I am fat and happy

I've had this post in unpublished status for awhile, mostly because I wasn't quite sure how to end it off or where I was going with it. That was until the total babe Tess Munster AKA Holliday took the world by storm being the first size-22 model to make it big. 

When I first read about her success as a model I was super excited. There is someone who doesn't fit the typical thin, pretty, flat-stomached model mold. While I'm all about the plus sized models and diversity in body types, plus size models seem to have a very similar body shape - very hourglass, flat stomach. For lack of a better term or explanation the modeling industry has now gone ahead and created an "acceptable" amount of fat that is still considered attractive. 

Enter Holliday - not flat stomached, rocking the non-conventional hourglass who is blowing up the modelling world. 

And the world is pissed.

Why? Because this woman is happy with her body. She thinks that her size 22 body is glorious - and it is! She is the embodiment of what makes people uncomfortable and unhappy. She's a size 22, successful and happy woman breaking the conventional mold of happy women. 

I was reading through some of the comments and filtering out the blind hate one notion or theme kept coming up. People are ticked off and think that this woman is glorifying obesity and being unhealthy. I feel like many people (although this seems to be starting to shift slowly) still live by this Biggest Loser/before picture mentality. If you're not skinny or "appropriately" curvy you are a before picture. You should automatically feel the need to change the way that you look because you can't be happy with the way you are.

I've had this idea reinforced in many places of my life. The most memorable was actually when I was going through the sign up process to go to a gym in Toronto. The trainer there kept busting out the "you'll look better, you'll find love because you'll look better, you'll love going to the beach and wearing bikinis" sales pitch.

I felt the need to shut him down right there - Excuse me, but I am confident. I am already deserving of love looking the way I do and I already love going to the beach - in a bikini - because I love my body. I got the polite almost "yes yes dear" brush off which frustrated me. I just couldn't understand why this person couldn't understand that I was at a gym to increase my fitness level - not decrease my waistline. My want to just get fitter physically had me whitewashed as a before picture because I didn't fit this person's mold of a confident person. 

I think it makes people who buy into this confident, perfect body type pissed when someone doesn't put in the work (dieting, working out, limiting to maintain the perfect body) and gets the result (loving their body, accepting their body). It makes people really fucking pissed when that happens and in turn they lash out with negative comments about glorifying being unhealthy.

The thing is - happiness, self-respect and self-love don't glorify anything. My shameless self-love doesn't glorify anything but body positivity. It doesn't glorify health issues, it doesn't glorify being unhealthy. You don't have to hate your body to want to improve it you can still absolutely love yourself while changing your body. Because my body doesn't fit the traditional perfect body image it's automatically assumed that I hate it, and that makes people feel better. They work hard for their socially-accepted looks, of course it makes them feel better when we hate the way we look.

It makes people angry, it makes people upset, it confuses people, but the thing is - my body is not responsible for anyone's happiness but my own. 

My body and I are not responsible for your personal happiness.

Fat shame, fat shaming and being body-positive.

Recently, thanks mostly in part to my fantastic Tumblr crew, I’ve been on a body love and body acceptance kick. Having a good-sized background in media, I’ve been through many a discussion on how both men and women are portrayed in the media compared to everyday life. Of course, making my opinion known on the internet has come at the price of an onslaught of anonymous hate-messages filling up my inbox. It’s with this post that I’m going to address the big ones, not out of spite, but because I feel like these are the most common things women are told when they come out and love their bodies.

You loving your body is just you trying to validate the fact you’re fat and live an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle and are too lazy to change it.

False. Yes, I could be healthier, I could forego the coffee with cream every morning and cut out all the “junk food” that I love, but I don’t. I balance that with healthy options and plenty of exercise.

There’s a huge dysmorphic mentality about a “fat” person and their ability to be healthy. It seems that everyone and their dog want to be concerned with your health when you decide that as a fat person you’re going to love your body. There is barely a connection between size and health, except in absolute extreme cases. People honestly don’t realize that you can be fat AND healthy, at the same time! (Blasphemous, I know.)

Healthy does not equal thin. Perfect examples are the Olympic weight lifters and shot putters as pictured below.

Sarah Robles - Olympic Weight Lifter

 

 A perfect medley of Olympic body types.

 

These are not people that live sedentary, lazy lives. They are athletes! I’m not promoting unhealthy lifestyles by loving my body. I’m promoting the fact that ANYONE can be healthy. You can’t fat-shame someone into believing their unhealthy because they jiggle a little more than society deems acceptable.

