Size-Not-So-Wise
Things I ‘know’ are ‘fact’ from magazines and television:
- You must be size ten or smaller.
- The exception to this: if you are obese, then you can brag about having gotten down to a size 16.
- Otherwise, you’re a terrible fat cow at size 16.
- The ‘ideal’ weight is 9 stone 6, or 132 pounds.
This stuff has been in my head a lot this week for various reasons. Firstly, my mother-in-law buys a lot of the fad-n-diet mags, and I’ll sometimes leaf through to chortle at whatever bullcrap it’s peddling as gospel that week or month. I don’t know that she follows any of it; she’s just at that age where one habitually and regularly buys magazines anyways. The second is because of our new princess, Catherine. I admired her for being a healthy girl, though I despaired when she announced she was going to lose weight for her wedding… what weight? And if you’ve seen her on the ongoing tour of Canada, she’s downright sickly-looking now; that’s not setting a very good example, girly. NOBODY should aim to look like a Bratz doll, and yet? There you go. I hope someone that loves her takes a moment to tell her that she’s doing herself a damage and to eat something, rather than yes-manning her with assurances that she’s still ravishing, stunning.
Which feeds into a pet peeve of mine – why is it standard and accepted practice that one should lose weight for their wedding? A family member who is otherwise sensible told me that she wanted to be beautiful; honey, you’re gorgeous as-is. I can understand wanting to lose weight for your own health, but for a single day? That’s just, to me, starting off the rest of your life on a lie, and a promise to hate yourself forever after. After all, your fiancé loved you when you were ‘fat’, so… just not following the logic behind it. If anything, I put on weight for my wedding; I wasn’t needing of it, but I wasn’t going to fret over a need to fit into a very narrow norm.
Speaking of that narrow norm, are you aware that it’s only about 5 inches? Apparently, that’s the only place that beauty can exist, and grudgingly that high at that. It’s something to think about, at least, because it is just so laughable. And yet, even the sanest of us feel some pressure to conform to these norms, and I fret and cluck ’cause I want to shake heads into loving themselves whatever shape. And I’m glad I’m not the only one – Hanne Black wrote a GREAT piece last month, and a thank you to Heatherbat for posting it where I could see it. Read it, ingest it… love it.
And remember the secret to real beauty – love yourself for you, yo. If you don’t, nobody else is going to.
<3
http://heatherbat.tumblr.com/post/4699685806/maybe-im-just-lucky – this is the wordvomit i had about that. people need to get on my level, or something. 😀
It is a GREAT level, my friend. <3
Yes. As someone who has had issues with self esteem and, by extension, my weight for all my life, yes. I strive for a point of acceptance. Pray that one day I will be truly happy with my size and not just vaguely content (or outright disgusted even). Far too many places, people, things try to make me feel like I should be a size 4 and I should have been, at most, a size 6 postpartum. Coincidentally, I am trying to lose weight for my wedding but that’s just because I want to lose my baby weight still and the wedding is a good date to aim for being 10 months after I gave birth. But, it is definitely not going to happen as I still have 30lbs to go and 2 months so… whatever, not going to stress about it. My only hope for Catherine is that she gets pregnant soon and puts on a healthy amount of weight then, and stays healthy sized afterwards.
There are definitely unrealistic expectations of how quickly a woman should be able to bounce back to ‘normal’, and obsession with media and celebrity as a point of pop ‘culture’ surely doesn’t help with that. Having said that, I definitely am working on being more mindful of natural shapes, and celebrating them; I do catch myself having snide thoughts, and that’s just not to be tolerated! *chuckles*
I think clothing is a problem too. One thing that Heather and I have discussed is how great we feel we look naked… but don’t feel the same for clothing. It throws all sorts of unkind lines, and it’s not like the of us can afford good tailoring… *chuckles*
Yes clothing is definitely a problem. It seems like everything just accentuates my extra flab around the midsection and unless I want to wear something that feels like a corset and makes it impossible to breathe, there doesn’t seem to be much to do about that. Unless I want to pay exorbitant amounts of money and, like you said, not exactly something worthwhile to splurge on. A blog I follow, http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/, is all about being healthy at whatever size you are. I don’t agree with everything she writes but I do agree with a good majority of it. I admire her confidence. She is a heavier person but is perfectly happy with that. I strive to be more like her in mindset.
I shall have to check that out, thanks! And yes, it is absolutely amazing what one can do when they love themselves, and keep loving themselves in spite of people trying to tear them down for it. 🙂
Umm, I’ve had a thought, prompted by having a seamstress grandmother. Good tailoring doesn’t have to be bought off the rack, you can learn it for yourself and dress brilliantly for the initial investment of a sewing machine and then just the materials and threads. A very swift google brought up
http://www.coconutsandbubbles.co.uk/
a crafting meeting too, possibly might interest you?
Shamefully, I can actually tailor (courtesy of Grandma) and never actually bother.
I am ridiculously unable to operate a sewing machine without almost dying. Neil has a foot-peddled one that is less likely to kill me, but…
As for hand-stitching? I can’t sew a straight line. So unless I want to cough up money or sew my hands together (or bully my husband into more tasks), I’m stuck with off the peg. 😉 If I COULD sew though, I would totally be all about it.