Mckayla Morris

The Pressure Behind New Year’s Resolutions

by Mckayla Morris · Mar 29, 2022

“New Year, New Me” is an expression many of us have heard at least once in our lives, typically said in January with the start of a new calendar year. “New Year’s resolutions” are goals that we set right at the start of a new year that can involve building new habits, letting go of old habits, or achieving something new. The idea of having a fresh start is certainly appealing, but how many of us actually stick to these resolutions, and why do we even make them in the first place?

A study from 1988 revealed that out of 200 individuals who had made New Year’s resolutions, about 77% were able to stay committed for the first week, but only 19% of those original 200 kept their resolutions two years later. More recently, a Statista survey from December 2018 showed that only 4% of the approximately 1200 respondents who had made New Year’s resolutions in January of 2018 had actually stayed committed and kept their resolutions until the end of the year.

Why are we seeing such low numbers of people sticking to their resolutions? One reason lies behind the science of forming new habits. Many researchers have shown that it takes a minimum of 18 days to form a new habit, with repetition and reinforcement being the key to successful habit-building. One study from 2009 reveals that it can even take as long as 254 days to form a new habit, but the average amount of time is about 66 days. Many have theorized that as we increase the number of distractions in our lives, such as social media and other forms of technology, it becomes harder to stay focused on our goals and stick to the routine and repetition necessary for forming a new habit.

The idea behind creating a New Year’s resolution is that one “must” achieve something new by the end of the year. This is a potentially harmful mindset to have, since failing to meet this expectation can lead to disappointment. Additionally, many of the goals that people set as their New Year’s resolution involve attaining unrealistic or unsustainable results. For example, goals related to body image can create an unbearable pressure for many people.

It’s time to shift the conversation and focus on setting goals for ourselves throughout the year that allow us to grow and develop in healthy ways. Why do we need to wait until January 1st to start working on things we want to achieve; why not focus on change when we feel that we need it? Moving to a new place, starting a new job, or finishing school all represent major life changes that can signify the start of something new, and subsequently, the beginning of new goals and aspirations. And why must our resolutions be something that we set an arbitrary deadline to? Does failure to meet that deadline mean that we have not made progress? We should focus instead on setting goals for ourselves that allow us to reflect on how much we have grown, regardless if we achieve the ultimate goal or not. Our goals should be meaningful to us and not structured around other people’s ideas of success or improvement. These goals should afford us days to slip-up and be off-track but able to jump back in when we are ready; progress is not a linear pathway, so we ought to be more patient and forgiving with ourselves, instead of strict and unrealistic.

There is a post I recently saw on Instagram that discusses how our New Year’s resolutions can either be constructive or destructive. Constructive goals should, among other things, be inspiring, achievable, and focused on growth. Destructive goals, on the other hand, are typically time-sensitive and inspired by other people’s timelines and outward-facing success. Posts like these are important to share in our feeds so that we can help reduce the pressures behind setting new goals for ourselves. As another popular saying goes, “life is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Image by @sadgirlsclub on Instagram

Growing up, I was someone who constantly created these resolutions at the start of every year that were more focused on what other people would consider to be measures of success. My goals were largely focused on changing how my body looked or pushing myself to achieve the highest of grades just so I could get into a “good college.” Instead, my goals should have been focused on improving my own self-image or devoting more time to the things in life that I enjoyed. As I get older, I want to work on achieving personal growth in ways that are meaningful for me, and I think that this is what New Year’s resolutions should really be about.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

To Shave or Not To Shave: Tackling Body Hair

by Mckayla Morris · Nov 11, 2021

Humans have been trying to deal with body hair removal since Ancient Egypt. Whether it be a way to demonstrate your social status or keep your body clean, the methods used to remove body hair have varied over the years, with some methods being more questionable than others. And while body hair growth and removal did shape gender roles, some believe that it wasn’t until 1871 when Charles Darwin published his book ”The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex” that removal of body hair was a necessity for women who wanted to be seen as feminine and attractive.

Although humans do not have a need to have as much hair on our bodies compared to our hairy primate ancestors, body hair still serves a purpose. Human body hair no longer has any survival value, but it still retains importance when it comes to epidermal homeostasis (the maintenance of skin tissue integrity), wound healing, and skin tumorigenesis (the generation of tumors in the skin). On the other hand, the removal of body hair does have its benefits — shaving off hair has helped prevent infestations of lice and other parasites, which is certainly not ideal for those living in close quarters and who do not have access to regular showers or baths. Additionally, having a lot of hair traps perspiration, which leads to a breeding ground for bacteria that produce unpleasant odor. However, with more people having access to water on a daily basis and being able to clean themselves, this is not as big of an issue as it may have once been.

