I had never seen an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians until my senior year of college. Beyond the cursory information I got from snippets of conversations between my roommates, I knew the bare minimum: Kim is married to Kanye, something, something Kylie’s Lips, and Khloe is who everyone considered to be “the fat one.” Having little frame of reference, I did not put much thought into the Kardashian clan, or the way people talked about them. But one night while flipping through channels, I saw a new show: Revenge Body with Khloe Kardashian.
Curious, I asked my roommates to fill me in. My roommates spent the next half an hour detailing what a revenge body is, and Khloe’s fight to get fit throughout the years. A revenge body is commonly defined as something that “occurs from a person channeling his or her frustration over a break up into exercise. The fit body is intended to make his or her ex jealous and regret breaking up.”
On its surface, the concept of a “revenge body” may seem harmless. Hell, some may even argue this push to get healthy is a good thing. However, upon further deconstruction, the toxic mentality of the revenge body becomes illuminated.
To start, getting fit as a response to getting broken up with is not necessarily a bad reaction; the harm comes from the motive itself. The quest for a revenge body gives power to those that hurt you. Actively working out for the sake of “revenge” leads to a fixation on the break up, or the circumstances leading to it. And instead of healing, or focusing on being happy, the focus is shifted to a preoccupation of what your ex thinks and what they will think of it. Although weight is being shed, it is not a healthy means by which to do so.
Revenge body is derived from a mentality of insecurity and obsession. Is your ex shitty? Probably. Is it your responsibility to better yourself as a person? Absolutely. Is it your responsibility to do so for the sake of making your shitty ex feel bad? Absolutely not. Your commitment of time, effort, and improvement is to yourself. The (pursuit) of progress for anyone but you is a disservice to yourself.
Not only that, but the idea of a revenge body reinforces the thinking that there is a “right” type of body and the aspiration to get one. Revenge body feeds into societal standards for what is considered attractive. Rather than shifting the mentality to accepting and loving yourself, the script is flipped to a monologue of not being visually appealing enough during the relationship and changing that in order to fill someone who’s not even in your life anymore full of regret for how they treated you.
Granted, you can still enjoy your new body, and hey, maybe it will even be easier for finding you a significant other in the future, but the path to get there was a bleak and painful one. Motivation stemming from pain isn’t strong enough to utilize for long periods of time. And if it is, the situation is simply exacerbated by the constant hunt for theoretical revenge. It’s easy for the pursuit of a revenge body to spiral beyond just wanting to look good.
Fixation isn’t healthy in any facet. Rise above their heads, but do it for the sake of inner peace and self-love; not to impress people who don’t care. Motivation matters. Better yourself, but do it for yourself.
