two years in which all I could do was stare at the ceiling, metaphorically and non.

The meaning and 'texture' of my life and career are blurring to the point that they have lost consistency. Certainties crumble in the face of a psychological burden of this magnitude, and I feel like a sense of emptiness is devouring the pillars I enthusiastically built in my late adolescence. My career, education, work, home, life goals and future have slowly been emptied of their ontological consistency and now lie there as a vestigial casing of what they once were. They are still there, nominally at least, but empty, meaningless. Mirages, reflections, refractions, you shall call them the way you prefer. If I try to reach out with my hands to grasp them, they move away, and the further I try to reach them, the further they move away. An endless chase if you will, or disenchantment even. Once, they would stand there as parameters of my life trajectory, for better or worse. They gave coordinates, traced movement, provided a certain meaning, or at least they constructed the canvas through which we live. This is where, I believe, the pandemic became the most vicious. It reached my generation in a period of our lives in which we were - and still are - trying to juggle through these concepts to understand what they meant to us and how we wanted to shape them for ourselves. Exactly when we were trying to make some sense of all of this, the pandemic stuck everything in limbo.

In all honesty, these concepts were probably never solid in the first place, their meaning and position in our lives vary greatly, and we relied on them even if we realised they were relative and not absolute. Whether you want to settle down somewhere or you feel more nomadic, whether you want a marriage and children or not, whether you prefer a 9-to-5 job or a more fluid one, these factors do not define your worth or your achievements, and each of these options has value. Career, education, work, home, and life goals can take different forms for different people, they could be parameters to track your achievements but they do not necessarily have to. But even if I were perfectly aware of their contingent character all this time, I now perceive their emptiness not just logically but also emotionally. Covid made us not just think about uncertainty, it made us feel it. I learned those are two very different things.

It feels like I wasted a year and a half of my life, while the situation I will face at the end of my studies is becoming harsher and harsher.


Love your body, not the label.

The 'Working from Home' Mistake

Yes, I'm a plus size person. And that's okay.

Solo cinema trips aren’t admitting defeat - it’s self care.

Spoon-Fed lies:

Do you need a Digital Detox?

Social Media: A tale of two selves and the poison of comparison culture

What do A-level results and Bridgerton have in common?

Why my generation is going insane: the impact of COVID on mental health