So I was grocery shopping on Sunday. Very typical. Very average. Needed some lunch meat, or some absurdity. Anyway, so I'm standing in line at the checkout, when a People... or Stars, or some such celebrity gossip rag catches my eye:
MARY-KATE losing weight again! Stick thin legs! Skinnier than Nicole Ritchie! 89 Lbs! No more diet coach!
It shocked me. It wasn't a very flattering photo, at all. What would posses a girl that small to think she is not yet small enough?
It all became very clear a few moments later. Maybe it was woman's world, right next to it. Right on the cover:
These women lost half their weight! Dropped 105 Lbs! Lost 185! Looking fabulous! Find their secrets inside!Are these the twisted ideals we are force feeding our children? (Honestly, to say this is a woman's problem is doing no favours to the boys and men who suffer in their own silence, as well).
There's roughly a ten pound area in which a person would look "ideal". More--> too fat. Less--> disgustingly skinny. A panic, leading to a pandemic sweeps through a population scared of heart failure, scared of public ridicule and, worst of all, scared of being considered unattractive. The horror of horrors. And that ten pounds? Pretty hard to maintain. Especially for women. Body weight fluctuates with hormones, diet, life... Life! It's hard to keep in that green zone.
Worst of all, we've effectively targeted the most vulnerable, the most suggestable diaspora of our obsessive nation. Young people. 12-21. Still learning: craving it, clawing it out of whatever sources they can find. Sometimes those sources are parents, family, friends; but more often, people, women's world, television, maxim.
We tell ourselves we should be old enough to know the difference between real and fake. But what's more real than what we've grown up on? Our daytime babysitters? Our captivating entertainment? We're raised on it and then told to ignore its message. Even if you hate your parents, some things they've said stick. Some hurt, some help, but you remember. You internalize them. They grow with you, they filter your world, even if you don't notice.
Tell me again to forget what I've been told I should look like. I've been watching that lie since as far back as I can remember, and I've grown accustomed to the view.
Dropped 10lbs? Only five more to go. Maybe five more after that. Someday, I'll be perfect too.
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I hate our society and want to just live under a rock. I'm sure someone will articulate what I'm feeling properly, but that's the best I can phrase it.
Actresses are constantly either too fat or too thin. Jessica Simpson wears an unflattering outfit and the magazines jump all over it. If she loses too much weight, the magazines will be all over that, as well.
I don't think it's at all fair to make the connection between people encouraging people who need to lose weight to to diet and eating disorders. A woman who loses 185 pounds in order to reach a healthy weight probably wasn't that healthy before. Although I'm not sure why that merits a magazine cover.
Remember when those photos of Jennifer Love Hewitt came out and people started calling her fat? She threw a fit and rightfully so. She said some really awesome things about how a size 6 is not fat. I was glad to see an actress standing up for herself and pointing out how completely ridiculous the media's obsession with thin really is.
A month later she was on the cover of a magazine, looking emaciated and talking about how much better she felt having lost the weight.
That kind of story causes way more issues than the Woman's World cover you mentioned. People who are perfectly healthy don't need to lose weight.
I'm trying to draw attention to our messed-up view on body weight. While we encourage women to be skinny (women's world cover), we also criticize those who take it to the extreme (people cover). We give people these contradictory messages and then wonder why eating disorders mess up such a significant portion of the population.
P.s. Being overweight doesn't necessarily mean a person is unhealthy. I'm skinny as all hell, but my cardio-health is brutal... I know some overweight people who can run circles around me, who will have better long-term [heart] health than me, etc... but people strive for my body-type. This loudly proclaims "Messed UP!" up in my world.
It doesn't necessarily mean unhealthy, and I definitely know overweight people who are probably healthier than I am. I've heard that people who are slightly overweight have stronger immune systems, so there's that.
That said, your body is not made to be 185 pounds overweight. I won't judge anyone for being overweight, and I won't judge anyone for not losing weight. I've quit smoking more times than I can count. I eat like shit and I don't work out. The only reason I'm not overweight myself is because I have a very fast metabolism.
There's a huge difference between losing weight for health and losing weight in order to be skinny. I really don't like that the first is demonized in the feminist community -- that strikes me as kind of irresponsible -- but I do think the second is a legitimate issue.
What cracks me up (makes me want to beat myself over the head with a large stick) is how in magazines like Cleo and shit, there'll be three articles on diet, exercise and how to hate yourself in ten different ways. Then, you turn the page and it's HOW TO BE MORE CONFIDENT AND PWN MORE AT LIFE.
Contradictory no?
let's make that "every historian", shall we. You need not be an ungodly scientist to say that, and I assume it's not heresy(?). Because anybody who has read a just enough of the Bible to know that it takes place in Palestine and that Jesus and his parents were from that area would know bedroom furniture that. Of course they are not "white". They would be brown/olive-tanned Middle Easterners.