I was on the phone last night with a friend (in a rather drunken state…eek.) and we got talking about the ideals of bodies, and how the ideal body for a man and a woman has changed over time. …I pointed out that men have just gotten bigger and more agressive and women have gotten skinnier and more passive. …I don’t remember the whole conversation - but it was good.

Anyway, it made me start wondering if size 14 will ever be back in style. We’re starting to see things pop up saying that being underweight will kill you… but we all know that being overweight will do the same thing. (This is where I would usually do my rant about "what is over/under weight??" … My ex-roomie helene is a tiny mo-fo who would probably be considered underweight, but she eats like a monster and is… mostly healthy, and I would be considered overweight but could out-run almost all of my friends any day and am generally pretty healthy … Especially since I’ve stopped smoking.) ANYWAY…

I feel really bad for girls who have to sit around wondering when it will be socially acceptable to be a size 8 and for girls who are a size 14 or 16 who thing they aren’t gorgeous enough to have a high sense of self security. I find that this makes a lot of people settle as well. I know girls that are bigger than what is considered average, and they are settling with guys just because they don’t think anyone else better will come along.

Two things about this piss me off. The first is obvious, and that is that they are settling just because of their looks. Any guy that is going to date you, or not date you based on how you look isn’t worth half a glance anyway… and if you’re not completely happy with who you’re with - you shouldn’t be wtih them. The other side of this is that people always tell me that I’m settling by being very set on someone who THEY don’t think is good enough for me. They don’t listen to me when I say he is amazingly good for me… They just assuming I’m just taking what I can get. (First of all… I can get what they would consider ‘better’ and second of all… I don’t even have what I want right now.)

While I was considering all this I came across a good post at CUSS dealing with basically the same stuff.

So what does this have to do with PCOS? As the doctor looked over my
test results, he expressed surprise that my glucose level was only
slightly elevated. He recommended diet and exercise to keep it under
control, instead of drugs. When I undertook my diet and exercise plan
almost nine years ago, I didn’t do it because I wanted to be healthier.
I only cared about looking better. Fuck it if “curves are back.” It’ll
be out again in a few months, but my vanity got me to the point where I
can deal with my health issues with no dramatic intervention. That’s
what matters.

Word. The idea of a woman crying because she is unhappy with how her body looks pains me. Its so sad. But we’ve created it. A society that ostracizes people based on how they look shouldn’t be worth an ounce of respect, but we’ve gone a head and normalized this society. I can understand a society that encourages healthy life styles, and taking care of your body - but the women that we see all over the media aren’t taking care of themselves. They’re killing themselves, and here we are… the normal girls… killing our image of ourselves and each other just to be like the girls who will collapse from malnutrition and cronic eating disorders.

As someone who is struggling from an eating disorder today (not me, someone very close to me - which effects me because her and I talk about it) I know the toll it pays on a woman and her relationships. …If I could have one thing, it would just be for women (and men, actually.) to just be happy with their bodies, and to stop trying to fit into a mold that they’re not made to fit into.