A Weighty Issue

I have always wondered why so much of our standard of beauty is measured by the numbers on a digital scale. And why so many of us drag that scale around with us, on its heavy chain shackled to our ankles. (Don't get me wrong ... I am 100% guilty of this.)

Why is that we feel the urge to step on the scale to torture ourselves every single day? You wake up in the morning and prior to showering you have to face your demonic scale. You feel the pull from the tip of your toes to the split ends on each individual hair. Will it be nice? Will it be mean? You find yourself muttering a quick prayer to whatever Patron Saint of Weight that you can think of that the numbers stay within the range that you call "The I Can Live With It" numbers. You take a deep breath and you cautiously step on. You release your breathe of air and dare to glance down at the numbers...

Now what? Now the numbers you see will dictate how you feel for the rest of the your day. If they are within the ICLWI range you continue your day as normal. If it is lower? You float through the day feeling pretty damn proud of yourself. If it is higher? You might as well climb back in bed because you are going to feel awkward and uncomfortable all day long.

But why?! Who decided there was a number on a scale that determined beauty? And not just on a scale - clothing sizes,  shoe sizes and don't even get me started on jeans.

The standard of beauty has changed so much with the passing of years, and with the shift from true to form sizes to vanity sizing.

If we rewind the metaphorical clock all the way to the 1400s and 1500s you'll notice that plump was the unparalleled sign of beauty. Have a few extra rolls and thunder thighs? Then watch out because you are at the top of the courting food chain.

The Victorian era was exactly the opposite. The thinner the better. Here is where the pain of being beautiful came into play. Corsets that could shrink your wait to a mere 12 inches. 12 inches?! You couldn't breathe and it was the norm to break a few ribs. But wait ... you want to be extra thin, but make sure you add a few bustles to your dress so that your rear looks big. Because a thin waist and a large rear was all the rage.

Then fast forward to the 1900s, where we find women who were tall and slender but with large T & A. Though to achieve this look women and girls had to wear incredibly uncomfortable corsets.

In the 1920s we shift to the flapper era where the ideal woman had shorter (boy-ish) haircuts, slender bodies with flat chests and no curves. In fact, large breasts were frowned upon during this time! The goal was to be thin and androgynous in this era.

The World War era of the 1930s - 1940s, women's curves were emphasized by their clothing and the beauty standards of the celebrities were easier to attain than ever before (or ever again). The average American woman had a BMI of 23.6, whereas celebrities had a BMI of 20.3.

The 1950s is probably my favorite era because it emphasized fuller figures! The hour glass shape was in. We were back to women having curves and being proud of their bodies. Of course it became a harder to attain the beauty style of the celebrity world.

The 1960s saw a throw-back to the 1920s when thinner than thin figures were admired and the androgynous look was in.  If you had curves, you were not welcome here until the latter part of the 60s when the hippie movement came out in full force.

Now in 2016, we are continuing the thin is in rage. People strive to be thinner than ever, sometimes to the point of making themselves sick. They buy into diet fads and miracle pills to try to achieve the impossible beauty standards that society has given to us. We watch moves and feel poorly about our bodies because our thighs are bigger than the actress. But you know what? That is a load of crap. If we worked out multiple times every day and had a personal chef, we would look like that too.

So what happened? It seems to me that we flip-flop depending on the decade that we are in. Thinner than thin to fully figured and curvy. If only our culture could find a combination of both and celebrate the beauty of all!

Eat! Enjoy life! Indulge in that extra piece of chocolate! Have fun with your friends! Embrace your beauty!


Sources:
http://www.rehabs.com/explore/womens-body-image-and-bmi/
http://lookdamngood.com/10-eras-of-beauty-how-our-perception-of-beauty-has-changed-over-time/6/

Fab As I Am

I am a teacher of a lovely group of fourth graders and every year I look at them and wonder how I can support them in being body positive and having a high self-esteem. Every year I find myself coming up short.

How can we counteract what the media and Hollywood have worked so tirelessly to create as our norm? How can we counteract what our young people believe when we struggle on the daily with our own body image and self-esteem? How can we counteract all of the photoshopped photos and impossible beauty standards that are thrown in their faces Every.Single.Day.?

We are living in a world where young people (both boys and girls) make comments like, "Oh, she's the fat singer!" when someone mentions the song All About That Bass. Or they make fun of each other for not wearing designer clothes and shoes. They make fun of girls for having small chests and of boys for having small muscles. They make fun of girls for not having a thigh gap and of boys for not being tall enough.

Why? 

Because we have bought into the impossible expectations that are set in front of us and we accept them blindly. We don't question whether it is right or wrong ... we just say okay and follow it up with some fad diet, weight lifting, or worse - we move in the terrifying direction of eating disorders.

