Koale | Body image and stigma in Hong Kong society
Koale is a Canadian HongKonger in her mid 20s and is a physiotherapist working at a hospital. She was born in Canada but has strong family and social ties to Hong Kong. As a teenager she was diagnosed with PCOS, a hormonal condition that can affect a person’s weight. Over the years, she has worked to prioritise her own needs and promote better understanding of body image issues.
“People exist in all different shapes and sizes, so I think it is time everyone became a little less judgmental.”
While I was born in Canada, and my immediate family has always been relatively Western-minded, I have consistently experienced a clash between my Chinese and Canadian culture when it comes to body positivity. In a family gathering, the very first thing someone will usually say is that you look “healthy”, sarcastically, meaning that you are “chubbier” than they expected or that you have gained weight recently. The context of the comment may be different but it almost always has something to do with your body. Those kinds of comments bothered me because I am of a bigger build, and in Hong Kong specifically, this has connotations of negative traits particularly laziness. As the standard Asian body type is more ‘petite’ than other ethnicities, this has also become the overarching standard. Some people even think this fact makes it okay for them to comment on someone’s appearance, however, I am not sure whether this is just a cultural norm.
During puberty I experienced hormonal problems, which I later discovered was polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)[*1]. Essentially, PCOS is an endocrine disorder. The imbalanced hormone levels in the body can affect a woman’s ovulation cycle, weight, and appearance. PCOS affects my body in terms of how I absorb nutrients and how I react to what I eat. It is easier for me to gain weight regardless of my level of physical activity and diet. There is no real treatment for PCOS, and it is a hidden condition that other people may not necessarily think about when looking at someone else’s weight or body type.
Journey to self-acceptance
It has been a journey for me to prioritise my needs and not fall into the trap of comparing myself to my “slimmer” Hong Kong friends and bending to the weight of social expectation. Since leaving high school, I have managed to handle this better; however, I still struggle with comments on my appearance sometimes and I get flashbacks to the past and the feelings I had about my body back then. It is a constant struggle.
Occasionally, my mum would recommend that I try some crash diets. Yet, she’s quite conflicted as she also wants me to pursue a healthy lifestyle with proper nutrition. What I usually hear from her is “eat loads and take care of yourself.”
Dealing with family
I have always dreaded meeting my extended family for gatherings such as Chinese New Year as they would be sure to comment on my appearance. It reached a point when I was a teenager where I began to wear black to cover up my figure as dressing like that provided me with some psychological protection from the criticism.
While I was studying to be a physiotherapist, my friend’s father asked whether I thought people would trust someone who was “fat” like me to give them advice. I don’t understand how my body type has anything to do with my ability to provide treatment to someone. It is something I cannot control.
Body image in Hong Kong
Around my first year at university, I lost around 20 pounds (9kg). When I returned to Hong Kong, many commented on how much slimmer I looked. While I looked “healthier” on the surface, I knew deep down that I was not, and that they did not understand what I had gone through. Unfortunately, PCOS and its effects on weight gain is an alien concept for them to grasp. Just because someone may have a larger figure does not mean they are not being active or living a healthy lifestyle.
I do not think Hong Kong society is very supportive of those struggling with their body image; yet, I believe this is a product of misinformation about diet and celebrity culture. Beauty salons in the city always target people with products that claim to help lose weight quickly which is unrealistic. There are also lots of ‘quick fix’ remedies marketed to help them return to the ‘skinny’ archetype.
Some of my Hongkonger friends are very obsessed with diet, which I think fuels a superficial approach to beauty. Most of the time they do not discuss things like exercising more to improve their health but rather unhealthy eating practices to make themselves slimmer. However, this is not a phenomenon unique to Hong Kong as people around the world struggle with this issue.
This has also played out against public figures such as Joyce Cheng[*2], who appeared a lot slimmer when she was a spokesperson for a weight loss programme but then reverted back to her “larger” body shape afterwards. I remember that my friends would often make fun of her body which made me very uncomfortable as I felt like I was indirectly going through the same experience. While your friends may not make those comments about you to your face, how they speak about others like you can hurt you just as badly. It shows that they find what you are struggling with amusing.
More empathy, less hate
I have thought about speaking more openly about PCOS as it is something that many others experience, but there is very little information designed to help people like me dealing with the condition.
There also needs to be a better conversation about diet where the focus is on long-term health and wellbeing, instead of just losing weight quickly through ‘crash diets’. I tried all kinds of ‘crash diets’ during my teenage years, and all it did was worsen my relationship with food and cause more issues with my body. I began to suffer from acid reflux to the extent that I thought I had food allergies. In fact, it was something I made up as an attempt to alleviate my anxiety. I have also noticed that many people like to give advice about diet or weight loss methods, but among those are a lot of misinformation and I find it tiring to have to constantly explain the realities of living with a condition like PCOS.
I also believe there needs to be more of a focus on the mental aspects of body image rather than solely the physical. In Canada, body positivity and an emphasis on mental health is a lot more common, which I hope will be forthcoming in Hong Kong. If I had stayed in Hong Kong and not lived in Canada, I would have received much less information about my condition and how to handle it positively.
The main thing I would like to say to everyone is to be more open-minded and more accepting of other people. I think there needs to be more empathy than hate. Sometimes, a medical condition may not be visible physically, and even medications can lead to weight gain as a side effect. You shouldn’t judge people just from their physical appearance as you don’t know what they might be dealing with. People make so many assumptions when they comment on appearance. People exist in all different shapes and sizes, so I think it is time everyone became a little less judgmental.
“I am Koale, I am a HKer.”
Support our Journalism with a Contribution
Many people might not know this, but despite our large team of contributors, which we are immensely grateful for, We Are HKers is still a small bootstrapped group that runs on no outside funding and loans. Everything you see today is built on the backs of warriors who have sacrificed opportunities, time, meals and sleep to help give HKers all over the world a voice and keep our culture alive.
However, we still face many trials in the running of our platform, from finding the necessary equipment for our video interviews, to subscribing to the necessary tools to facilitate our remote work process of our global team, to trying not to get fired from our main jobs as we run this project secretly in the background, and to keeping our platform running and storing our files securely.
We hope you consider making a contribution, so we can continue to provide you with moving stories of HKers all over the world and keep our heritage and culture alive. Even a £1 contribution goes a long way. Thank you for everyone’s support. We love you all and can’t appreciate you guys enough.
**Please note that your support of We Are HKers Ltd. does NOT constitute a charitable donation. We really appreciate your support in independent journalism. If you have any questions about contributing to We Are HKers, please contact us here.
- February 2022
- December 2021
- August 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
[*1] Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a disorder that affects people’s hormone levels. Common symptoms of PCOS can include irregular periods, difficulty getting pregnant, weight gain, and excessive hair growth. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3737989/)
[*2] Joyce Cheng Yan-yee is a Hong Kong-Canadian singer, writer and actress
This article was featured on Apply Daily English Version. See the article @ https://hk.appledaily.com/feature/20200822/XV3I7ZWLB5BKLFSPNS53UO5IQA/