The ever-controversial body shape topic
This seems to be a topic of the moment. While chatting with my sister, we started talking about body image and how things seem to be so skewed, and our own issues with our body shapes and our body image. The other day, I had a great experience with a woman at a dress shop. Then today, a friend posted a link to this blog post on Facebook, and it got me thinking.
It feels like there's a lot of judgement out there, a lot of mean competition between women that only tears people down. This benefits no one but the folks at Slim Fast and the successors to PhenPhen, the cosmetics industry, and Spanx.
There's also a lot of counter-activisim in a few flavors. There are women who strike back with just reverse judgement, turning the prejudice on skinny women while glorifying the other end of the spectrum. The perspective that I like best is what came out of the conversation with my sister. It's that of the authors of Fatcast, a podcast that is looking to breakdown the idea that anyone can judge the health of another just by looking at them. Size has no correlation with health - what is healthy for one person may be deadly for another. Someone who is thin does not necessarily take care of themselves and may or may not work out. Someone who is large may be very healthy, but simply be larger. Unless you are a doctor in a medical evaluation setting - keep your judgements to yourself.
Take, for example, my sister and myself. She is more like the women in my mother's family - petite, small, slightly curvy. I am an anomaly, taking after more of my father's family - I am average height, but stocky and very muscular, with some pudge around the middle. With the mainstream idea that women who are big are unhealthy and don't workout, you'd get a very wrong picture of the two of us. I am the big one, but I'm the runner - the one who works out with determined frequency. Both of us have been through periods where we felt we needed to lose weight, and both feel like there's some spare storage. I've always felt I was too big - I would dream when I was in middle school that I would wake up and it would all have disappeared in the middle of the night. I dieted, I exercised. I lost some of it, gained some of it back, and built up muscle. I never crash dieted simply because I never had the will power (still don't).
When I was in high school, I also started learning belly dance and took a few classes taught by a friend. Sentences like "Celebrate those hips!" actually happened. Among a group of mostly middle-aged women from the 'burbs, I realized that there were lots of "good" bodies. There was still a lot of programming to undo. Part of it has been just growing older and realizing that my body is never going to change that dramatically, at least not since 3rd grade when my string bean little body suddenly turned into this larger, muscular frame. I've been somewhere between a size 12 and 16 since high school, though some of it has shifted around and gave me an actual waist. But I will never be a waif. And I now know that this is OK.
I am very strong. I have much more muscle than nearly any other woman I know (I have one female friend who is of similar build and does mostly manual work, so we are two exceptions together). I can do lots of things that I couldn't if I didn't have so much muscle. I can do work with power tools, like taking a sawzall and taking apart a wall (studs and all, non-weight-bearing). I can run 5 miles. I can squat my weight (which is not insubstantial). I can carry all the groceries in. I will not be easily pushed aside. I am solid. And I have learned that that is AWESOME.
It doesn't hurt that the boyfriend is frequently expressing his own appreciation for my figure as well. He's a sturdily built man himself, tall and muscular, which I always appreciate too. While it's one thing to feel that you've convinced yourself that you are just fine the way you are, having external reinforcement is always nice.
After a trip to New Orleans and Montreal, I know I'm carrying more pounds than I want to, so I'm trying to get more veggies, get back to the gym, and be good. And skip the poutine and beignets. But I recognize that for me, 185 to 190 pounds is healthy. I feel good in my body around there, and if I veer toward something with a 2 in front, it's time to be more disciplined. Part of is that it no longer feels comfortable, and part of it is concerns about impact on my joints when I run.
When my sister had put on many pounds (a big impact for someone under 5' tall), all related to lifestyle changes caused by depression. When she decided to get back to a size she preferred, she worked out religiously, she improved her diet, she did all the things she needed to, and she got to be quite skinny. Around this time, she also was dealing with rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, which made being on her feet for a long time very difficult. What I learned in this recent conversation was that when she was pushing so hard to be small again, she went too far and her body began to rebel. She found the perspective from Fatcast very helpful in realizing there was no magic number. She needed to be the size that was healthy for her--whatever that is. Since she's given up wheat and dairy, her rheumatoid symptoms have disappeared, and she's maintaining a size and weight that work for her.
So, at this dress shop (I had decided that I needed a dress I could wear to work that wasn't black, brown, or gray) I found a few to try on, and found one that I liked (a nice fitted waist, fuchsia number) and went to the counter. I had tried on bright blue another one with a slouchy neckline and ruching up the side and asked if they had something like it with a true sleeveless top, rather than cap sleeves. I joked that the cut makes me look like the Incredible Hulk (draws the line up to the widest part of my already wide shoulders), and the women at the register got a great laugh with me out of it. Unfortunately, nothing was on hand that met the description. But the woman who checked me out at the register for the fuchsia dress, a large, sturdy, archetypical "sassy black lady" was going on about how the we were both SPICY women. We are curvy, we have fun, and our bodies are appreciated, and we are spicy. But the thing that got me was the joy she expressed about her body and all its treasures, and feeling part of that moment was fun.