People like you, accepting yourself as fat are contributing to the obesity epidemic.

                Ha! Yes, I agree there is an obesity epidemic currently and we can all strive to be healthier, regardless of body type but loving your body DOES NOT promote obesity.

                Obesity is measured through the BMI (Body Mass Index) chart that charts what your weight should be based on height and corresponding weight. Every height has a weight-range that indicates healthy, overweight and obese weights. The greatest part of that, is at 5’6 my top “healthy” weight should be 120-150lbs. At my healthiest, with daily workouts, modified diet, and three-times weekly horseback riding lessons I was not in this “healthy” weight. Meaning, that I will live the rest of my life either overweight or obese according to this chart, no matter how “healthy” I am. I believe that we need to look at a more complex way of measuring health and obesity than just this, because there are plenty, PLENTY of healthy obese and overweight people who happen to not be 6’8 to justify their weight.

 

People out there think you’re sexy, stop complaining

                Why thank you, I’m glad there are people out there that think I look good, I think I look good. Saying that, I’m not an object. I’m not spouting body-positivity so that boys/girls can look at me and think I’m sexy, I’m doing it so that I can hopefully empower women and men to love their bodies, despite their shape and what society deems of it.

                Being positive about your body image isn’t about looking for people who think you’re gorgeous enough to sleep with or have sex. This is not what this is about. I’m not looking for people to want to be with me based solely on the fact that I think I look great.

You fat people out there are shaming skinny women into hating their bodies for not having curves

                I agree that this is happening, and I DO NOT agree with it. The purpose of (and I can only speak for myself) body positivity is loving your body in WHATEVER shape that it comes in. Tall, short, thin, fat, straight or curvy. Body shaming as a whole needs to end, in saying that, to be considered a plus-sized women it’s my experience that you have to fight more to be allowed to love your body. Society is more accepting of “thin”, pretty women; curvy is starting to come back into the swing of things, but media and advertising still stresses that to be desired by “the perfect” man, you need to be thin.

                To be big and confident you need to fight twice as hard and face all of the advertising that just isn’t targeted to you. Who doesn’t read a magazine and love the clothes that are shown in there? Too bad as a bigger person you know none of it is being made for you.

                Body-shaming is a practice that society needs to stop. People are not meant to be all the same. We’re human, we’re unique, we’re not all modeled after the one “ideal” image.

I support and love curvy women, but only the hot and pretty ones that are all confident in themselves

                This is why so many fat women have such low self-esteem, there’s even a set of guidelines that you need to meet to be considered beautiful when you are bigger. People do have  a personal preference as to what they think constitutes attractive, I agree 100% that one person can have the choice to not find people 100% attractive all the time. It all comes down to personal taste, BUT, do not make yourself “body-positive” if you’re going to only accept the bigger women you think should be allowed to love themselves. If you’re abiding by that thought process you are only feeding into exactly what society on a whole is doing.

                Check your thinking, see who it affects and don’t label yourself as body-positive unless you truly are body positive.

You’re only body positive because you’re fat.

                I am fat, and if I wasn’t I would still be saying the exact same thing. Instead of being picked on in school for being thin, I was made fun of for being fat. That’s the background and the experience that I bring to the discussion, but I know people who are on the other end of the ridicule as well. I’m not bod-positive because I want people to accept me, I’m body positive because I know how a negative body image affects people of any size. You can call my fat and stupid and a lazy-ass if you would like, but I will continue to state my thoughts about body-shame.

                Nobody should ever have to feel bad about the way they look and someone’s personal health should not be a strangers concern solely based on the way that their body is shaped. To give context, I was messaged by a man in the US who “lifts weights and does cardio everyday” therefore “is an expert on what being healthy looks like”, enough of an expert to know that I’m fat and super unhealthy masquerading around as confident when I should just be ashamed. I know I’m not the only one who is verbally attacked by people like this and to all of them I say:

A) You are not my doctor, you have never had access to my medical records or health records. You do not know how healthy I am or am not. Your “concern” is misplaced ignorance that exists to validate your own personal body-image issues. Anyone who is confident in themselves is confident regardless of what other people look like. True confidence comes from not needing to bring other people down because they don’t look like you.

B) You are not an expert on health because you work out every day. I also work out every day and I am no more an expert than the next person who works out daily. Your fitness schedule does not dictate your ability to tell me what I am.

