As some of you may know, I've been getting more involved in the movement towards self-love and self-acceptance, despite whatever your outside appearance may be. That's what one of my previous posts was all about. And I do feel better about myself now. I have followed a lot of plus positive sites on Facebook and see gorgeous pictures of real women every day. I've noticed now that these model thin women bother me more, which I think is good. They don't look nearly as attractive as they used to. Instead of having a "I wish I was that skinny" reaction, I now am more likely to think "geez, is she okay? Someone get her a cupcake, stat!" This is the benefit to trying to improve the images you see in everyday life. Instead of "liking" things like Gap or Forever 21 (one of the worst offenders, I've noticed), I would recommend liking pages such as "Girl With Curves", "The Curvy Fashionista", "Plus Model Magazine", "Torrid", "Healthy is the New Skinny", and "Style Has No Size". These are pages/sites by inspirational women who will give you style tips, beautiful photos, wonderful quotes, and a healthy dose of reality that is missing from most media these days.
Now here's the downside to this new line of thinking. Not everyone is in-line yet. If you think about it, fatness is about the only prejudice that we still let slide without the blink of an eye. Almost any other physical/mental/spiritual trait is considered un-PC to make jokes about. But somehow, it's okay to find it funny when someone is disgusted by a fat girl. It's okay to try to cram her into small spaces to get laughs at her expense. Recently I saw two movies that did this kind of thing. The first was "Safety Not Guaranteed", which was a great movie, generally speaking. However, in the movie one of the characters goes to meet up with a girl he dated back in high school. She's "the one that got away". When he goes to see her, he turns tail and leaves immediately, telling his friend that "she got fat." This is the actress that plays the part:
It may be a little hard to tell there, but she is NOWHERE near fat. It was absolutely ridiculous that he would be calling that woman fat. The second example came from American Pie Reunion, which I'll admit, is not a film I expect much class from. It did the type of thing with the guy seeing the girl after several years and being disgusted to find she has gotten fat. But he lowers her standards and tries and get her in the sack anyway. It's just degrading, and not okay, to use material like that in films. I feel like trying to start some kind of a revolution but have no idea how. Little by little though, I think the women on the blogs above are doing their part to try to get us to a point of weight acceptance. Another good site I'd recommend for issues like this and other "women's" topics is xojane.com. They present such a spectrum of diversity in women, which is inspiring.
While I was on vacation in New Mexico, I also started reading a book called "The Fat Girl's Guide to Life", which I loved. It discussed diets and health and changing your attitude about yourself. There was a lot of scientific information regarding weight and that it's not always a good determinant of someone's overall health. The notion that if you're fat, you're going to be unhealthy and die young, is a false one. (Here's some proof:
http://www.xojane.com/issues/new-study-finds-being-fat-alone-does-not-make-you-more-likely-die [and yes, that's from xojane.com]) I'll admit here that I'm not very healthy. I do need to improve on that, but not by going on a diet. I want to permanently alter the way I eat, but not try to cut out all of the food that I enjoy entirely. I am going to try to limit my intake of sweets and banish all types of pre-made and processed foods. Incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet. I also want to start exercising. Not for the sake of losing weight, but to get in shape and feel good about doing physical activities. If the side effect of that is weight loss, awesome...if not, I think I'll be okay. My husband loves me the way I am, and I'm starting to as well.
To wrap things up on a happy and humorous note, here are a couple of my plus positive photos, for your enjoyment:
My belly is the perfect place to rest a drink:
It also makes a nice pillow for Chris:
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