The term “clean-shaven” started to become synonymous with “hygienic,” and marketing for men’s personal shaving products emphasized the idea that a man who has a clean-shaven face is a man who is hygienic, modern, and civilized. This idea has roots in racist and classist ideology, wanting to separate white middle- and upper-class Americans from lower-class immigrants from other countries. Additionally, body hair was starting to be linked — with the help of many 19th century medical and scientific experts — to “sexual inversion, disease pathology, lunacy, and criminal violence.” Unsurprisingly, these connotations were largely being applied to women who chose not to shave, rather than males. All of this leads to 1915, when Harper’s Bazaar became the first women’s magazine to run a campaign that portrayed the removal of underarm hair as a “necessity.” Until this point, the removal of body hair — while definitely setting the standards for beauty ideals — was not considered absolutely necessary for women. By 1964, 98% of American women aged 15 to 44 were regularly shaving their legs. Despite these numbers, shaving was not as common as it is today, and many different hair removal methods for different parts of the body exist.

Many young girls and women, being exposed to ads in magazines, social media, TV commercials, and even just peer pressure, feel that there is an expectation to remove their body hair. Some say that the increased emphasis on body hair removal for females after the 1960’s and 70’s came with the rise of explicit pop culture, the increasing popularity of waxing, and more and more pornography that featured individuals who had completely removed all of their hair in the genital region. After over a hundred years of pushing the idea that body hair was not natural and being hairless meant being clean and attractive, hairlessness for the female body has become the norm, and body hair removal methods have only gotten more and more precise over the years.

As someone who identifies as a female, I’m no stranger to feeling the pressure to shave and remove my body hair. I remember begging my mother in fourth or fifth grade, shortly after starting puberty, to buy me a razor so I could shave my arms and legs, after seeing multiple magazine ads that featured these razors designed “specially for tweens and teens.” My parents did not buy me a razor like I wanted, and I was told that I didn’t even have any hair to shave. Despite their efforts, I couldn’t stop feeling like there was a part of me that I needed to hide or remove, especially as I got older and started to grow hair in multiple places.

In the past decade or so, there has been increasing pushback against this norm that pushes girls and women to shave and remove their body hair. Our culture has begun to shift, with people encouraging positive conversation around female body hair and pushing for individual empowerment. We are starting to see more ads that feature women with natural body hair on their armpits, legs, face, and other areas. The companies that produce razors and other hair removal products, such as Billie, are starting to change their narrative, from one that essentially pushes the idea that women have no choice in their decision to shave, to one that encourages the right to choose what to do with one’s body hair.

Shaving. Waxing. Creams. There are many different ways to remove hair permanently or temporarily, and all of them have their pros and cons. Ultimately, no one should ever feel the need to remove their body hair, especially when it is something that is natural and has its own purpose of keeping us warm and even protecting our skin in certain instances. The body positivity movement encourages people to practice self-love, whether or not their body matches beauty and other norms we place on ourselves, and it’s important to present ourselves the way that makes us feel the most confident and empowered.

Getting the Diagnosis: Endometriosis

by Mckayla Morris · Aug 30, 2021

Endometriosis affects approximately 1 in 10 women, disproportionately affecting women in their 30s and 40s. For most individuals, getting diagnosed with endometriosis is a difficult process. On average, it takes anywhere from 3 to 11 years after the onset of symptoms to reach the final diagnosis. Social media is rife with personal accounts of healthcare failures exacerbating endometriosis. For example, YouTubers who have gone through the diagnostic journey themselves shed light on why it takes such a long time to reach a diagnosis, whether it be doctors dismissing their pain or reaching another diagnosis that might explain the symptoms that they are experiencing. Buzzfeed’s As/Is channel on YouTube uploaded a video in 2019 titled “A Week In My Life With Endometriosis,” which documented one individual’s daily life while they deal with this condition. Clips of her laying in bed with loose, stretchy pants, shopping for “safe foods,” and keeping a heating pad on while sitting at her work desk felt extra relatable to me, as there are days where my pain confines me to oversized sweatshirts and loose leggings but I still have to attend classes or take care of errands. “The extra steps that I have to take every single day just to be comfortable, just to exist in a way that’s comfortable to me, is something that I wish the average person understood a little bit better” is a sentence that still resonates with me to this day.

Like the woman in the YouTube video, my mother ranks among the countless people who have suffered from both the physical and institutional consequences of endometriosis. Since the age of 18, she suffered from bad periods. “My cramps were so severe that I would double-over in pain and take an unrecommended amount of aspirin just to get by,” my mom explained to me. This pain stayed for another 3 years, until she started using birth control pills to prevent an unplanned pregnancy. Four to five years later when my parents started to discuss having kids and my mom stopped the birth control, the bad periods returned and her pain was at an all-time high. When she talked to her gynecologist at the time about her symptoms, she was told that she was just experiencing severe hormone imbalance due to stopping birth control. “Every woman has cramps,” they said to her. It took switching to a new gynecologist and eventually being referred to a fertility specialist at age 27 for my mom to be diagnosed with severe endometriosis.

