Have you ever seen the fat rant that's been on YouTube since March of 2007. The video has 1.6 million views. I've seen it show up on news feeds on all the big social networking sites, passed around countless times on various messengers, and otherwise has gotten around. Every woman I know who has a few extra pounds seems to have loved this video. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:
If you notice, this video is very much about liberation for women who weigh more than what medical science calls their "ideal weight". For many women I know, they find this very liberating. Many of them have tried everything to shave off those extra pounds that society tells them they shouldn't have, but have no luck. Several people I know have gone over to gastric bypass just so that they can finally get on top of the weight gain issue, and many more talk longingly about it, even if they're really not all that "fat" at all. It's good for there to be someone out there pushing for acceptance of overweight people, especially since so many of them do try so incredibly hard to lose the weight and simply have no luck.
Maybe it's genetics. Maybe it's the reality of the American diet and our pathetic options for healthy food. Now there's evidence proving it may link back to factors effecting us before we were even born. Whatever it is, this woman has a point. It's time our society stops looking at the size 2 woman as their ideal and starts realizing that women are beautiful no matter what their shape or size.
There's been all sorts of encouragement for women who are considered "fat", "large", or even just "curvy". Brands such as Dove have an entire campaign where they've focused on only "average" women, in other words, they're now turning down petite women in favor of women close to a size 12. Television shows such as Ugly Betty and Drop Dead Diva feature women who aren't the American standard as stars. Even men now say they prefer their women to "have a few curves". The standard is changing, and while everything may not be better overnight, it's clear that women are starting to change the face of our world and it's no longer the tiny women that get all the positive attention.
Even clothing retailers are getting in on encouraging women to feel more positive about their bodies. Yes, the standard still seems to be that of a size 2 figure, but even that has changed, though the number has not. What do I mean? I mean that the sizes are physically changing to suit the audience they're designed for.
How do I know this? Back in 1999 I bought these really hot pants. I had glittery jeans and two pairs of nylon pants that looked like leather. They were a size 3. In 2004, after I lost all of my baby weight from my first child, I could barely squeeze myself into them. After childbirth your hips typically spread and never quite go back to the way they were before. At this point I wore a size 5.
Hot Topic was the first one for the new "feel good" sizing. I was still wearing my trusty old size 5 pants when I decided it would be nice to pick up some new Tripp pants. I'd wanted to have a whole new look, given I was starting over in a new state. I was shocked when I found that, depending on the style, I wore either a size 0 or 1. I knew there was no way that I could be that thin already, so I tried on my old pants and later picked up a couple of pairs of jeans. Sure enough, size 5 was what I still wore.
Then, after my last child was born, I decided I needed some new clothes. My old jeans were kind of worn, so it was time to shop for new ones. When we hit the stores we found that I was back to a size 3 again, which seemed odd because I had been wearing a size 5 with no problems. When I got home, I matched up the sizes in my pants. I was surprised when I saw that my brand new size 3 jeans were larger than my size 5s from just a few years ago!
Fast forward by exactly one year. My old size 5s were getting a little lose on me and most of them were pretty worn out. It was time for that dreaded clothing shopping again. I tried on a size 3, figuring that's what I wore before. They were too big. Size 1 was still too big. Finally I settled on a size 0. I probably could have worn a 00, but I didn't even want to try it. Sizes that small are hard enough to find in retail establishments! Here's the shocker. In comparison to my old size 3's from 1999 (that I still can't fit and finally gave to Goodwill), these new size 0's were actually bigger! It's not just with Junior's sizing. It's with everything women wear!
Now whenever I hear some woman bragging that she's a size 12, the same size as Marilyn Monroe, I have to laugh, because really, what we now consider a size 12 is probably closer to a 16 or 18 of Marilyn's time. This isn't me trying to be mean. This is just proof that the clothing industry is trying harder to follow the trend of making women okay with their bodies.
So, what does this have to do with the great weight debate? Think of what it feels like to be on my end of the scale. If they keep bumping clothing sizes up, I'm either going to have to custom order all of my clothing online or shop in the girl's section and hope I can find something with the length I need. Sure, a woman who wears a size 16 now will feel great when she's in a size 12 in a few years, but how will I feel when it costs me a couple hundred dollars just for a pair of pants because it's the only way I can get jeans that fit, all because the trend is moving away from thin women?
