Passing on body hatred
I was seven when I discovered that you were fat, ugly and horrible. Up until that point I had believed that you were beautiful - in every sense of the word. I remember flicking through old photo albums and staring at pictures of you standing on the deck of a boat. Your white strapless bathing suit looked so glamorous, just like a movie star. Whenever I had the chance I'd pull out that wondrous white bathing suit hidden in your bottom drawer and imagine a time when I'd be big enough to wear it; when I'd be like you.
But all of that changed when, one night, we were dressed up for a party and you said to me, ''Look at you, so thin, beautiful and lovely. And look at me, fat, ugly and horrible.''
...
It broke my heart to witness your despair and I'm sorry that I didn't rush to your defence. I'd already learned that it was your fault that you were fat. I'd even heard Dad describe losing weight as a ''simple'' process - yet one that you still couldn't come to grips with. The lesson: you didn't deserve any food and you certainly didn't deserve any sympathy.
But I was wrong, Mum. Now I understand what it's like to grow up in a society that tells women that their beauty matters most, and at the same time defines a standard of beauty that is perpetually out of our reach. I also know the pain of internalising these messages. We have become our own jailors and we inflict our own punishments for failing to measure up. No one is crueller to us than we are to ourselves.
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http://www.essentialmums.co.nz/mums-life/health/8757837/Passing-on-body-hatred
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"Fuck diets; imma be eatin'"
Quote from my of my best friends when I was in my 20's, who was never model thin--or thin at all-- but so stunningly gorgeous it never mattered)
Except when decided we to be strippers together, the guy at the microphone announced. "Whole lotta room up there"--which ended her stripping career. She sad, "fuck this; this place is nasty" never went back. Went to school instead.
The exception in this case is to this day she's was the most beautiful women I've ever known, she had enough admiration and attention( from either gender, it wasn't always sexual, it was a reaction to a combo of beauty and personality that her body didn't bother her. She went to ship for a bra one time and told them she needed size "36 longs"--she was funny as hell.
Her experience wasn't the experience of so many overweight women--a recent example being Lindy West, a beautiful funny intelligent and articulate women who was told repeatedly 'no one would want to rape her' because of her weight.
If you bring this up to general population, you'll hear defense of what people find sexually desirable, defense of fat jokes, unhelpful criticism of diets, unasked for tips on how to lose weight. I've seen overweight women suffer all this and more. How hurtful is society going to get?
One time, I got really thin--too thin-I was gong to school, and working full time. I didn't look good. I started get to a little body dismorphic, because all I heard, from mostly women, was how "good I looked" my husband and a couple of friends were concerned, but it worked itself out and I got back to a healthy weight.
Now? While I Keep health in mind I say "fuck diets, imma be eatin'"
