For those of you who haven't heard about this yet, here's the back story: A wannabe hack of a blogger recently wrote on a pathetic excuse for a legitimate website (Skinny Gossip) that the gorgeous twenty-year old blonde pictured above doesn't have "the body" for modeling, calling her “thick, vulgar, almost pornographic".
Anyone want to join me in a "Say whaaaaaat?!" moment here? I could use about a million words to describe this person's body and among them would be "perfect" and "holy crap, I'm jealous", but apparently, that's just me. This writer (if we even want to stretch the word enough to call her that) is actually delusional enough to think that slamming a body like Upton's is inspirational to people who are trying to lose weight and obtain the "perfect body" (whatever the hell that may be) and the truly terrifying part is that she's not alone.
After reading about Upton's "fat shaming" I did a little research on the subject and was absolutely horrified to discover that this is all part of a movement of sorts called "Thinspiration" which basically convinces women to lose as much weight as humanly possible (whether they need to or not, and the latter is usually the case). It's all about those flat, perfect stomachs, protruding hip bones, and the ability to count your own ribs. As if that wasn't bad enough, Thinspiration sites say really asinine things like "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" (which always makes me think of Liz Lemon: "I don't know! Ever put a doughnut in the microwave?"). And worse of all they (proudly and unapologetically) advocate anorexia. No, you didn't read that wrong. They Advocate. Anorexia. You know, that horrible disease where you completely stop eating, waste away to nothing, and eventually die a horrible death usually involving some kind of cardiac arrest? They advocate it! Good God, wasn't anyone else required to watch "The Karen Carpenter Story" in seventh grade health class?! She died because she didn't eat, but that's perfectly acceptable to these lunatics. It's encouraged even, because it's all about looking good, right?
No, not right. So not right.
Allow me a minute to be completely honest here. If my life was just about me, I'd think "Wow, those people are real creeps for calling that beautiful girl fat", and that just might be as much thought as I'd give the whole ordeal. But my life is not just about me, it's also about my daughter and the sucky fact that she has to grow up in a world where a size eight is considered "plus size", a healthy body is called fat, and exercise is seen as the thing you do as a last resort if you don't have the willpower to starve yourself. It's disgusting in every sense of the word and it has to stop.
Women of the world, I implore you: Stop calling yourselves fat. Stop calling celebrities fat. Especially don't call yourself fat in front of your daughter because she might look in the mirror someday and think that horrible word applies to her. In fact, let's just take the word "fat" out of our vocabularies. It's a small word used by small people. Replace "I'm fat" with "I would like to be healthier". And just so we're clear, starving yourself is not healthy. Exercise because you want a heart that's healthy enough to see the day your grandchildren are born, not because some dumbass on a horrible, meaningless website tells you that your thighs are too big. Counting calories is no way to go through life and if you miss counting something so badly, go back to school and take a math class.
My bottom line is this: Bodies change and evolve over time. I've had two kids, so I know that mine has, but it doesn't have to be a bad thing. It only becomes a bad thing when "skinny" becomes a priority over living your life.
And for the record, I think Kate Upton looks great. She looks healthy. And healthy will trump skinny any day.
Thanks, I feel much better now.
Hear, hear! I recently stumbled across a photo slideshow online of "Celebrities in the 80's." Wow. People we even know today looked so different! They looked healthy! Their faces were rounder, their bodies fuller; not like the skeletons they look like today. So sad what our society has come to sometimes.
ReplyDeleteOh man. It’s interesting that you wrote this now because I’ve been having similar conversations with coworkers for the last week or so. One of the girls I work with has recently lost 90 pounds and is probably a size 8. One of the boys at work said he wouldn’t be interested in her because she was fat.
ReplyDeleteI was amazed and annoyed when he said this. He’s 19, so we can excuse his stupidity, but when I polled the rest of my coworkers (men and women); they all seemed to hold the same opinion. At what point did extremely healthy and muscled become fat? It’s a sad world when someone who has weight to lose knows that no matter how much weight they may lose, they’ll probably still be considered fat.
I just read an article that said that 20% of Americans are above their ideal body weight, 30% are considered overweight, and 30% are considered obese. Based on this study, 80% of people weigh above their ideal weight. When are we, as Americans, going to change our opinion of what constitutes fat? I’m sorry but an extra 20 just seems to be normal among my group of friends.
The really annoying thing is that it seems to be women perpetuating these ideas. All the girls I know seem to be annoyed at the idea of people being over labeled or mislabeled but will quickly judge another based on their weight.
What is the solution? You got me.