What about the treatment I get? Do you have any idea how hard it is to walk into a clothing store and ask for a size 0? The sales associate looks you up and down with an assessing glare, then points you vaguely in the right direction followed with, "I'm sorry, we don't usually carry much in your size". The sad thing is five years ago I wouldn't have gotten that kind of treatment. Everywhere carries a decent selection of size 5! How about the, "You need to eat something!" comments and having all of my friends trying to force me to eat? What about all the times I've gone out to meet up with friends and get dirty looks because I don't order anything to eat while we're out. Sometimes it's just because I don't have the money. Sometimes it's because I ate before we got there. Sometimes it's just because we're at a coffee house and I don't feel like blowing money on a scone or muffin that I don't really want, but I'm obliged to get so someone else doesn't feel bad. Then there's all the times I've had to hear about how, "disgustingly skinny" I am, even when my doctor says I'm perfectly healthy and I may be at the lower end of a healthy weight, but I'm definitely healthy?
It's not easy being thin. People judge you. I often here how I'm thin because I'm a belly dancer. I spend all my time dancing, so I don't gain weight. Little secret here, people, I don't dance all that much. I know it's pathetic, but my average schedule was two to four hours...a week. I didn't even exercise every day. A lot of people say I must watch what I eat, but unless it's something I don't like, or I'm incredibly nervous, usually I eat the average American over-sized portions. I've been told I'm anorexic because I've skipped a meal or two because I just didn't have a chance to stop and eat and didn't even think about it until I was starving at the next meal, eating twice what I normally eat. I've even had men tell me they didn't want to date me because they were "afraid they would break me". Is that fair?
It's frustrating that things are turning around to demonize thin women for their weight, even though some of them, just like heavier women, can't help it. Again, maybe it's genetic, maybe it's diet, but some of us just can't gain weight, even when we try. For many of the really thin women I've known, it's not so much that they have "no body fat" as they're accused of, but they simply don't have much muscle mass. They're weak, and as a result, they look a lot smaller than they really are.
And what about comments like a friend of mine said he overheard. A woman was saying her doctor should be fired because he said she was overweight. He called her obese. Apparently this person got cheers. Unfortunately, it's a doctor's job to tell the truth when it comes to your health. They're not calling you fat because of some bias against fat people. They're telling you there's a problem because you're at an increased health risk. They do the same when you're underweight. The difference is being obese doesn't get you hospitalized, but being underweight can get you hospitalized in a heartbeat. It's theorized that there may be more risks to being underweight by 5 pounds than over weight by 50. It's just something to think about.
Maybe instead of putting all this emphasis on who's fault it is and who should be demonized by society, maybe we should look at things a different way. Maybe we should concentrate on what's healthy for any particular person. If I'm healthy at a size 0, even though a lot of women consider me "disgustingly thin", so be it. If another woman is healthy at a size 16, who cares? She's healthy and taking care of her body! Isn't that what really matters? Shouldn't the focus be on taking care of ourselves?
Further, the author of the above listed article makes a good point. These promotions for bigger women being beautiful aren't coming at the encouragement of men. Men aren't posting images on their social networking pages condemning thin or fat women, though often images of women that are morbidly obese do get a lot of negative criticism. Men aren't putting up, "remember when this was beautiful" images. It's all been women. It's about women attacking other women. It's about women "trying to reclaim the natural look", when in reality, they're knocking what is very natural and normal for the human body. In many cases, the "too thin" women that are demonized, like myself, are often the normal look of women in other places, such as much of Europe. That's not to say that more curvy women, or heavier women aren't also normal, but the women seem to span the range of healthy. In this country, we can't focus on that. It's all about women creating some ideal body type that there's no possible way every woman in the world could ever fit.
Let's face it, women, there is no such thing as "one size fits all" when talking about body type. All women are not created equally, and by that I mean that we're not created in such a way that we can all possibly have the same shape. Some women will naturally always be more of a "stick figure". Other women will always be naturally more curvy. Some women will have a hard time taking the weight off while others will have a hard time keeping it on. There's nothing wrong with that, and that doesn't make any woman more or less beautiful than the next. Generally, men will agree. Some men prefer their women to be delicate and petite. Other's prefer a woman with more curves. Some like their women tall as an Amazon while others feel the shorter, the better. Why should all men be forced into one mold by being told they can only prefer one body style? Why should all women be forced into that mold?
It's really time this great weight debate was finished. Instead, let's focus on being happy in our own skins. Let's focus on being healthy. After all, the way to showing the world we find ourselves beautiful isn't by discriminating against something that we're not. It's about treating our body as a temple. It's about truly treating ourselves the way we deserve to be treated. That's by eating right, getting the exercise we need, and by finding reasons to be happy and positive. If we do all of that, we'll find our body will end up in exactly the shape it needs to be, not what someone else tells us it should be.
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