(no subject)
Reading this amazing series, "I do not have an eating disorder", and especially this particular post has really brought home something I should have realised a long time ago:
Nobody ever perceives your body size objectively -- even (perhaps especially!) you.
When I was younger, I'm sure that for at least a few years people perceived me as having the unconscious tiny-boned slimness that I see in teenage girls around me today. But, knowing how much weight I'd put on between the ages of 17 and 18, I didn't feel slender at all. I sometimes enjoyed the feeling of curvy-shaped voluptuousness, but I never felt thin.
Many years later, I know I'll never be that shape again. I might one day be a similar size (it would probably take either a deliberate effort on my part or some sort of sickness or natural disaster, neither of which particularly appeal to me) but I'd still be more greyhound than gazelle, more corded muscle and protruding bone and ropy tendon than simple graceful slenderness. This is what I see happening to my body when, for whatever reason, I become a bit thinner, and I don't mind at all; I find as much aesthetic appeal in that kind of body as the first, and as many others, but it's an interesting difference to note.
My impression of my size and how I feel in (not about) my body varies from day to day: some days I feel quite chunky, solid, even pudgy; other days I feel my bones poking through my skin. Some days both at once, which is odd but comforting in its oddness. I can't really be gaining or losing 10 pounds in a day; it's how I feel in my skin that changes.
My clothes (possibly the only objective measure, although again my perception of tightness varies depending on how I feel in my body -- and see above re not actually changing shape that much overnight!) tell me that I am a size or so larger than I was at the age of 20; most of them still fit, but skirts sit on my waist rather than hips and my corsets don't lace up all the way at the back any more.
I don't feel any 'fatter' (using the word to mean not just size but all the associated socio-cultural phenomena it implies), and I'm certainly happier with my body in general than I ever used to be. But I think people now see me as... I want to say HUGE, or ENORMOUS, but that's not true; it's an exaggerated, hurt response to being perceived as larger than I actually am, which in turn is a conditioned value-laden reaction, the values of which I should (and do) reject. Why should it matter if people think I am fat(ter)? What is true, though: Lee always picks me out clothes that are a size (or more) too big; people are always surprised when I tell them what clothing sizes I wear. Somehow I have gone from people perceiving me as a smaller size than I actually was, to people now perceiving me as a bigger size than I currently am. I wonder what has changed?
Nobody ever perceives your body size objectively -- even (perhaps especially!) you.
When I was younger, I'm sure that for at least a few years people perceived me as having the unconscious tiny-boned slimness that I see in teenage girls around me today. But, knowing how much weight I'd put on between the ages of 17 and 18, I didn't feel slender at all. I sometimes enjoyed the feeling of curvy-shaped voluptuousness, but I never felt thin.
Many years later, I know I'll never be that shape again. I might one day be a similar size (it would probably take either a deliberate effort on my part or some sort of sickness or natural disaster, neither of which particularly appeal to me) but I'd still be more greyhound than gazelle, more corded muscle and protruding bone and ropy tendon than simple graceful slenderness. This is what I see happening to my body when, for whatever reason, I become a bit thinner, and I don't mind at all; I find as much aesthetic appeal in that kind of body as the first, and as many others, but it's an interesting difference to note.
My impression of my size and how I feel in (not about) my body varies from day to day: some days I feel quite chunky, solid, even pudgy; other days I feel my bones poking through my skin. Some days both at once, which is odd but comforting in its oddness. I can't really be gaining or losing 10 pounds in a day; it's how I feel in my skin that changes.
My clothes (possibly the only objective measure, although again my perception of tightness varies depending on how I feel in my body -- and see above re not actually changing shape that much overnight!) tell me that I am a size or so larger than I was at the age of 20; most of them still fit, but skirts sit on my waist rather than hips and my corsets don't lace up all the way at the back any more.
I don't feel any 'fatter' (using the word to mean not just size but all the associated socio-cultural phenomena it implies), and I'm certainly happier with my body in general than I ever used to be. But I think people now see me as... I want to say HUGE, or ENORMOUS, but that's not true; it's an exaggerated, hurt response to being perceived as larger than I actually am, which in turn is a conditioned value-laden reaction, the values of which I should (and do) reject. Why should it matter if people think I am fat(ter)? What is true, though: Lee always picks me out clothes that are a size (or more) too big; people are always surprised when I tell them what clothing sizes I wear. Somehow I have gone from people perceiving me as a smaller size than I actually was, to people now perceiving me as a bigger size than I currently am. I wonder what has changed?