Posts filed under 'Body Image/Body Dysmorphia'
Quoteworthy
This is not an original image, but I saw it over at Roni’s Weigh and just had to share it here, since it is so on-message, I think, with my blog, too.
Talk about a powerful message.
I read it several times and let it sink in. So often (ok every day), we’re bombarded with images that make us feel like we’re not good enough, not thin enough, not pretty enough. That we aren’t ok how we are. Ads tell us our skin is too splotchy, it’s not dark enough, we have “thunder-thighs” and we’re covered in “unsightly” cellulite … (ok, what woman DOESN’T have it?!)
We can choose to be bold and ignore these images and say, “I’m ok with not being a size X” and “I love my thick, muscled calves.”
Or we can look at magazines, movies, images and hate on ourselves, wasting hours of our day in a narcissistic bubble. (more…)
8 comments May 7, 2009
Happy Times
I don’t know what it is about a sexy LBD (little black dress), heels, and fun jewelry … but this weekend I felt good in my own skin. Confident, even.
It doesn’t happen often, but I know that when it does, I ought to embrace it and capitalize on it. I haven’t weighed myself in a really long time, but I don’t really care to, either — especially with my monthly guest, which arrived Monday.
The thing is, I shouldn’t necessarily need a fancy dress or an occasion to spark confidence. That magic can stick in my daily life, if I listen to my body and remember how good it feels to feel good and obey my hunger queues, obey my body’s limits, obey my cravings. (more…)
13 comments May 5, 2009
BMI? “Whatever ….”
One of my fave bloggers, MamaVision shared a link on her blog that I loved re: BMI. Click here, to check out Kate Harding’s a slideshow, the BMI Project, that proves just how ridiculous BMI standards really are.
As MamaV puts it, “BMI is a bunch of B.S.” (And I happen to agree).
Kate is a leading blogger in the “fat acceptance” movement and she has a new book out called Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere, Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body.
It sounds really interesting. I admit I don’t know much about the movement, but I can easily see the point in not hating yourself just because of the size of your thighs or hips. Definitely want to see if I can get my hands on a copy …
8 comments May 1, 2009
Passing Judgment
Note: This post is all over the place and content-heavy, so … consider it a stream of consciousness and please bear with me.
My post last Friday about the evidently malnourished Australian Miss Universe contestant got me thinking about judgment … specifically, my unconsious (human?) tendency to pass judgment.
I called this woman out here on my blog — a disordered eating recovery blog — for being too skinny (at 5′11 and 108 lbs.) and for possibly having an eating disorder … in spite of her denial of it being true.
I called her out because in looking at her, I was concerned that this is the image our children see.
I called her out because I was both sickened and saddened — sickened that she looked so skeletal, and saddened that her figure personifies “beauty” to some … possibly even some of my own readers or followers of “thinspo” (the pro-ana movement).
The irony is, if I saw a morbidly obese person on the street, who might not be in the best health either, though I might make a superficial judgment in my head (as in, stating the fact that the person is morbidly obese) … would I devote a post about it?
No, I wouldn’t. (more…)
11 comments April 27, 2009
Skin and Bones — What Are We Teaching Our Kids?
I won’t show the picture here because it’s too disturbing for words to me, but Australia’s Miss Universe contestant is raising eyebrows for all the wrong reasons.
At 5′11 and 108 pounds — with a BMI of 15 — Stephanie Naumoska has created quite a stir in the world of modeling, which has (in my opinion unsuccessfully) attempted to reverse its reputation of priding itself on skin and bones being “in.”
This is yet another example of that. (more…)
24 comments April 24, 2009
Article Worth Reading: “An Open Letter to Oprah”
Over the weekend, YogiClareBear shared an article from The Huffington Post with me that she thought might be a good fit for readers here on my blog. After reading it, I couldn’t agree more.
The article, called “An Open Letter to Oprah” is written by the director of the documentary, “America The Beautiful,” which explores our nation’s unhealthy obsession with beauty.
Take a peek at his plea to Oprah to stop the yo-yo dieting and end her public obsession with body image.
