How to lose the Quarantine 15

This piece has been created to comment on and critique the toxic diet culture of modern day society, as well as the meme culture that further engrains this internalised fatphobia into the society at large.

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I took a photo of myself on the worst day of the 2020 lockdown, the day where I was feeling my worst in terms of self-esteem, and painted it using coffee.

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I decided on coffee as a medium as coffee has become one of the world's most commonly used appetite suppressants amongst many fad diets.

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It also becomes to represent this self- isolation that we as fat individuals tend to place ourselves in. To simply have a coffee with friends becomes more daunting when your self-worth is low, and you eventually begin to cancel on these precious moments as you feel embarrassed by how society is going to perceive you.

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The piece then ties these two ideas together with the mask as this physical lockdown almost becomes reminiscent of the self-lockdown that we place around ourselves as we begin to hide from the world. I have also painted the mask as much larger than the average mask to further emphasise how small the figure has become and how much she has withered away in comparison 

to who she was.

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The figure has also been painted in a rather skeletal fashion (dark circles under eyes and very small, skinny arms) as not only a physical reminder of the consequences of the disordered eating (starving yourself) but also as a symbol of the emotional death that has occurred within the figure. 

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I have thus decided to name this piece “how to lose the Quarantine 15”, as that has been the title that has been thrown around when referring to the weight that has been gained throughout this lockdown period.

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And I would like you as the viewer to look at my piece and think to themselves “yes, you will lose the weight.

But is the cost of losing your self-worth worth you losing a few extra Kilos?

Will it be worth losing my happiness?

Will it be worth losing everything that I am to become something that I will never be?”