ok, i wrote about body immage just last week. and i really do hate to sound like a broken reccord, but a couple of things came up today. one made me smile. the other made me stabby. lets start with the smile, shall we?
the awesome Single Dad Laughing did this great piece on womens body issues. "what," you might ask, "does a single guy know about womens body issues?" apparently a whole damn lot. cause he nailed it on the head. it's a rather legnthy post, which boils down to womens body issues being men's fault. and while i'm not quite willing to go that far, he has a point. our sense of self worth depends in a massive amount on what we percieve our men think of us. "does he think i'm too fat?" "does he think my boobs are too small?" "am i too/not enough blonde/brunette/redhead/tall/fat/skinny/smart........."
the list is quite litteraly, endless.
but guys, don't worry, the media, and society, and WOMEN are still shouldering quite a bit of the blame too. and just as before, i can offer no solution other than we, as a society, have to stop giving a good ghoram what anybody but US thinks about US. i mean please, don't take offence at this, but i don't care what dispariging things you think about me. and if that does offend you.... why are you reading this anyway?
and btw, if you don't follow Single Dad Laughing, you really should. he really is awesome.
now for the stabby -
i'm honestly not sure what posessed the editors of Marie Clare. the article that is linked there.... seriously made my blood boil. who the HELL does this woman think she is? do we not have enough problems as a society that she has to... bully... overweight people? and an admitted recovering anorexic offering diet tips? oh that's just great. i have a papercut, would you like to pour lemon juice in it? i don't remember every buying a Marie Clare before (cause you know, it's Marie Clare), but you can be damn sure i never will in the future. and this... author... if she's still employed in the morning, that will be a stupid mistake on the company's part. i mean, how derogetory can you get? the title of the article is "should FATTYS get a room? (even on tv)" really??
for those of you who didn't read the article, let me copy and paste a little experpt from our grand journalist:
"So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair."
(and yes, the incorrect use of "heroine" was already addressed in the articles comments : a heroine addict is someone who can't get enough Disney princesses)
why can a magazine not actualy help a person feel better about themselves? wtf? is it that hard? honestly, is it that much easier just to make people feel like shite all the time?
i'm not going to badmouth the woman (any more than i already have). this is america, and she's entitled to her openinion. and somehow she managed to get paid for it (not sure how much longer THAT is going to last... maybe she'll get a 2million deal with fox news). but for a fashion magazine that is already is pushing us all to hate ourselves to the point of no return to allow this essay to be published... i once again state that this rag will be recieving no more of my money.
not that it ever got any before, so it's a moot point, but damnit that's my stand.
The continuing adventures of Heather.... Mommy, Hippy, Artist, and Happy Heathen. Also, its possible I'm a Middle Earth dwarf. Also, ADORKABLE
Oh- gonna go read those now- I don't normally pick up "women's" magazines- except if I am having some nice lady rub my feet and paint my toenails. I get tired of one magazines 'what he wants you to do in bed" articles. I've seen some of single dad's works, and he is realllly good. I'm just wondering where "happy medium" went. Do we have to be morbidly obese or morbidly thin? can't we all be fine being what our body wants us to be (mine likes soft around the middle and butt- like a ripe pear).
ReplyDeleteshe says "Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny."
ReplyDeleteand being overweight isn't a natural body thing? Like some people's metabolism aren't just slower?
she also says "I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over. It's something they can change, if only they put their minds to it." then she offers us dieting advice? what? I eat high fiber foods, I love veggies, I don't go to fast food restuarants- but I have to seriously diet to stay thin, she can stick it for all I care.
Now there are several points coming after this post... and I'll try not to write a novella, but I can't promise anything.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, this article by that woman is really, REALLY stupid. No one should be made to feel ashamed because of the way he or she looks. End of story. If you can't handle how someone looks, go cut your eyes out. Or get some brains and matching education.
Second, I don't really agree with the first blog post about how men's behavior and stuff makes women feel inferior. Take a good look at images of women through time. The beauty ideal has changed over and over again, and it's usually been a physical standard that would be difficult to achieve/maintain at that special time.
The women depicted in the Stone Age were huge! Which was a beauty ideal because food was hard to come by, and women who had more body fat were more likely to survive (and bear children).
Let's fast forward to medieval times. European standards declared a woman beautiful if she was at least voluptuous and had very fair skin. That was because, once more, there was not much food going around, and if you had to work and live outside all the day, you were sure to tan.
Nowadays, the physically ideal woman is slim and tanned. Mostly because all the cheap food makes it easy to gain weight (I know what I am talking about, I gained 40 pounds during my eight years at university), healthy food is more expensive than noodles and white toast, and because not everybody can afford to go on vacation and spend hours tanning by the pool.
I have to say, the standards many women have for themselves are pretty stupid. If you're short, no amount of losing weight will make you tall. If you have knock knees or pimples or scars or cellulite or... - nothing of this will disappear if you starve yourself to death. I mean, at least not while you're alive.
Okay, and now the other part. The one which is less pleasant. I have been working as a translator of medical reports for the embassy of a rich Arab state. A state where, for the last few decades, people have been obscenely rich. The old beauty standard (when they were poor) was voluptuous women. And now most of the people are obese - up to a point where it is life-threatening. I am not talking "ugly", I am talking about so-called "morbid obesity", where their organs stop working and diabetes is trying to kill them and their bones and joints can't put up with every day tasks anymore. Women who are overweight are less likely to conceive, and their kids have higher risks for certain diseases.
ReplyDeleteComing from a family where no one is slim (my mother, at one time, weighed more than 320 pounds), the stuff I learned at my job has made me decide I want to lose some of that surplus weight.
It is easy to calculate your healthy weight. There's the BMI, there's ranges for percentage of body fat and muscles one should try to achieve, there's news and information everywhere. This is not really about being beautiful, but about being healthy.
On to another thing - everyone who owns a pet will bury themselves in books and stuff on how to keep the little beast healthy. Buy the right food, give them exercise, take them to the vet etc. So why don't people go to the same efforts to keep themselves healthy? If most people treated their pets the way they treat themselves, Animal Rescue would be at their door in no time - and they'd be right to take the pet away. Unfortunately, it's rather difficult to separate people from their abused bodies without facing jail time, so... *gallow's humor*
It's hard to break with habits (so far I have lost 10 pounds of the 40 I want to shed), but it's mandatory. We were given this life to enjoy ourselves and have fun, but we were also given these bodies to take care of ourselves. As long as we are capable of doing so, we should try to remain active and healthy and put as little stress on our system as possible.
Okay, now that I have had my rant, I still have to say I don't advise anyone to go on a strict diet. In the end it all boils down to "Move more, eat less". And check what you eat (increase your vegetable/fruit intake - and the more steps there have been in preparing the stuff you buy, the less healthy it will be for you). Which is difficult (good bye, everyday homemade cakes and cookies and fudge and pudding and... *sniff*), but I would rather be killed by lightning right now than face any of the diseases I have seen in our patients. I still have pizza and chocolate and crisps, sometimes, but I am so not going to end up like my mother did (who had stomach surgery, lost almost 200 pounds, can hardly move and can hardly eat anything these days because her doctors messed up).
It's our life. No one else should tell us what to do. But it's also our responsibility.
(I am possibly not really famous right now. Sorry.)