What we don't do (but should!) is recognize our own beautiful, fabulous selves. We should recognize that our worth is not tied to our outward beauty but to who we are as people - how beautiful we are on the inside. We should recognize that we need to plant seeds of kindness and lift others up rather than tear them down. We should recognize that our outward beauty IS beautiful. We should recognize the power of our brain and the strength in our soul. We should recognize that WE ARE ENOUGH. We are beautiful, incredible, fabulous people regardless of what the media believes is "beautiful". You is kind. You is smart. You is important. You is enough.

An amazing friend of my family recently started a movement on Facebook that is meant to empower all people to realize just how important they are. We need to act as positive role models for each other. So I encourage you to join the revolution and make a post on Facebook, Twitter or your own blogs about just how fabulous you are! Use the hashtag #fabasiam (Fab As I Am) on your posts so that we can all see just how fabulous you are and bask in your greatness with you. When fabulous calls makes sure you pick up the phone.

Fab As I Am - Day 1 Post

I too love my eyes. They are the part of physical me that is most complicated. They like to change color depending on the day (light blue, vibrant blue, greenish) which I think is pretty cool. They are also pretty vibrant - someone once told me they were "electric". They also are the source of my tears which tend to flow easily which I believe makes me strong not weak. ‪#‎fabasiam‬

The Grass is Always Greener ... Part 2?

You know it is true what they say ,.. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence... Road...river... State border ... Continent ... Head (I rock the white girl Afro and will never be the I woke up like this model, just sayin').

We, as humans, have an innate need to have what others have. To envy them, for their belongings, home, job, appearance. Why is that? Is it so hard to be happy with what we have?

I write this as I am finishing a strict two day liquid cleanse as part of a 30 day overhaul of my nutritional habits. This two day cleanse had me taking in less than 400 calories a day. I sit hear listening to my stomach rumble for the second time of the day, after putting down a book that outlines in great detail the numerous decadent food options in Paris. Let me just tell you that, yes, it is absolutely possible and appropriate to have a love affair with a pastry as this particular book claims. But that is a story for another day.

As I sit here feeling my body rid itself of toxins and excess fat (okay, I wish I could feel it ...), I found myself thinking:

Damn, my thighs are huge. They are like two elephants wrestling for control of the nonexistent thigh gap.

When did my arms get so flabby? I work out at hours of the morning that shouldn't exist. They should be offering up tickets to the gun show by now.

Why do my calves look like they swallowed a grapefruit? When did they get that big and how do I make it stop? Boot season is upon us and I need to be able to zip them up!

I find myself looking at the crazy thin models and other role models of "beauty" and wishing that I could look like them. Shorter. Skinnier. Perfect hair. Perfect white teeth. Amazing wardrobe.

And then I scold myself because I know that my body is MINE. It doesn't belong to anybody else and nobody else can ridicule it without my direct consent. In fact, there are a lot of people in this world who would love to be my "size" even as I envy others. They want my unruly, curly hair. They would love to be my pant size. And they would even love to be as tall as I am (careful with that one ladies, it's hard to wear heels).

I can't help but ask myself: when do we, as a human race, stop paying attention to the neighbor's yard and start to notice just how green ours is?

Body Positve Or Not?

I have been thinking a lot about body image lately and how it has become such a buzz word and such a movement in the past year. Not a day goes by that I don't see #bodypositive hashtags populating the internet. And don't get me wrong, I am not saying that this is a bad thing. We should be promoting a body positive movement where we see beauty in every person ... however, when did it become the thing to do? What I mean by that is ... when did our body image problems become so detrimental that we need a body positive movement to make us think higher of ourselves?

Body image is something that I have struggled with my entire life. As the chubby child who didn't wear name brand clothes (I LOVED my home made jumpers thank you very much), and whose hair channeled Hermione Granger long before her inception I was often made fun of. Once I added on braces, loving school and glasses? Forget about it. I was every middle school bully's dream.

I grew up envying the "popular" kids around me who were thin, pretty and who could step out of the shower with hair straight out of a Pantene shampoo ad. But why? I was a happy child. I had friends and I got along with my family. So why did I envy the beauty of others rather than focusing on my own, albeit goofy, beautiful self?

The problem of course, or so I believe, stems from the media. When we look at movies, magazines, books, commercials and TV shows it has always been rare to see a "normal" bodied human being represented. Now, I put "normal" in quotation marks because what is normal? When I say normal, I mean that we are not representing a variety of people. Even when the goofy "duff" of a best friend is represented ... the purpose of the movie becomes to make her the belle of the ball. Take off her glasses and run a comb through her hair and voila! She is Cinderella in the flesh. But why can't the goofy, awkward, not put together best friend fall in love with the leading man just as she is? Why is it some major transformation that finally wins him over? Can't he love her for her brains and personality first and looks second?

When this is what we encounter as stimulus overload day after day after day how can we be expected to live a body positive life?