I'm a wee bit body conscious.
I don't think this is a shocking thing to say, since I'm fairly certain most people - most women - are more than a little conscious of their body and body image. It's nigh impossible not to be in this crazy world of fashion obsession... diet and health obsession... model and super model and superstar obsession. And let's be honest, it doesn't matter what we look like, there's always something we don't like about ourselves. For me, that's always been my weight.
I was a fat baby, who turned into a fat little girl, who turned into a fat crazy woman. That's not derogatory, that's fact. I've got big ol' thighs, and big ol' birthing hips and I will never, ever fit into a size 10. It would be unhealthy for me to even try. I come from a long line of women who struggle with their weight, and not to put all the blame on genetics, but there are some body types that simply will never be on the "skinny" side of the clothing store.
I'm okay with all of this. Not jumping for joy, but pleasantly resigned. So long as I'm healthy, my body will be what it will be. And what it will be is large. In the past decade, the smallest I have been is a size 12 (sometimes 14, depending on brand of jeans). I was in a horrifically unhealthy relationship, a sporadic insomniac, drinking way too much, stoned most days, and eating garbage - if at all. My size 12 was so unhealthy, my body was destroying itself from the inside out. It was one of the few times in my life I had people regularly tell me how good I was looking. They didn't pay attention to my horrible habits, they didn't see the pallid skin or the bruised bags under my eyes. They saw the weight. I'm a million times healthier now and also a million times heavier. But I'd take my health over my size 12 body any day.
Everytime I go shopping for clothes (which isn't that often, due to frustration) I can't help but notice that most stores cap out at size 14 or 16. Normal stores cap out dangerously close to my unhealthiest skinniest. I'm resigned to plus sized shopping, but adamant that I will not spend the rest of my life in a moo-moo. The designers of plus sized clothing (on the whole, not all of them) are idiots who have no idea how to dress a large body. Taking something that looks good on a size 2 and adding more fabric does not work. Marilyn Monroe was a size 12. Plus sized models today are a size 14. Plus size stores start at size 16.
Are we seeing the problem here?
If all the images we, as large healthy women, see are not only of a skinny ideal we do not fit, but of a plus sized ideal we do not fit, how can we ever get to a place where we can feel good about ourselves and our bodies?
This body is not perfect. It's flawed and it's a pain to clothe and I'm often not very happy with it. But it's mine. People pay for bodies like this one*. We should feel proud of our lumpy, un-symmetrical, never-the-ideal-but-fine-the-way-it-is selves.
So when will our culture catch up with our reality?
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* Just so you know, that link is safe-ish. It won't bring you to a porn site, but to an article which I loved and you should go read!