My story is a little bit different from my mom’s. I started experiencing bad periods when I was around 12 years old, and at age 14, I went to my mom’s OB/GYN so that I could be given the Nexplanon birth control implant. From the next 4 to 5 years, my birth control seemed to work wonders for me. However, in the past two years I’ve noticed that some of my previous symptoms are returning, I’m experiencing new symptoms I haven’t before, and something doesn’t feel right. I am 21 years old, and I am experiencing a lot of the same symptoms my mother was experiencing right before her diagnosis. In addition to talking to my mom, I’ve started to do my own research, and here is what I have found so far.

So… what exactly is endometriosis?

Endometriosis is a condition in which endometrial-like tissue that typically lines your uterus starts to grow outside of the uterus. Endometrial tissue in your uterus thickens each month and will break down and shed with your menstrual cycle. However, the endometrial-like tissue that grows outside of the uterus on your pelvic organs (or even outside the pelvis region entirely) has no way to shed your body, so it becomes trapped and eventually becomes irritated, leading to scar tissue and adhesions. It is the scar tissue and adhesions that often are the source of the pain people with endometriosis commonly experience, and also the source of fertility problems that may only be discovered when one is planning to have children.

What does endometriosis feel or look like?

While endometriosis can vary from person to person, there are many common symptoms that individuals can face. These symptoms include:

Painful periods
Pain with sexual intercourse
Pain with bowel movements or urination
Excessive bleeding during or between periods
Infertility
Fatigue, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, nausea, headaches/migraines, and more

It should also be noted that the stage of endometriosis one may get diagnosed with may not correspond to an individual’s pain levels or experience of other symptoms.

How is endometriosis diagnosed, and why does it usually take so long?

To diagnose endometriosis and rule out any other conditions, your doctor will typically ask you to describe all of the symptoms that you are experiencing and will conduct a variety of tests, such as pelvic exams, abdominal and/or vaginal ultrasounds, and MRIs. With all of that said, laparoscopies are often referred to as the “gold-standard” for official diagnosis, as this procedure allows doctors to see the inside of your abdomen and see if there is any endometrial tissue growing outside of the uterus, which is often removed at the same time. Biopsies are sometimes performed during these laparoscopies so that the tissue can be tested later in the lab and the diagnosis can be histologically confirmed. Laparoscopies also allow for doctors to determine the stage of endometriosis, ranging from stage 1 (minimal) to stage 4 (severe).

Diagnosis often takes such a long time because endometriosis and its symptoms can be confused with a number of other conditions and diseases, including pelvic inflammatory disease, ovarian cysts, and irritable bowel syndrome. Pain can sometimes be dismissed by doctors that think it is “normal,” or the condition may not even be an issue until an individual starts to encounter fertility issues.

How is endometriosis treated? Is there a cure?

Unfortunately, there is no cure for endometriosis. However, there are many effective treatments that are available today, and because endometriosis is unique to each individual, individualized treatment plans are important. Treatment for endometriosis typically involves (but is not limited to) laparoscopic surgeries, pain medication, and/or hormone therapy. Some individuals may continue to experience pain or have pain return years after treatment, which can be the case when endometrial tissue that was not visible and/or removable during initial surgery, in which medication or even a hysterectomy is the next step to manage symptoms.

For my mom, most of her symptoms alleviated three different times – when she became pregnant, after she started DepoProvera birth control, and when she entered menopause. Countless people have anecdotes of their endometriosis symptoms improving after becoming pregnant, but the problem with this is that many are infertile as a result of this condition and have a difficult time conceiving, and there are also many who do not plan on having any children for a while or ever. As for my own journey and my future, I do not plan on ever having children and I think that sometimes my symptoms or treatment options have been overlooked multiple times due to the fact that I am not actively working to become pregnant. Additionally, I am not interested in starting DepoProvera since I am happy with my current form of birth control, and as a 21-year-old, I am not even close to starting menopause. However, after actively advocating for myself at my appointments with my gynecologist, I am in the process of being referred to a surgeon who can do the diagnostic laparoscopic procedure for me at the end of this year. Both my mom and I have our concerns about having the surgery done, but we know that it is important for me to get answers for the sake of my own health and work towards a future with minimal pain. In the past year or so, I’ve learned that not every person’s case of endometriosis is the same, and with that knowledge in mind, I want to be able to share important information and spread awareness so that people like me will know when to start a conversation with their doctor.

For more information, you can visit acog.org or find an OB-GYN here.