Women are raised to hate their bodies and their is constant encouragement to feel self-loathing and hatred over one's body. I can remember as young as 4th grade making out exercise and diet charts, but I never stuck to them. Inevtiably, I would begin to feel ashamed over the fact that I could not even follow a simple routine. I was a child and there was no reason for me to even be on a diet. I wasn't even fat! I was a normal girl who should have been out having fun, not writing in my journal about how fat I was. What is worse is that I was encouraged to diet and exercise..no one ever told me that at my age, I shouldn't be dealing with the feelings of shame and hurt that I felt when I looked at my body. I hid my hatred of my body from everyone around me for years. I was always a healthy weight so no one considered that I could have possibly had an eating disorder when I was in junior high or high school.
Growing up Hispanic in a small Mid-Western town where everyone around you is a tall lanky blonde wasn't easy. I longed to have golden hair and fair skin and be thin like all of my girl friends. I was thin. I weighed 100 lbs but at 4'11", I wasn't all that "skinny". I weighed less than most girls, but I still wore larger sizes because my hips are naturally wider and my shoulders naturally broader. This had nothing to do with fat or BMI, my bones were simply situated differently and no amount of losing weight was going to whittle my waist to a smaller size...unless I shaved down my hipbones. It didn't matter that I wasn't fat, I believed I was. I periodically struggled with disordered eating; anorexia and bulimia. I love food, I love to eat but it was drilled into me over and over that I shouldn't love food, that I shouldn't eat so much and that I should be ashamed that I wanted to eat.
No one ever called me fat...ever, until I was fat. Most people just made fun of how weirdly eccentric I was and that was alright by me.
Recently, over lunch, I was discussing weight with a good friend of mine and how weight, beauty, and intelligence are so interconnected with women that it is somewhat impossible to escape the demands of society. America is a patriarchal and paternal society, as much as we want to counter argue this, it is a truth that we have abandoned. The demands on women are intense and are bred continuously through the hegemonic standards that are perpetuated. When conversations turn to media and the oftentimes unattainable beauty standards, conversations can get heated and downright cruel. As obesity in America continues to rise, standards of beauty have not changed. The average American woman is a size 12, but this is not what media tells us. Rather than accept that bodies are different, the conversation turns to medicalization. When a women accepts who she is, is confident, and doesn't strive to be thin, it becomes the world's prerogative to tell her that she is not healthy and that even if she "accepts" who she is, she is obese and will suffer the pratfalls of being obese. Body shaming is now under the guise of "medical advice" from complete strangers. Aesthetics over health, but who is right?
Should we shame women who are overweight or obese and shove medical knowledge their way and concern troll our way into their personal lives? Public forums of any kind will always create an opportunity for people to shame others, especially when other's out themselves out there to be shamed. I get it, I am overweight, obese..what have you. Do I know I need to lose weight? Absolutely! Am I healthy? Yes! Surprising isn't it!!
I might be fat, but I have fun.
I might be fat, but I have fun.
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