First off – I pretty much hate everything having to do with sizing and body image because, quite frankly, everything having to do with these things has shot my self esteem all to hell. Back when I was in high school, I was thin and healthy but I felt “fat” because that is what I was made to believe I was. Looking back at pictures from then, I am appalled (and jealous) of how skinny I was. I’ve put on a lot of weight since college and haven’t been able to get rid of any of it. I’m clinically overweight, and though I don’t consider myself to be “fat” or “obese” I definitely hate the way I look and feel especially when compared to others. It’s weird that the cultural norm is that everyone is getting bigger… because I feel that everywhere I look, everyone is smaller than me and I’m still pressured to be as skinny as a twig, even if that’s not really realistic or possible for my build.

As far as sizing goes, if they’re buffering sizes, then God help me. If sizing is being generous, I don’t know what that says when I keep climbing up the size chart. I will never, ever, ever fit into a size 2 (my senior prom dress was a size 5, I was strapped into that thing, but yes – I felt rather triumphant that I could fit into that! Now, it would maybe fit around my thigh…), no matter how much vanity they size into it.

It’s funny how culture changes, though. Marilyn Monroe was considered voluptuous and curvy, but I could probably snap her in half. I wish big was considered beautiful, like it used to be in the *mumble mumble* period (yeah, whatever, I learned nothing in art history). I’d be a rock star, ha.

I understand about having to average the means for sizing, though, when you make an example about it. Although I HAVE seen things offered in an XXS… and I don’t even know how size “0″ works because to me that seems like it shouldn’t exist…

I completely lost my train of thought and where this was going. It’s really quite thought-provoking, though… wonder where we’ll end up ten, twenty years from now? How everyone will be sized? What the new “norm” will be? If my ass will ever fit into a size 4? Hmm….

Although…it’s not very helpful to those who really need to lose the weight to be healthy.

To put it in perspective: Marilyn Monroe had a 24-inch waist and supposedly wore a size 12. I have a 27-inch waist and supposedly wear a 4.

Great post as always. While I agree to your comment about where the blame lies and where we point the finger, I have to wonder how much culture has got to take some responsibility. That said, who makes up culture, but us?

On one hand we’re bombarded with cheaper foods, fast foods, convenience foods, and others, designed to taste good and provide little to no nutritional value, that add to a host of potential risks for diabetes, obesity, even gout and scurvy, which was disease in the 1700s.

On the other, we’re being told to “eat better”, yet it’s hard to do so on a budget, especially for lower-income families. Recently, “Good Morning America” had a show on “how to feed a family for $50”, but it included the anchors haggling over the price of a piece of fruit in a grocery store and getting away with it, not something that “average Mr & Mrs America” can do.

We’re told to “shop carefully” and try to eat wholesome foods, but with many people working incredibly hard, often both parents, there just isn’t the time any more. Nor is there the money. Eating decent food isn’t cheap. You can find the occasional bargain, but things that fill growing kids are much cheaper than eating healthy, and that, unfortunately, is what happens in many cases. Even so-called “organic” food has become little more than an excuse to add to the price of an item.

Then we’re hit up with the thin “beautiful” people who are stars and given their “diet secrets” in tabloid magazines, in many cases possible if you have your own personal chef.

With all that said, I agree that we are responsible for what we eat, but the selection of affordable healthy foods is limited. We are responsible for our lifestyle. You don’t have to belong to a gym in order to keep fit, but again, tiredness, time and a host of other issues crop up there too.

I’m certainly not advocating placing blame on “someone” as we seem to do so often, but the same people who give us all this rubbish are the same ones that tell us that this rubbish is bad for us, but they won’t stop doing so. The money that is made with product placement, allows those who profit from their products to eat better than most of the rest of us.

I’m all for letting us decide what we want to eat and look like. I just wish the self-appointed elite would let us get on with it instead of speaking from both sides of their mouths at once.

Apologies for hijacking your post

Cheers,
Dave