Example from thesaurus.com:
| Main Entry: | fat |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | overweight |
| Synonyms: | beefy, big, blimp, bovine, brawny, broad, bulging, bulky, bull, burly, butterball, chunky, corpulent, distended, dumpy, elephantine, fleshy, gargantuan, gross, heavy, heavyset, hefty, husky, inflated, jelly-belly, lard, large, meaty, obese, oversize, paunchy, plump, plumpish, ponderous, porcine, portly, potbellied, pudgy, roly-poly, rotund, solid, stout, swollen, thickset, weighty, whalelike |
Whoa. Look at those words! Blimp? Dumpy? Whalelike? Whalelike?! Now see the difference when I type in full-figured:
| Main Entry: | buxom |
| Part of Speech: | adjective |
| Definition: | bosomy |
| Synonyms: | ample, built, busty, chubby, comely, curvaceous, curvy, full-bosomed, full-figured, healthy, hearty, lusty, plump, robust, shapely, stacked, voluptuous, well-made, well-proportioned, well-rounded, zaftig |
Well...that's better. Sort of. See, the problem arises when we hear and read these words and they sound really nice. Cuvaceous, healthy, volumptuous...nice words that leave us with images of Marilyn Monroe and Jessica Rabbit instead of thoughts of crying in dressing rooms and de-tagging photos of ourselves on facebook. If someone made up that nice phrase and made it mean all of those sexy things...why do we still not feel like it applies to us when, clearly, we're the people it was made for?
Okay, I don't know why I'm saying "we" and "us." I'm talking about me. Just me. That's the point of blogging right? To talk about yourself and your thoughts and what you're doing? Actually, I'm writing this in hopes that it won't end up just being about me. I'm hoping that you'll read this and you'll comment and follow this blog because some of this sounds like you too. And then we will be a we. And I can talk about what "we're" doing and how "we're" feeling...and maybe that will help. Maybe that's why I'm doing this. I don't know.
Here's what I do know:
1.) I've never been thin, slender, or skinny. I've never even been the right weight for my height. Not even at the top of the bracket.
2.) I don't know what it's like to look at a picture of myself and not immediately find something to hate.
3.) I can't understand why anyone would find me attractive.
4.) All of these things scare me more than anything else in my life.
After talking with one of my best friends last night and finally saying these things out loud, she suggested I start a blog...because this, she said, was definitely something she'd read about. I hope she's right and there are other people out there who need something like this to read so they won't feel like they're the only ones who feel like that. And I'm hoping that if I write about this enough, at some point I'll get to the bottom of all of this negativity and find out what it's like to love the girl on the outside as much as I love the girl on the inside.
I just realized I'm going to end up crying through a whole bunch of this. So there's that.
My other hope and wish is that, if you do read this, you won't see it as a ploy for attention or as me fishing for compliments. I hope that you'll see this as the crie de coeur that it is.
And that, I suppose, is how we're going to begin this journey...
"Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
ReplyDeleteIt must be a wave you want to glide in on,
give your body to it, give your laugh to it,
give, when the gravelly sand takes you,
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.
Special person,
if I were you I'd pay no attention
to admonitions from me,
made somewhat out of your words
and somewhat out of mine.
A collaboration.
I do not believe a word I have said,
except some, except I think of you like a young tree
with pasted-on leaves and know you'll root
and the real green thing will come.
Let go. Let go.
Oh special person,
possible leaves,
this typewriter likes you on the way to them,
but wants to break crystal glasses
in celebration,
for you,
when the dark crust is thrown off
and you float all around
like a happened balloon."
Here's my heart hoping that for all of us, and especially for you, that "the real green thing" comes at last.
Oh, that was Anne Sexton, by the way.
ReplyDeleteYou are not alone in those thoughts! This is a blog to which many women--if I dare say, all women---will relate. Preach it, sister!
ReplyDeleteI too am a woman who struggles to stay the "right size" for my height. Growing up I went through many eating disorders. I was fixated on eating to be thin and not to be healthy. Thats is where I went wrong.
ReplyDeleteFirst off women should know they are made to have a little extra body fat. It is a part of our genetic make-up. Second off, I am seeing a huge increase of overweight girls as young as kindergarten. Americans are getting heavier and heavier every year. Look at what we perceive as "normal" eating habits. Our diets are made up of mostly processed foods and soft drinks. Americans are over weight because of how we eat! If you are uneducated when it comes to nutrition, you don't understand how to eat properly and it causes body image issues. When you try so hard to stop eating and loose weight in order to be thin it only back fires causing us to give up and even develop binge eating disorders.
In conclusion I want to share with you my personal experience on how I overcome my body image issues. I figured out that being overweight was what was making Americans sick. The increase in cancer, disease and early deaths was directly related to what we were eating. Only we don't know any better because its how our parents taught us to eat and how everyone else eats.
If you eat to be healthy then your body will be healthy too. They doesn't always mean thin, everyone is different.
Do you eat donuts, pizza, hot dogs, taco Bell, bacon, whole milk, pop, meatball subs, lasagna, garlic bread sticks, pop tarts, chips, waffles, pancakes... the list goes on and on (most of the grocery store). All these foods are poison and are harming our bodies in more ways than one. When you eat a diet that consists of these types of foods our minds, bodies and well beings suffer...
So if you eat a healthy diet and your curvy, then love your body because your healthy:-)
P.s I love Norma Jean Baker... 140lbs and beautiful.
These are all excellent points and ones that will probably be brought up in a later post. Yes, by all medical standards, despite being overweight, I'm perfectly healthy.
ReplyDeleteI eat relatively well and try to exercise as much as possible. In our apartment, we've been making a point to stay away from fast food and things that are clearly processed and full of preservatives. I drink lots of water, take the stairs, take walks for fun...the whole deal. Physically, I'm healthy.
The problem is that I'm not emotionally healthy when it comes to my appearance. That's the reason I set out on the blogging adventure--to address and investigate the reason why I can't seem to make peace with my plus-sized body and love my curves.
I love you, Emry. That's all I'm going to say, because I think it says it all. I think of you all the time, and I hope you know that when I look at you, I see my sweet, beautiful friend. I'm glad I read this.
ReplyDeleteLove you,
Kass
Kass, I love you too! And I miss you! I am saying a not-so-secret prayer that you can make it back to PA sometime soon. We're long overdue for a hug.
ReplyDelete