C) I am fat. Thank you for pointing that out, I’m also healthy and confident. Human beings  are complex and multi-faceted with layers. To quote a rather wise ogre, “Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers” Swap out ogres for humans and there ya go! (Shrek, 2001)

D) Cinderella, the only person masquerading confidence is the man who justifies his health and good looks on the fact that he isn’t fat.

Love your body and be "really" beautiful...the advertising way

I was sitting on the couch last night with my cat and a tub of mint-chocolate chip ice cream watching the Olympics when a commercial caught my eye. Victoria Secret’s new ‘Love Your Body’ campaign for their ‘Body’ line of bras.

                Of course this commercial was of stick-thin VS models parading around in their underwear lovin’ their bodies and bras, which had me stopping mid-spoon in mouth with my ice cream and rethink my life a little bit. I then, of course, did what any normal person does in this day and age. I googled the shit out of this.

                As it turns out, Victoria Secret does offer their product from a 32A right up to a 40DD, which incorporates a wide range of shapes of women; they just don’t advertise to them. Again, we have a huge company who is launching a “body love” campaign of sorts, yet keeping their advertising focused. I realize that Victoria Secret does have an established brand centred around this iconic “Victoria Secret model,” they’re not just going to change their whole image because people are calling for more diverse advertising.

                This is slightly reminiscent of Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign, which went down in a flaming pile of good intentions. Now the Real Beauty campaign still exists, it’s just been kept under the radar since its slow painful death by the hands of the media.

                For those who do not know, Dove’s Real Beauty campaign focused on advertising using “real” women, of all ages, sizes and skin colours. At first the world jumped on this bandwagon and Dove started to work towards empowering women to feel good about their “real beauty”. This didn’t last long, with a casting call for models for the Real Beauty campaign being leaked from Craigslist looking for “real women” who have “beautiful arms and legs and face” with “flawless skin, no tattoos or scars” and “well groomed and clean, nice bodies, naturally fit not too curvy not too athletic.” Needless to say “Real Beauty” was the look they were going for, only if you fit the criteria for really beautiful.

                Another huge issue that cropped up is that Dove’s parent company, Unilever, also owns Axe, whose marketing tactics are known to objectify women with racy ads featuring “hot” women that all the men want to be with. Well the media world blew up! How can you have one company pushing to work against these objectifying ads and another company sticking them right up in your face? Most of the Axe ads don’t even feature a woman’s face; just parts of her body contorted around a man, giving her the semblance of not even being a real person, just an object.

I'm sure they have a great personality....

                The result? If you’ve noticed, both Axe and Dove really have toned down their advertising. Where before you would see commercials and ads everywhere, they’re more and more sparse. Only now has Dove started to bring back the Real Beauty campaign and women’s empowerment endeavours. Trust me, I’m all for promoting healthy self-image and body love for every body type, but there is an issue when companies start to use this as a ploy to create sales. Much like Victoria Secret jumping on the body-love bandwagon to make some $$, Dove also made the mistake of using empowerment to empower sales.

                I think that at this point in time people are so tired of seeing all the things that they cannot be and cannot achieve as advertising. Speaking solely on Canadian stats, the national average size for a Canadian woman is a size 16, yet most clothes are advertised much smaller than that. Media and advertising is so detrimental to the mental health of women unless you fit societies standard for pretty and even then if you are thin you’ve got the other side of this argument shaming you for it.

                A study shows (note: I will add the study link as soon as I find it again), that as a society men like women around a size 12, women on average are around a size 16 and yet on average, most women want to be a size two! A size two! Unless you’re naturally very thin, most women are not built to be a size two; only a small part of the population is naturally that thin! We’ve crafted this perfect cyclone of body shame that doesn’t discriminate against what you look like and only exists to make everyone unhappy with themselves.

The new requirements to be healthy: skinny, pretty and model thin - Thank you modern media!

Something at the very core of my belief system is ending body shame and unreal body images in advertising/ introducing “real” looking body images into the advertising world. I’m not talking about phasing out thin models completely – thin body shapes to exist as well – but introducing other body images.

I think a huge reason that the advertising world is so one-dimensional is because of what we’re forced to believe. Take for example the South Beach Diet Bars commercial. This is a commercial in which a happy looking, thin, blonde woman walks confidently wherever she’s going and is greeted by the catcalls “You go healthy,” “hey there, healthy,” insinuating that she is by all means healthy enough to comment on.  The snack described as “the better snack choice whether you’re on a diet or not,” makes you “push hunger away and make better snack choices…” Ignoring the fact that your choice of snack food is influencing more than your hunger level, let’s focus on just the body image and what this means.

