Underestimated: The emotional consequences of weight loss
Normally, photos of a successful diet look like this: You see an overweight person in bulky clothes – and then a completely new person who shines slim, attractive and happy into the camera.
Does it really make you happy to get slim?
No, says the American artist Julia Kozerski, who cut her weight in half in a long fight. And adds, "I think the most overlooked aspect of weight loss is the emotional one."
Julia Kozerski knows what she is talking about. After her wedding, she lost 72 kilos because she wanted to enjoy a long life with her husband. In her photo project Half, she shows brutally honest self-portraits, What others are normally not allowed to see: excess skin, stretch marks, tears, emptiness and the feeling of disappearing.
In pictures and words, she reveals the effects of weight loss on her body and soul.
Julia K.'s Odyssey
"We all have at least one characteristic that makes us feel uncomfortable; something that makes us feel like we're not" normal ". For me and countless others, your own weight is an eternal source of such uncertainty."
"At the age of 25, I weighed 153 kilos. With a BMI of 49.9, my body was almost half fat and I was classified as 'morbidly obese'."
"In my childhood and adolescence, my weight caused depressive phases due to physical and emotional problems. So long I wanted nothing more than to be physically different, in the belief that it would make me happier."
"In December 2009, I decided to take my life into my own hands and set off on my own self-determined journey to a healthy life. By counting calories, concentrating on nutrition and portion sizes and through more exercise, I lost more than 72 kilos."
"While I was convinced that my hard work and dedication would make me the" perfect "person of my dreams, the reality turned out to be just the opposite. My experience contradicts what most media show. It's easy, the dramatic physical Celebrating and appreciating changes in such an undertaking, but there is a completely different reality under clothing and behind closed doors. "
"These photos are self-portraits. They reflect my experience and address and explore my physically and emotionally painful struggle with food, with obsession, self-control and self-image."
"These brutally honest pictures illuminate what it is like for me to live my life as my own half."