We are who we are and we are who we are. If running makes me feel good, I'm going to run. If that same running gives me thighs that stretch the imagination of skinny jeans, I'm going to run. Skinny jeans will go out of style. Being me won't.
It feels like there's a lot of judgement out there, a lot of mean competition between women that only tears people down. This benefits no one but the folks at Slim Fast and the successors to PhenPhen, the cosmetics industry, and Spanx.
There's also a lot of counter-activisim in a few flavors. There are women who strike back with just reverse judgement, turning the prejudice on skinny women while glorifying the other end of the spectrum. The perspective that I like best is what came out of the conversation with my sister. It's that of the authors of Fatcast, a podcast that is looking to breakdown the idea that anyone can judge the health of another just by looking at them. Size has no correlation with health - what is healthy for one person may be deadly for another. Someone who is thin does not necessarily take care of themselves and may or may not work out. Someone who is large may be very healthy, but simply be larger. Unless you are a doctor in a medical evaluation setting - keep your judgements to yourself.
Take, for example, my sister and myself. She is more like the women in my mother's family - petite, small, slightly curvy. I am an anomaly, taking after more of my father's family - I am average height, but stocky and very muscular, with some pudge around the middle. With the mainstream idea that women who are big are unhealthy and don't workout, you'd get a very wrong picture of the two of us. I am the big one, but I'm the runner - the one who works out with determined frequency. Both of us have been through periods where we felt we needed to lose weight, and both feel like there's some spare storage. I've always felt I was too big - I would dream when I was in middle school that I would wake up and it would all have disappeared in the middle of the night. I dieted, I exercised. I lost some of it, gained some of it back, and built up muscle. I never crash dieted simply because I never had the will power (still don't).
When I was in high school, I also started learning belly dance and took a few classes taught by a friend. Sentences like "Celebrate those hips!" actually happened. Among a group of mostly middle-aged women from the 'burbs, I realized that there were lots of "good" bodies. There was still a lot of programming to undo. Part of it has been just growing older and realizing that my body is never going to change that dramatically, at least not since 3rd grade when my string bean little body suddenly turned into this larger, muscular frame. I've been somewhere between a size 12 and 16 since high school, though some of it has shifted around and gave me an actual waist. But I will never be a waif. And I now know that this is OK.
I am very strong. I have much more muscle than nearly any other woman I know (I have one female friend who is of similar build and does mostly manual work, so we are two exceptions together). I can do lots of things that I couldn't if I didn't have so much muscle. I can do work with power tools, like taking a sawzall and taking apart a wall (studs and all, non-weight-bearing). I can run 5 miles. I can squat my weight (which is not insubstantial). I can carry all the groceries in. I will not be easily pushed aside. I am solid. And I have learned that that is AWESOME.
It doesn't hurt that the boyfriend is frequently expressing his own appreciation for my figure as well. He's a sturdily built man himself, tall and muscular, which I always appreciate too. While it's one thing to feel that you've convinced yourself that you are just fine the way you are, having external reinforcement is always nice.
After a trip to New Orleans and Montreal, I know I'm carrying more pounds than I want to, so I'm trying to get more veggies, get back to the gym, and be good. And skip the poutine and beignets. But I recognize that for me, 185 to 190 pounds is healthy. I feel good in my body around there, and if I veer toward something with a 2 in front, it's time to be more disciplined. Part of is that it no longer feels comfortable, and part of it is concerns about impact on my joints when I run.
When my sister had put on many pounds (a big impact for someone under 5' tall), all related to lifestyle changes caused by depression. When she decided to get back to a size she preferred, she worked out religiously, she improved her diet, she did all the things she needed to, and she got to be quite skinny. Around this time, she also was dealing with rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, which made being on her feet for a long time very difficult. What I learned in this recent conversation was that when she was pushing so hard to be small again, she went too far and her body began to rebel. She found the perspective from Fatcast very helpful in realizing there was no magic number. She needed to be the size that was healthy for her--whatever that is. Since she's given up wheat and dairy, her rheumatoid symptoms have disappeared, and she's maintaining a size and weight that work for her.
So, at this dress shop (I had decided that I needed a dress I could wear to work that wasn't black, brown, or gray) I found a few to try on, and found one that I liked (a nice fitted waist, fuchsia number) and went to the counter. I had tried on bright blue another one with a slouchy neckline and ruching up the side and asked if they had something like it with a true sleeveless top, rather than cap sleeves. I joked that the cut makes me look like the Incredible Hulk (draws the line up to the widest part of my already wide shoulders), and the women at the register got a great laugh with me out of it. Unfortunately, nothing was on hand that met the description. But the woman who checked me out at the register for the fuchsia dress, a large, sturdy, archetypical "sassy black lady" was going on about how the we were both SPICY women. We are curvy, we have fun, and our bodies are appreciated, and we are spicy. But the thing that got me was the joy she expressed about her body and all its treasures, and feeling part of that moment was fun.
We are who we are and we are who we are. If running makes me feel good, I'm going to run. If that same running gives me thighs that stretch the imagination of skinny jeans, I'm going to run. Skinny jeans will go out of style. Being me won't.
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