What is most interesting to me is that the director (and author) is a man. Not to play the sex card or anything, but usually we hear other females talking about weight issues and body image issues. And while men are certainly impacted as well, it was refreshing to hear a guy’s perspective. (more…)
8 comments April 20, 2009
Commentary: Living a Dream
I think you’d have to be living under a rock to not know who Susan Boyle is, the Scottish woman who has won the hearts of millions around the world with her emotionally-charged rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from one of my fave Broadway shows, Les Miserables.
Like everyone else, I was absolutely blown away with her stunning performance … and had I not seen her video, I — like anyone else — would probably just think she was another amazing Broadway star with awesome pipes.
But when we see Susan, we see an ordinary woman who you’d pass on the street and probably not give a second glance to; a woman who admits she’s never been kissed and lives in the house she grew up in, who took care of her ailing mother until she passed away. A woman, just like you or me.
And what is bothering me the most is how she’s being coined “the unlikely star” … simply based on her physical appearance. (more…)
12 comments April 17, 2009
Making Amends
This past weekend when I was home, I did a side-by-side comparison of a photo of me at my slimmest (summer 2005) hanging in a family collage in my bedroom and of a photo of me at the wedding in Oaxaca in my purple dress this past March.
The cuts of the dresses being nearly equal, I was shocked to see that, although the scale tells me I have gained about 15 lbs since my lightest … I didn’t look all that different and, in fact, my shoulders looked good and square and my face didn’t look terribly different, either (ok, full disclosure: much better make-up now 
I’m a BareMinerals freak!).
Don’t get me wrong; I know I’ve gained and I can see exactly where (more padding on my hips, a thicker/ less defined waist, my ribs don’t stick out as much as they used to –hello, perhaps they never should have!?) but all in all, I didn’t look that dramatically different. And that, dear readers, was a shock to me.
I’ve focused so much on the whole “Yes, I’ve gained!” that sometimes I wonder if the weight just distributed itself somehow. Tangibly, it’s on my body … but it doesn’t look as bad as I guess I envision. (more…)
21 comments April 16, 2009
How Disordered Do You Want to Be?
I ask this because I, like you, have a choice.
The answer for me is … not at all.
We have a choice. We might tell ourselves our disordered minds are in control, but they’re not. We are.
If we punish ourselves with restriction or over-exercising, or if we punish ourselves with a binge, we’re doing it to ourselves.
It’s not about the food or the exercise; it’s always about something else. Food or exercise (lack of it or over-abundance of it) is a coping mechanism.
And I don’t want to use either as my coping mechanisms any longer.
This weekend, during an Honest.Open.Willing. chat with my husband, he asked me point-blank, “When will the obsession end?”
He sees me more than any of my friends and family, and he sees glimmers of hope, some aspects of behavioral change. He knows I want to be better, to be more fun again, to be the happy girl I was when I was heavy … but he (as well as others close to me) have said, ” … but the obsession is still there.”
He’s right, it is.
I want to turn it off. I don’t want to be disordered, or have disordered thoughts, or to make progress only to fall back. (more…)
19 comments April 9, 2009
Sad Stat
I read a really sad stat in the April issue of Women’s Health at the gym this weekend that I want to share today, at the beginning of a new week. It was buried on the lower left corner of page 22 in one of those By The Numbers sections.
“19: Percentage of women who say they’re happy with their bodies.”–
Source: Survey by the American Dental Association, Crest and Oral-B.
WHOA. This gave me pause. It was a little teensy newsflash that has legs, will travel … if only anyone else picked up on what a telling stat it was.
My first thought: THIS should be an investigative report in and of itself, Women’s Health, not a miniscule blurb! (And mind you, WH is probably my fave of all the fitness/health mags to which I subscribe).
Don’t you think? I mean, I imagined the numbers to be maybe 50, maybe 60 percent … but only a mere 19 percent? of the women sampled were happy with their bodies?!!
We all know surveys are a sampling and not the be-all, end-all… but how does that translate to the general popuplation? Are you saddened or surprised by that stat, or did you think it spoke the truth? (more…)
12 comments March 30, 2009
