This is the picture mentioned at the beginning of the article - I just looked for it on google images
The link is HERE if you would like to read it; I've just made it public so that you can read it if you're not a Facebook friend (my profile is set to private). Please let me know if you can't access it, it should be okay. Thanks!
ps, I've just found the Marilyn Monroe - thin girl one, too, though looking at it now I would imagine she is obsessive about working out rather than anorexic. Oh, and incidentally ~ a Twitter friend told me that she went to an exhibition of Marilyn's clothes once, and they were tiny. She was only ever a size 16 occasionally; I read once that all her costumes had to be made in sizes 10-16 because her eating was so erratic. Let us not forget that a size 10 in the 1950s would probably be a size 6 or 8 now.
This is such an issue...and women are the most unpleasant to each other about it. For what it's worth (very little) : 1. Being over weight (BMI) is bad for your health, puts strain on your kidneys, and other internal organs and leads to Type 2 diabetes. Having a curvy figure, in proportion to your height and frame, is perfectly fine. 2. A lot of thin people are thin coz of their quick burn metabolism or (my case) as a result of cancer or some other condition. Controlling your food to such an extent/exercising ditto that you lose most of your body fat is equally as bad. 3. Obsessing about being too fat/thin/curvy/flat chested/fat thighed and transferring your hangups to other people is unacceptable whatever size you are. I blame the media and the rise of selfies. So there. BTW you and I are gorgeous.... goes without saying.
ReplyDeleteHa ha! Thanks for commenting. I do remember at the time my slim and gorgeous friend Lisa seeing these posts and saying, what if I called them Lard Bucket, they'd be up in arms, but they're allowed to call me a stick insect! And fat ISN'T attractive, however much they like to kid themselves. I'm talking FAT here, not a bit overweight, btw!
ReplyDeleteI would never join in such hateful destructive behaviour. I know I am way overweight, but now I eat healthily, whereas Mum's philosophy was that you could eat your way out of anything. I'm now battling osteo-arthritis and patella maltracking in both knees. I adore swimming but won't go to the local pool with its 'village changing' facilities - for that read, no privacy. But I walk the dog every day, usually between 1 and 2 miles. When we move, I'm getting an infinity pool all my own.
ReplyDeleteAh - how we are influenced by our mothers. My mother and father see fat as something awful and I, as the 'fat' one in the family (ie, the only one who isn't super slim) have always felt like the 'also ran' because of it, to the extent that my husband thinks I have body dysmorphic disorder!! I too have osteo arthritis, and can't swim!!!! Good for you for the walking, I should do more, I know I should, but every morning I sit down at the laptop and....
DeleteAs for the communal changing rooms - get outta here! No way, awful. I bet every single person in them would prefer to have a cubicle. I don't know what an infinity pool is but it sounds lovely!
Great post and I agree totally. I don’t know many women who are happy with their figure whether it be fat, thin or middling. Few have ‘the perfect figure’ and what is that anyway? It’s like everything, all down to personal taste, although I agree too fat isn’t healthy whatever is said.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, Cathy! I'd probably have written the post a bit more succinctly now, but I decided not to change it. :)
DeleteExcellent post, TT. This obsession with size at each end of the scale is pernicious. My parents were like yours, as was my dance tutor (yes, I wanted and trained to be a dancer for many years), and my tendency to plumpness was seen as something wrong with me. Result: anorexia before it was even called that, and having to be removed from said full-time dance school as a result. I spent a year at home recovering, but lost a lot of schooling and also any hopes of a dance career. Stuff up supreme. I agree that overweight is bad for one's health, but so can being too thin. If we could all just accept people for what nature designed them to be, things would be much more balanced. These days, I'm still on the thin side, so ultimately, that's probably what I'd have turned out to be anyway....but without the residual hangups.
ReplyDeleteMy weight has been the bane of my life, Val - even at under 9 stone (I am 5' 5"), I thought I was fat, but alas I've always had a healthy appetite - but used all sorts of unwise ways to lose weight over the years. Huge subject - and I hated the way, a few years ago, fat women started this 'rejoice in being curvy' crap - it always sounded to me like they were protesting too much, like the Facebook comments I wrote about! if they were truly happy with it, they wouldn't call slim women 'stick insects'... :)
DeleteYes. I don't get that at all. Protesting too much sounds about right. I understand that they are fed up with the media focus on being slim, but it doesn't help to start slinging insults. As Cathy says, few of us are totally happy with our figures or faces, but we don't make offensive remarks about others to justify what we are.
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