Stop with the gym offers, the diet memberships, the new health books. I don't want them. I am tired of hearing about them. I am tired of supporting the industry of thinness. I am tired of the lie that beauty is one particular shape. I am tired of hearing that I am just one decision away from being lovable. I am tired of new crappy research about the benefits of being skinny. I am tired of hearing that my body's mass is, in and of itself, a risk factor and then being sold genetically modified processed food product to prevent the "risks" associated with looking plump.
I am tired of hearing that my curves are due to some character flaw on my part. That if I were just hard working enough, committed enough, optimistic enough, everything would be different. That with just a little more effort, I could join the elite ranks of the thin and pretty. That among this group I would be better paid, better liked, better loved, better sexed.
Here's what I know.
I have witnessed brilliant, talented, loving, warm, goddess-like women spend their entire lives submitting themselves to incredible violence in order to obtain thinness. Hours and hours and months and years of work. Thousands of dollars. And an internal narrative of defeat for years. In order to weigh less, in order to have a smaller BMI.
What if that energy had been spent elsewhere? What if it had been engaged in feeding the poor, writing poetry, doing science? What if that inner dialogue was one of self acceptance? What could we achieve?
Oh, but our health! We'll DIE if we're not thin.
No. Every non-shadily funded study shows that real health comes from eating real, well sourced food and exercising. So I propose a new life theory- Move. Eat food. Laugh. Rest. Repeat.
There in will rest my theory of health and my plan for this year. I've eaten more vegetables this year than a dozen of your thinnest friends put together and I am friggen sick of hearing about how healthy they are because they'd die sooner come famine.
Let's take back some brain space and decide to love ourselves as we are. And then we can get to some important stuff. Like dancing, gardening, playing music, making friends, baking bread, and changing the world.
I remember as a young teen in the 70's reading an article in one of my sister's magazines, Ms. I believe it was. In the article, the author argued that dieting and being thin became important with the rise of feminism. Her belief was that it was meant as a way to sidetrack women's energy from other activities. I've always wondered if there was some truth to that.
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