It’s 1992, I’m 11. I hate sport. I used to be OK at netball and swimming, until the PE teacher called me “one of the chubby ones” and I felt too ashamed of my body to do anything but hide. Now, it’s summer, which means athletics, THE WORST.
I’m one of the “early developers” so while my peers still look like bouncy little kids in their polyester gym knickers, my cumbersome hips and chunky Celtic thighs are all I can think about. It’s probably in my imagination though, right? Nobody is looking at my legs? I approach the long jump with trepidation. “MILK BOTTLE LEGS!” shouts some Lee or Matt or Dave, and all the other Lees and Matts and Daves and Gemmas and Emmas laugh. I pretend I didn’t hear them.
It’s 2001, I’m 20. Me and my flatmate - my best mate, actually, until an almighty and long overdue falling out a few years later - are packing for a music festival. She really, really hates her legs, even though they’re perfectly fine, and she really, really likes bitching about other people’s bodies, constantly. I’m 5’4 and a size 16 and never know what to wear. She’s a size 12, so she likes that.
Everyone else is obsessed with Topshop but it only goes up to a 14, so I’m too embarrassed to go in, even to look at shoes and bags (it’s possible I invented the concept of imposter syndrome at Topshop Peterborough, actually, some time in the 90s). So my style is sort of emo-before-it-was-called-emo, and I always have my boobs on display, because somewhere along the way I realised they were a good distraction, or a weapon. I don’t think about my legs that much now, they’re just always hidden in black jeans. “It’s going to be really hot,” says my flatmate. “It’s a shame we can’t have our legs out.” I absorb her words. We. No point saying anything. I pack another v-neck top.
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It’s 2009, I’m 28. I’m a size 12 now too, and wear a lot of cute little dresses - but always with tights. I’m meeting my friends in the park for a boozy picnic. Someone I fancy will be there, and I don’t want him to see my bare legs. It’s 28 degrees. I wear a colourful skirt, with 80 denier black opaque body-shaping tights, and the obligatory ballet pumps. I spend the afternoon absolutely sweltering, and my feet stink. He doesn’t turn up.
It’s 2011, I’m almost 30. It’s January, it’s 11.30pm on a Monday night, I’ve been to a gig, it’s freezing, I’m on a late train back to South London with nobody else in the carriage, I’m wearing tights. A smartly-dressed guy a few years older than me, wearing a wedding ring, inexplicably sits right opposite me, tries to catch my eye, unzips his trousers and then starts doing unspeakable things. I jump up, wait by the door and rush off the train at my stop, but he starts following me home, muttering “I’m really sorry, I couldn’t help it, it was your legs, I couldn’t stop looking at your legs.” I shake him off and I’m disgusted, and terrified, and calling the police, but also I’m thinking “Seriously, my legs? That’s a first.”
It’s 2015, I’m 34. There’s a screaming newborn strapped to me. It’s July and so, so hot that I’ve been keeping my nursing bra in the freezer. My beautiful baby boy is freaked out by the weather - I’m assuming my womb had aircon - and me moving him from room to room, cluster feeding, as the sun works its way around the house, isn’t cutting it. I decide to go for a shady walk in the park, to see if he’ll go to sleep. I’m carrying a lot of pregnancy and Hob Nob weight and I’d love to just wear a vest top and shorts, but those are strictly for my baby’s eyes at home, so I hoik on my thick black high-waisted maternity leggings and stomp out. The only humans I see are other exhausted new mums - all in shorts, of course.
It’s 2021, I’m 40. For the first time in my life, I’ve discovered, and become addicted to, exercise. In fact, after conquering Couch to 5K in lockdown, one of the hardest times of my life (yeah yeah, yours too, I know) I’ve made running my entire personality. And yet… I always wear leggings. But it’s hot, and I’m training for my first half marathon, and peeling my leggings off after a long run feels absolutely disgusting. Could I… should I… try wearing shorts?
I buy some, and wear them around the house. It feels nice. Next, I put them on for an early morning run - I’m talking 6am, when I know I’ll hardly see a soul. It’s fine. My knees feel cool and free, I even think they might make me run faster. Then, the big one; I want to go for a run straight after dropping my kids at school, but that means wearing them in public. I do it. Nobody dies. I do it again. And again. I buy more. I wear them every time I go for a run between April and October. It’s just normal now.
It’s 2026, I’m 45. Hi, it’s today. It’s hot. I’m wearing shorts, not just for running, but for life, because it’s boiling, and nobody cares. My legs are still pasty white, but they get freckles now, with all that running outside I do, and I think that’s kind of cute, actually. They’re strong too, from all the weights I lift at the gym, and in the last few years they’ve seen me across the London Marathon finish line, a couple of half marathons every year and more than 160 parkruns from Catford to Krakow. Aren’t I lucky, to have legs that can do all that, as well as all the every day stuff - dodging dog poo on the pavements while walking my kids to school, stomping to the station to catch the 8.25 to the office, pedalling a Lime bike home at 11pm after a gossipy meal with friends…
Are they my best feature? Nah, let’s say that’s my personality. I still fight the elder millennial body negativity urge to cover up the bits I don’t like and it’s fair to say I wouldn’t wear hot pants (or a crop top, but maybe we’ll talk about my stomach another time). Even now, I mostly dress to emphasise my boobs and cinch my waist, because 00s Trinny and Susannah are always in my head telling me I’m a classic hourglass, schweedie, but now, when it’s warm, my legs are out, and I genuinely don’t care. I don’t slap on fake tan, pointless cellulite potions or indeed Instagram filters. I just run and walk and exist in clothes appropriate to the weather and occasion, and I wish you did too.
“Wear the damn shorts” was a slogan coined a few years ago by fitness influencer Georgina Cox and then popularized by Sweaty Betty, but we all know it’s not as easy as that - although certainly punchier than me saying the same thing in 1300 words of accumulated baggage.
But if lots of us say it, in different ways, in different places, every day, perhaps it will start drowning out all the voices of body shamers past that still ring in our ears with every step we take. In a world where the clothes in the shops are so inconsistently sized and the Kardashians and Jenners exist, it’s tough to just be a normal woman in shorts on a hot day. Or just a normal woman in a normal human body on any given day.
But I promise that nobody is scrutinizing your legs as much as you are. And I promise your airy knees will thank you. I just wish mine had figured it out a long time ago.
