Queensize!

[goteam]

Next time, on Sick, Sad World, body issues! Maybe you already read the fabulous Chiara (amperlj if you like reminders, or you can subscribe to her handy email notification list) or maybe you saw triath plugging this entry about body issues, but if you don't or you haven't, you totally should. It will make you better appreciate the following lines from a Marie

Comments

[porfinn]

I wish I could, but unfortunately my aspirations force me to be one of the whiney dieters. I don't really mind. Every (a)vocation has some drawbacks. At least mine doesn't require grad school.

[goteam]

Ooh! Something I had not considered while writing this rant! Tell me more about your acting goals and the effects they've had on your decisions about diet and exercise and general body-related self-image stuff. Do you really think of yourself as a whiny dieter, or is it easier to deal with because you've got a more defined goal than "thinner thighs in 2 weeks" or whatever? Bonus points: how ridiculously privileged a "problem" is this, dealing with the availability of too much food? (I feel like there's some kind of snarky "why diet when kids are starving in Africa" joke to be made out of that, oh yes.)

[drunkpotato]

Girls are weird. Why can't you just look in the mirror every day and see Hugh Jackman like we do? Well, not Hugh Jackman for girls, cuz, you know, that would be ungood, but you get the idea. There are parts of my body I hate, but parts I love too, and I look in the mirror and say "Hey, my arms are really big. Cool!" My eyes sort of slide over the beer gut I've been fighting for it seems like forever; I only really notice it in supreme moments of self-hatred, which fortunately are rare and far between.

I guess what I'm saying is, wtf mate?

[triath]

Yup.

It's scary how common body issues are among women. I can't count the number of times I've been around someone who's constantly on a diet, and spends much of their spare thought cycles thinking about calories and such. You really can't have much fun if that's the background music in your head.

Many of the stereotypes of women have drastically changed over the years (e.g., what jobs are appropriate, who should cook, etc.). Do you think that stereotypes of how a woman should look will change? Both whether the waif look will fade out of fashion but also whether men will prioritize body lower on the "requirements" list.

[goteam]

I wrote Chiara last night about how I think at least part of the reason I'm so determinedly happy with my body is to rebel against my mom, who seems to always be on a diet or measuring her health purely in terms of "good" or "bad" eating habits or whatever. True. Other contributing factors: I think of constant dieting as girly and I tend to revel in being a non-standard girl, and related to this is I'm a big cheapskate and a lot of girly stuff like makeup and stylish clothes are really expensive... which brings me to the sad fact that I think I brought up when we saw Nomy Lamm at Scripps back in the day (remember? so awesome!) More and more men are developing body issues. Fashion is a growth industry! If the revolution (or the apocalypse) doesn't come, there could be twice as many people buying diet pills and makeup and all the other stuff I listed in response to drunkpotato's comment. Now that is scary.

[mycrust]

Let me tell you a horrifying story about my workplace in which a couple of male grad students started having a loud and animated discussion about the following "problem": Imagine you are going to have sex with three women of average height. The three women must weigh a total of 600 lbs. How would you divide the weight between them so as to have the most enjoyable experience?

This question is apparently based on the supposition that having sex with a 200 pound women would be somehow unpleasant. I told them that the conversation was completely ridiculous and that I refused to participate, but I wish I'd been able to be a little more outspoken how fucked-up and infuriating it was.

[goteam]

But Mike! You could've drawn them into an uncomfortably graphic discussion of sex with fatties! Or skinnies! Bony edges -> not hot. But um, you probably did the right thing because I'm not sure how long it would've taken before the people you were talking with got the joke, let alone the fact that they were the joke. Sigh.

[foolmonkey]

Hot or not, from a more practical consideration, bony edges -> not comfortable. I should know, being the (dubiously) proud owner of more than my fair share (I am thin, but not _that_ thin) of bony edges. Yeah, I've got pointy bones. Some are downright sharp.

Turns out I'm a practical kind of person...

[goteam]

...or at least, comfortable is a big part of my definition of hotness. I don't have to always live in the comfortable place, but it's a good place to start and end pretty much any adventure I can think of. Um, I guess that's true for me on pretty much every level. ANYWAY. While I'm no one's definition of waifishly thin, somehow my fat has not yet expanded to cover all my bony edges. Go figure. I guess my point is: if you were thinking of putting on a few dozen pounds to cover up your pointy bones, you might want to rethink that strategy. Also, y'know, you're fabulous just the way you are and all that.

[foolmonkey]

Relevantly, a girl in my dance class hijacked a few minutes of class time for us to help her with a psych survey. As per the usual, she wasn't allowed to tell us what it was about until after the fact

lines and tangents

[keturn]

On unhealthy self-image vs. "sustaining your fabulous body":

• Our Trader Joe's has McCann's Quick and Easy Steel Cut Oats.
• What if the article that has you running on the treadmill and counting your carbs is not "Two Weeks to Thinner Thighs," but is "How to Clear Brain Fog and Reverse Memory Decline"?
• What if the reason you're telling yourself you shouldn't have that extra piece of fudge is not about an extra layer of fat, but because you're afraid if you eat like that your thyroid will burn out in a few more years and you'll end up with a nasty case of diabetes?
• What on earth is FAGE Total 0% yogurt?

Re: lines and tangents

[goteam]

• Our Trader Joe's has 'em, too.
• It's all about finding a way to enjoy taking care of yourself, instead of making it an exercise in self-punishment and self-loathing. Personally, I think treadmills are for suck, but stationary bikes are a great place to read. So are them whacky elliptical machines, once you learn to keep your balance. It all adds up to good for my brain on lots of levels, to which I say yay! Also it means I get to keep rebelling against my mom's freaky dieting, which it turns out is pretty important to me.
• Again, my top diet priority is rebelling against my mom's freaky dieting and talking about everything in terms of weight lost or gained. That and being happy with myself instead of dwelling on how I'm already genetically predisposed to cancer and heart attacks and diabetes.
• I have no idea.