Body image post, retooled

So while I deleted the previous post regarding my hurt reaction to my fiance's use of the word "fat" to describe other women, it turns out that it was a pretty popular post, and a lot of people found it interesting and were kind of disappointed to see it disappear. So I'm going to sort of generally discuss my feelings on weight issues and body image here, while first making the disclaimer that my fiance is totally wonderful. I think he made those comments about other women because he thought it would flatter me, not hurt me, and he was just trying to make me feel good about myself, which is one more reason I love him and want to be with him for the rest of my life. In fact, Adam's misunderstanding of women's bodies and the way women perceive themselves is a result of what our culture says about bodies, and was not in any way his fault.

Okay.

Have you noticed how obsessed we've become as a nation with dieting, weight loss, and thinness? I'm not just talking about the constant pressure to get ready for bikini season or shed those pounds and look great in your wedding dress. I'm talking about a pervasive, nation-wide obsession with losing weight as a test of character. Look inside any magazine marketed to women, and you'll find dozens of "inspirational" stories about women who lost 50, 60, even 70 pounds and now are held up to the rest of us as shining examples. Or observe the popularity of "The Biggest Loser" and "Celebrity Fit Club," in which we can follow the entire process of weight loss from tearful start to determined finish. As my friend Erin pointed out, every day on the Today show there's a new "miracle" story about some woman who lost half her weight and is now able to feel good about herself-- as though her intellectual accomplishments are nothing compared to dropping six dress sizes.

I propose that America's fascination with weight loss has two main roots:

Root 1: Thinness as an impossible ideal
I think it started with the models. Fashion models are supposed to embody what we think is most physically beautiful, and they weren't always anorexic fifteen-year-olds. There was a time, in the eighties and early nineties, when we scoffed at Twiggy, and models were supposed to have curves-- they were supposed to have figures, to be like ideal women, not like starved street children. Sure, they were still thin, but we were able to imagine that they still sometimes, occasionally, ate food.

Now, though, designers want models who look will act as hangers for their clothes, not as examples of beautiful women who wear clothes well. They want women who starve themselves until they disappear, and all that is left is the clothing. And thus, the women who model in advertisements, the women who we look at everyday, who the advertising industry tells us are perfect, are women who are starving themselves. And that makes us think hard about what WE, the normal women, look like, in comparison to these toothpicks. Therefore, we are obsessed with watching people lose weight because we think that's the highest ideal, and we want to imagine what it would be like to lose weight, too.

Root 2: Insecurity
Let's face it: we're not watching "The Biggest Loser" because we think all the contestants are nice people and we genuinely want to see them succeed. We want to feel good about ourselves by looking at obese people, and then think to ourselves, "Well, at least I'm not THAT bad."

And the result of all this is that we feel like we MUST lose weight, or else we're big fat cow losers. For example, check out this pitiful post by a sixteen-year-old girl, who happens to be the same girl who posted a freaked-out rant about getting into Vassar on the Vassar LJ last week. She's fucking anorexic, but the comments on her journal are WORSE, because so many strange people are actually encouraging her to continue this one-carrot-per-day, burn-500-calories thing. It's sick and sad, and it's just one more reason why we should stop this ridiculous love affair with thinness and concentrate a little bit harder on improving our minds and characters.

So next time you feel the need to call a girl "fat," think about it. Is she really overweight? Do you know what a normal girl looks like? Or are you comparing her to women you've seen on TV, or in magazines? Real women have hips, and breasts, and a butt to boot, and there's no shame in that, none whatsoever.