Yes, Kiddos, Another One of Those Rants!

[kitsjay]

I know it's a little late, but I stumbled upon "Confessions of a Fat Girl", which led to a rant by a nausea-inducing columnist who chided people like Chloe Marshall for "glamorizing obesity".

In my opinion, Chloe Marshall is absolutely stunning.

That's peripheral.

Ignoring the fact she says she doesn't take any pleasure attacking the 17-year-old (with a title like "Miss England finalist is fat, lazy and a poster girl for ill health", I wonder why on earth she would feel the need to defend herself!), the columnist argues that people complain about the media convincing teenagers to starve themselves, but clearly the opposite is true. She points out the rise of obesity, and asks how many of us know a "size 4".

I think she's missing the point. I believe the media has royally screwed everyone's body issues up and continues to do so. Airbrushing, constant tips on how to diet, then an article gushing about how nice it is to see curvy models nowadays--like Salma Hayek. Salma Hayek is curvy? Right. And Kate Moss is a size 14. No, the media may not be convincing every teenage girl to run to the bathroom and throw up their last meal, but it's doing something much more insidious. Women (or men) who espouse ideas like these then choose to publicize them in a column that amounts to little more than a rant can't seem to focus on anything but the outside. The media doesn't just have an effect on girls' bodies, but their minds. That's the scary part. Women are already taught to analyze themselves, cut themselves down, and are constantly torn down by men; the scary part is that we've accepted this and now we're doing it amongst ourselves. Simone de Beauvoir points out in "The Second Sex" that women are unique in that respect. When a revolution comes around, women take sides by their classes--not their gender. Races, classes, religions all stick together--but women almost never side with their gender. If you don't believe me, pick up a women's magazine, then pick up a men's magazine (yes, one of those). The women's magazines will have tiny models who bear an unnerving resemblance to 12-year-olds, while a men's magazine has women who could make Sophia Loren jealous. A recent online survey in Australia showed men pictures of a size 8, size 10, size 12, and size 14 model and asked which men preferred. Most votes went to the size 12, then the size 14, then the size 10. Size 8 came in last (for the record, Australia's sizing is one up; their size 12 is a US size 10). Men like women who have curvy figures, which leaves the women as the ones who are doing this amongst themselves. Not a pretty thought.

So the media keeps telling us to look at ourselves closer. They pay lip-service to being confident no matter what size you wear , running articles on how happy they are there's role models like Queen Latifah and America Ferrera, but flip the page and there is a fashion shoot with stick-thin models. Past those gaunt faces with clothes hanging off skeletal frames, there's a page on how you can lose those last pesky ten pounds. Wait, what? I'm confused. I thought they were just telling us not to obsess over our weight.

I have nothing against being healthy, but I have a personal theory on weight. It may not be scientific, but it's held true so far. Ever hear about those women who lose a hundred pounds, or more? Then you hear the statistics, on how nearly 90% of those women gain it back. My personal theory is that everyone has an ideal weight, and you may get ten or twenty pounds above or below it, but any more and it's not natural unless you really work for it. This includes going up--even when I give up on dieting and binge on ice cream, burgers, and french fries, I have never gone above 170. I am 5'8" or so and used to weigh 167 pounds. I now hover around 155 or so. Despite my best efforts including going to the gym every morning and restricting myself to less than 800 calories a day, I could never, ever get under 150. The only time I ever managed to see 149 on that scale was when I had the flu and didn't eat for four days.

Before you point out, "Kitty, 800 calories a day is not healthy": yes, I know. I knew it then too. See, that's the scary part, the part that judgmental columnist never took into account. Even well-adjusted, normal girls start to become paranoid and do things they know are unhealthy, just to achieve this standard the media holds them to. The same girls who abstain from smoking, drugs, and alcohol because they know it's unhealthy will do something just as dangerous to achieve their perfect weight. I consider myself a fairly intelligent young woman and even I have done supremely stupid things in the name of weight loss. I have finally mostly shaken free from that and am happy with the way I look. I can don a bikini, look in the mirror and think, "Hell yeah!" or model a tight dress and bless genetics for letting me fill it out just right. Make no mistake, I occasionally have bouts of insecurity and doubts, but for the most part, I'm okay.

This columnist overlooks, maybe deliberately, the fact that Chloe Marshall isn't glamorizing obesity, she's glamorizing confidence. I have a hard time believing that the columnist really wants teenage girls to all be chronically unhappy (then again, she seems to be suffering from it, so who knows?). That's the main problem. Not that media's images of women are destroying female's bodies, but that it's destroying their minds.

I spent a lot of time thinking I was fat at a size 12. Even when I lost weight and was slipping into a size 8, I still felt unhappy--I wanted to be smaller, never mind that it is probably physically impossible for me to ever fit into a size 4.

For those who haven't met me, I'm a curvy gal. "Curvy" nowadays often means "overweight", but I'm normal BMI. I've just got an hourglass figure. I've worn a DD since high school and my bottom half, despite a depressing asslessness, isn't exactly slim.

What does this mean, other than a possible future career in burlesque dancing?

It means that I wasn't happy at a size 8, even though it's probably the smallest size I will ever wear. It means I used to want to cry when I had to buy an XL shirt just because my boobs made anything smaller look like I led a double life as a Hooters waitress. It means when I was healthy, I still didn't feel pretty.

So don't tell me you're a fattist like it's something to be proud of. You're judging someone by how they look, instead of who they are. You do that to someone who is another ethnicity than you, that's racist. That's a big no-no, but being fattist is okay, because you're worried about their health.

"But people can't change their skin color," columnists like her whine. "Fat people can help it."

Maybe, maybe not. Is it really your place to judge, though? Is it really your place to say it's okay to destroy someone's confidence and mind, to cut them down without ever knowing them, and make them constantly question their self-worth because of what some numbers on a scale say?

No.

I'm judging this columnist by who she is, not what she looks like. She judges Chloe Marshall by what she looks like, not who she is. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which is the more shallow.



I wrote this mainly because I've seen a bunch of self-identified "fat bloggers" bash it, but I think its offensiveness transcends weight differences. There's a truly great response here in case some of your rage against this woman needs an outlet. I know mine did.

People continue to amaze me--and not in a good way, either.