First off the woman is thin and by all societal definitions pretty. The slogan “Healthy Never Looked So Good.,” implies that that is what the definition of healthy is. Increasingly, that’s what you’re seeing now as the masses have demanded a change from beauty to healthy. Instead of bringing about a good amount of real change, they slapped a new word on the same picture; it’s comparable to wrapping a Christmas gift in different wrapping paper and saying “now its birthday gift!”

The reason I’m making such a big deal about this is because they [the media] barely ever portray other body types in the media as being healthy. It’s all size two, tiny, perky, societally beautiful women; and for some people that’s their healthy body type. For others it’s not. Look at the female weightlifters, those women are machines, they are athletes and for all intensive purposes they are healthy. You never, EVER see a female weightlifter being showcased in the kinds of commercials like the South Beach Diet even though I can guarantee protein and fibre play a large part in the diets of weightlifters.

Look at the media fuss over Olympic gold-medal swimmer, Liesel Jones from Australia. She’s training to compete in her, what, fourth Olympics? She’s healthy. She’s in fantastic shape, amazing shape. She’s a hotty to put it bluntly. Is the media splashing her on the front of magazines saying, women of the world; look at this picture of health! Nope! They’re pointing out the fact that she looks like she’s gotten fatter than the last time she competed in 2008.

WHAT! South Beach Diet can hire this actress to get hit on for being healthy in commercials, but this Olympic gold medalist gets splashed across the tabloids as fat and therefore unhealthy?! What is wrong with us?! The poor girl! I have to commend her for standing up to the media and for the support that flocked to her.  She deserves it.

The media defended its stance saying it was solely making an observation. My question to the media is, why don’t you make an observation on the unfair showcasing of the one-dimensional “healthy” body type and call us in the morning.

Please spread the word on this issue, Facebook, Tweet and Tumble this issue until it becomes talked about. #Endbodyshame

Commercial can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmCDhQAtbbA - South Beach Diet Commercial

Body image

This image. I hate this image.

This image cropped up after the surge of pro-chubby, pro-body love images that attacked the internet. I think this image sets a terrible precedent and is completely unfounded.

Let me first start off by saying, everyone has a right to their body and not feel bad for it. EVERYONE. Whether you’re tall, short, fat, skinny, black, curvy or flat, you have every divine right to think you are fucking fabulous. This image does not say that.

Society is far more accepting of thin being equal to beautiful. Media pushes the “size 0” mentality as what women should strive for to be “beautiful”. Models? They happen to be the size of my thigh, but they’re allowed to feel gorgeous because they are “ideal” beauty. Natural thinness is genetics, if you are naturally willowy or thin then by god be happy about it, you are gorgeous. When women shrink themselves down to these unattainable sizes and have bones sticking out of every direction and are obviously NOT healthy that’s when you should not love your bones. Skinny is sexy, but so are curves. There is no absolute description as to what constitutes beautiful.

Right now it is much easier for a thinner woman to be hit on in bars, find gorgeous runway clothes, why? Society has accepted that thin is healthy and beautiful. Being bigger, you have to fight constantly in order to just be allowed to think you look good. Have a bum? Have you checked out this exercise equipment? Have you thought about taking a class or going for a run? You should probably get that fat-free. I was told on the sidewalk by some man “wow, you’re fat. You must have a ton of health problems and have nobody love you.” I’m not saying this is fair or that thin girls deserve to be picked on because they’re not curvy, but I don’t have to work my ass off to be thin like you to be gorgeous! If you decide that’s what you want to look like that’s fine, but don’t throw that expectation onto me every morning.

It’s taken a long time for me to be comfortable in my skin and come to the conclusion that I am gorgeous. No woman deserves to be called anorexic unless they are suffering from anorexia nervosa, but no woman deserves to be called fat and a slob because they aren’t thin either.

I’m completely on board with this body love revolution, but I think with that has to come the destruction of pictures (and opinions) like above. Kate Moss is famous for saying “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” That thinking, that “you’re not skinny therefore you’re just eating everything to be fat” thinking needs to be thrown out. All bodies are beautiful; society just isn’t at a point of recognizing that yet; bigger women are being louder in their self-love empowerment because they need to be. There was a time where skinny was unhealthy and disgusting and I can assume naturally thin women would have had the same response.