Wow!
Sorry about the long lapse, there. Seriously, such a lot has happened the last couple of months. I've been insanely busy. Whilst I have, I promise you, kept up on reading around my interests, actively engaging in them and working on those pictures I promised, I've had very little time or energy to post.
Anyway, trying to get back on track. I had an interesting little experience the other day that highlighted for me the difference between fat girls like myself and my smaller-framed friends.
Myself and a few of the ladies were together for an evening of home-cooked food, wine, good music and giggles. Part way through the evening one of my friends, a gorgeous, tall and slinky redhead with serious self-image issues, begins to make once again comments about her appearance. Let's call her E
Now, don't get me wrong, we all have body issues these days, with the media and society pushing these extremely fake ideals of beauty on us, and I certainly can't blame any woman for feeling bad about her appearance. However, E is tall, a size 10-12 ordinarily, with DD-E cup breasts which have magically retained their full pert youthfulness, a smattering of lovely freckles, deep red hair, legs that practically reach her armpits and a really cute face. Her complaint was that she is "getting fat", having gained enough weight to go up to a 12-14 in clothing. This, when she has just reached her-mid twenties, the time of the great sag and expansion of all humans, male and female.
Of course, being the body-positive bunch that we are, we weren't going to let her dwell on that, so decided to bump her out of her funk by lifting our tops to display much larger and wobblier bellies, and to profess our love for our imperfect bodies.
Unfortunately, the whole thing was derailed by E discovering to her shock and confusion that my friend J and I have stretchmarks. She thought that they were something you got from being pregnant, that it was caused by saggy wrinkling of loose skin that had been stretched out. We had to explain to her that stretch marks are, in fact, scar tissue, and that they occur when the body grows faster than the skin can stretch. Mine developed when I went through puberty, and the ones on my stomach grow an extra few millimetres every year, assuring that they are always pink and fresh-looking, thanks to the amount that my belly moves when I am active, pulling further on already-weakened skin. I then pressed the flat of my palm against my breasts, upper arms and thighs and showed her that I actually have them all over, but most are faded except when I tug on the skin more. She didn't know you could get stretch marks there, either. She's never had them. I advised her that people that weight train can get them as well, when the muscle mass increases too rapidly, and that a friend of mine in college ended up with his entire upper back a mass of pink stripes, and that my OH had a fair-sized mass of them on his upper arms and thighs.
Now, J and I were more than a little surprised to hear this, having considered stretch marks a fact of life since we were 10. The fact that E didn't even really know what they were came as something of a shock, as well.
The thing is, E is lovely, but she has never really had to confront the particular privelege she has in being tall, slim and curvaceous, nor think outside of her own bodily experiences, so I don't think she ever really saw her own image issues as being different to those of her fat friends, nor realised just how different our relative experiences are.
Another example is bra shopping. E is ample in the bust, like me, but there is a whole world of difference between DD and FF, and most of the places she shops for underwear don't offer anyting for women like myself.
Thinking about this made me consider my own privelege. I am a 16-18, usually 18, and as such straddle the plus-size line in most shops. I can often choose clothing both from the higher sizes in a shop's "normal" range and the lowest sizes in it's "plus" range. I can pick and choose where I shop, and can reliably purchase fashionable clothing so long as I am mindful of my shape. Many fat women don't have this privelege, being relegated to shopping online, or just always going to Evans and Bon Marche, and to whatever range of clothes those shops choose to offer. I also am still small enough that people will reliably say "you're not really all that fat" or something similar.
My stretch marks and body wobbliness makes high-impact exercise uncomfortable, even painful, but what of women who are larger still? What of the restrictions their own bodies put on the range of exercise they can enjoy?
And what of my much thinner friends, who get cold during weather that I consider pleasantly warm, and need a cushion to sit on even soft seats?
There is a whole world of difference of experience between each of us, and unrealistic beauty ideals and social stigma against being "too thin" or "too fat" affect and harm us all.
Watch those videos I linked to. And watch all the ones that link from them. The level to which an image can be altered and look either realistic, or at least no different to those in most magazines, is frightening.
Those magazines like Heat and OK will have a mixture of images of celebrities. Some will look preened, poised and beautiful and will be praised for their efforts. Others will have spotlights shone on their "flaws". But pick up a similar magazine of different name, and those praised people will also seem to have numerous "problems", whilst the imperfect people suddenly glow. The difference? Whether the photos were shopped or not, and to what degree. Nothing more. What separates you from the celebrities isn't just personal trainers, cosmetic surgery, hours of make-up and having their clothing specially selected. It's image fakery and enhancement. Stop worrying about it, and just take care of yourself for you.
Get exercise that you enjoy, because you enjoy it, and do it with friends. Eat food that you like, and expand your range of foods, eat what you want when you want, and you may find that your cravings ebb and die, as "naughty pleasures" lose the appeal of the forbidden. Feel great, love yourself, and STOP STRESSING!