So many Indian women struggle with their body image. We need to talk about why | Pragya Agarwal

When Indian actor Aishwarya Rai, once Miss World, walked the runway at Paris fashion week for L’Oréal this month, the online space and many Indian newspapers exploded with comments about her weight.

People took to social media to say she had “let herself go”, that she shouldn’t have worn this or that, that she should have taken better care of herself. She faced similar comments about her “baby weight” soon after giving birth to her daughter 12 years ago.

I watched this unfold with disappointment because this sort of public shaming not only affects Indian celebrities, but also has a direct impact on millions of young girls and women around the country. It is easy to blame the media or Bollywood films for these attitudes – they certainly contribute to young girls aspiring to a “film star body” – but there are deeper intersectional social factors that shape Indian women’s body image.

In India, like many other south Asian countries, food plays a huge role in families and in social situations. I value and appreciate the closeness that food brings, and I love – and miss – this about Indian culture. Growing up in India, I was very aware of the paradox of life revolving around food alongside a huge focus on women’s bodies and weight. Recent visits have shown me that this has not changed much, especially in bigger towns and cities.

Often when I visit India, the first comment I receive from relatives is about whether I have gained or lost weight. Within a traditionally collectivist society such as India, where what people say matters, it has always been acceptable to comment on people’s bodies.

As soon as I hit puberty and my body shape started to change, relatives and friends of the family advised me to watch what I was eating and to avoid getting fat or else no one would marry me. Sometimes this was said as a joke, but mostly it was serious. After warnings about gaining weight – especially as I was not tall, and a different shape to my sister, who was naturally slender – I started to control what I was eating, often allowing myself only half a roti for an entire day.

I quickly lost weight, and people complimented me on how I was “looking very thin and delicate” and “managing my weight very well”. I don’t remember anyone asking me why this was. It was not that my parents didn’t care, they just didn’t have the information about eating disorders.

I have always loved food and I have educated myself on disordered eating, but the mental health consequences of that period have stayed with me. For decades I have yo-yoed between undereating and overeating. And the comments have continued well into my adulthood. Even after a traumatic pregnancy that involved bedrest for three months, a cousin told me I had become too “fluffy”.

Matrimonial adverts – where families look for suitable matches for arranged marriages – often stipulate a “beautiful, fair-skinned, thin” woman as a wife. When marriage is presented as an ultimate goal for women, they are compelled to adhere to the feminine norms of beauty. The glorification of a slim body shape is also rooted in the colonial legacy where normative white bodies have been idealised.

In collectivist societies, women are expected to focus on others, not on themselves. When women are cooking and serving, as they do in the majority of Indian families, what and how much they are eating can be ignored. There is also a stigma around mental health conditions, meaning women are less likely to come forward even if they notice their own disordered eating. Disordered eating can also go unnoticed or be overlooked because a slim body is so desirable.

Dieting has moralistic connotations in Indian communities, associated with self-motivation. Controlling our appetites and desires is better than giving into our earthly desire to consume good food. In religions such as Hinduism, this is a position of moral high ground, a voluntary act of divine and spiritual purification. There are many days of fasting in the Hindu calendar. And for many, religious fasting can cloak disordered eating. My grandmother died in her 40s. She was very spiritual and always fasting, and I have often wondered if there was more to this story than we have ever known.

It is well documented that body image is a strong predictor of disordered eating, particularly binge eating, excessive dieting and purging. As early as 1991, a study in Bradford showed a higher prevalence of eating disorders in girls of Asian origin (2.6%) compared with white girls (0.6%). However, research on eating disorders in India remains sporadic, even as awareness of these conditions is growing around the world. In a 2018 study of 1,600 students aged 15 to 25 in Mysore, south India, more than 27% were prone to eating disorders; another study of 500 female undergraduates showed that 30% had abnormal eating attitudes that correlated with anxiety and depression. But none of the research so far has studied the correlation of social and cultural factors, gender, and susceptibility to eating disorders.

In an evolving society such as India, where women are walking a tightrope between modernity and tradition, trying to assert independence but also please their families and conform to the expectations placed on them, they continue to receive messages about what body shapes are desirable. The unrealistic standards of beauty that have been perpetuated in media, in films and in Indian society have to be challenged. At the same time, there has to be a more open conversation around eating disorders among Indian and other south Asian women.

• Dr Pragya Agarwal is an academic, speaker and author

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