Kanako Murakami: “When I started to focus on having a beautiful body rather than just losing weight, my body started to change.”
Kanako Murakami speaks openly about weight management in sport and struggles she has faced.
original source: nordot.app dd. 2d March 2024 by Hideaki Kamihara
Here’s atranslation of the article and Kanako Murakami’s comments on “Weight Management” made in an interview for The Answears’ International Women’s Week which focuses on various female athletes and issues in sports, to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8th.
This’s the second part of the interview. Translation of the first part is here:
In the second part, Kanako Murakami reveals her past struggles when she was pointed out for gaining 13 kilograms after retirement. Despite harboring a complex about her body shape, she sets a goal to “love herself” and expresses her wish for a world where lookism is not an issue.
From her childhood when she started figure skating, Murakami was always watched by her mother, who taught her to “always leave a bite of food.” Even when her mother wasn’t around during meals, she felt the “gaze.” She struggled with weight control, experienced irregular menstruation and fatigue fractures, and dedicated herself entirely to skating until she retired at the age of 22. As a result of this backlash, her body underwent changes after retirement. She gained 13 kilograms in two years.
“My exercise decreased to about 1/100th, but my eating increased. I was no longer busy with practice, so if friends invited me, I would casually go out for snacks or anywhere. Then I would eat popcorn or potato chips while drinking alcohol… that kind of thing. There was no one to stop me. Losing weight was difficult, but gaining weight was really easy (laughs),” recalled Kanako.
She weighed herself in the morning without clothes because “the morning is the lightest.” She also tried to hide her rounder face with makeup. “I pretended not to see myself getting fatter.” But elderly people she met on location shoots for TV programs started to tell her, “Your face looks puffy,” “You’ve gained a lot of weight.”
“Since my athlete days, the seriousness of body image has been ingrained in me, and I have been hurt, lost confidence in myself. Contrary to appearances, I am very delicate and easily hurt. Even now, there are words that hurt me when I hear them, no matter how small they are. (Even when dining with friends), just being told ‘You eat a lot,’ ‘You ordered a lot,’ ‘You’ve been eating for a long time,’ is enough to sting. I try to turn it into laughter and avoid embarrassment, but the words remain in my heart. That’s why, even now, somewhere in my heart, I still think that ‘eating is a bad thing.'”
In the world of television, she noticed that she was always surrounded by models and talents who were thin. “On TV, everything looks bigger (laughs). I thought, ‘If I continue like this, it’s not good…'” She decided to go on a diet and worked hard to lose weight. She improved her diet and returned to the level of exercise she had during her active career. She also started Pilates, and in one year, she lost 8 kilograms.
Last October, she posted about her body shape. After candidly expressing her thoughts, Murakami concludes like this. “I also want to love my puffy thighs no matter how hard I try. Look! My thighs! (laughs)”
Murakami is still struggling and thinking about changing herself and her body. What she wanted to convey is the importance of loving oneself no matter who you are.
Even after dieting, her thighs did not slim down. “In that case, I thought, ‘I’d rather have good-looking thighs than flabby ones.'” She changed her mindset. “Even if the thickness doesn’t change, I want to be in a good shape. When I started to focus on having a beautiful body rather than just losing weight, my body started to change. I feel that mental and physical aspects are connected.”
Although she laughs and says that she is only at level 1 in terms of loving herself, every year, one of the 10 goals she writes for the next year is always “love myself,” and she is making an effort to gradually cultivate the feeling of “love.” She was struck by recent words from a friend. It was, “Instead of writing many things, why not focus only on ‘loving yourself?'”
“In the end, if you can love yourself, you can accept and be satisfied with anything you do. It’s okay to think about this and that, but you should focus on this. It’s simple, but I didn’t realize it myself. Thanks to that, I’ve gradually become able to accept things more positively and enjoy them.”
She also has thoughts about lookism. “There are not many people who say, ‘You’ve gained weight, that’s good,’ but there are many people who say, ‘You’ve lost weight, that’s good.’ I don’t think a world that thinks ‘You’ve lost weight’ positively is good.”
“Of course, except for those who have health reasons, I don’t think that getting thinner necessarily means becoming more beautiful. Especially in Japan, there are many thin models, and there is a strong tendency to attach importance to body weight (numbers). However, I think it’s okay to praise people for being true to themselves (physically). Even looking at overseas celebrities, if they think they are ‘beautiful,’ others also think they are ‘beautiful.’ It’s difficult to achieve immediately, but I would be happy if Japan could also have a positive view of people’s appearance.”
Furthermore, she also feels a breeze of change in the figure skating world that nurtured her.
“The young people now seem to take things positively. They even brighten up stories like ‘Oh, I ate too much.’ Whether it’s a global trend of being in good shape and loving your body, or there are fewer kids like us who think ‘I can only eat salad’ or ‘Oh, I ate this,’ and it’s not uncommon for them to have a nutritionist. In the past, there was an image that nutritionists were only for top athletes, but now there is an environment where you can learn from them even before competing in world competitions, which is significant.”
She also shared that “This is the first time I’ve talked so much about my body shape. Such interviews often tend to be in the context of learning from an athlete’s successful experience, but I still have things I haven’t overcome yet.
When I was troubled, I wanted to hear the stories of those who are trying to overcome something rather than those who have already overcome something. Although those who have overcome can sometimes make you realize things, there are also people who are struggling at a similar level. I hope that by honestly showing everyone that ‘I’m in this state too,’ something will resonate and we can all work together.”
Related topics: Kanako Murakami
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