Tubby or Not Tubby? Is that really the question?
Women blame the media for setting up impossible images of beauty, which they do. Women further blame each other for reinforcing those images by their behavior and appearance. There was an old commercial where the model said “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
Ladies, why is that we never hear men complain about some celebrity male sporting a six-pack and thick wavy hair creating an impossible ideal? I would like to suggest that, in partnership with the airbrushed ads and that friend who never seems to age or add pounds, the rest of the problem is in our own perception.
There is a trend in place with some advertisers and at least a few magazines doing a better job of showcasing real women who aren’t a size 2. That is because some people decided they didn’t have to buy what the media was selling. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” To me, the solution is easy. We simply need to stop giving our consent.
I had no intention of writing about Kate Middleton and her pregnancy belly, pre or post-partum, because I feel that has been covered beyond saturation by the media and all the Mommy bloggers from Los Angeles to Liverpool. However, today I clicked on a link to an interview with a group of ladies who were debating whether or not Kate was creating poor body image in women because she emerged from the hospital with glowing, shiny hair and in full makeup. This was in spite of the fact that Kate was willing to appear publicly, unashamed of her post-pregnancy figure, proving that her body was not made of Spandex. For this, I think she should be applauded.
Even if, in what feels like fifteen minutes to the rest of the women of the world, she is soon back to her pre-pregnancy inferiority-producing jealously-generating slim figure, she was willing to be real. I thank her for her courage.
Let’s cut the woman some slack. If I had known the cameras were going to be clicking the moment I emerged from the hospital after giving birth, I, too, would have had Vidal Sasoon (or the British equivalent) attending me in the hospital alongside my ob/gyn. Instead of envying the famous people, I think we ordinary women should give thanks daily not to be among them. No one photographs me when I go to the grocery store with bedhead or walk the dog in my sweats. For this I am ever so very grateful. Really!
I listened to the various points the women in this interview made and the one that stuck with me the most is that it isn’t always the media, that as women we set up these impossible expectations for each other. So I had to wonder if I had ever knowingly done that.
I could not help but flash back to the birth of my son, some thirty-two years ago this month. As I was dressing to leave the hospital, the mother of a friend of mine popped into the room. Her daughter had given birth the day before me, like me by C-Section, and was also preparing to leave the hospital.
She saw me standing there in my jeans with an overblouse and she said, “Oh, my daughter will be so jealous when I tell her that you’re already back in your jeans.” Maybe I needed something to sooth my wounded ego considering the fact that my old boyfriend and his wife had stopped by a couple of days earlier and had seen me looking like death-warmed over. (I had actually managed to look worse the day after giving birth because I had slept in my hard contact lenses and my eyes had swollen shut.)
For whatever reason, I didn’t pull up my blouse and allow her to see the stretch panel in my maternity jeans. I have always felt bad that I didn’t correct that misconception. You see, I was trying to make myself feel better about how I looked and it never crossed my mind until later how it might make my friend feel when she heard that. And shame on that mother if she truly passed that news along to her daughter.
Family members, what you might think of as constructive criticism or good-natured teasing can have a profound affect on the body image of someone young and impressionable. Be gentle. Moms, don’t let your daughter hear you commenting negatively on the figures of your friends or complaining about the ravages of childbirth on your own body. Not if want grandchildren, anyway.
So sure, Kate Middleton looked way too good coming out of the hospital. (I had to go look at a magazine picture of Goldie Hawn without makeup to get over it.) But if I had never looked as awful as I had after giving birth, I would never have had that warm fuzzy feeling that came from knowing I looked like something the cat had dragged in and my husband still loved me.
I would like to respectfully suggest that as women we stop with the celebrity scapegoats and each take responsibility for our own personal appearance and beyond that, unhelpful thought processes and mental attitudes. First, we have to accept whatever hand we were dealt from the gene pool. Then we need to do whatever is in our power to make the best of what we have through healthy eating, exercise, good grooming and wardrobe choices. Then we need to work on thinking loving thoughts about our bodies and remember what a miracle they are.
Can your laptop computer give birth to an Ipod?
Can your car repair its own dents?
Can your Smart phone hear someone’s cry for help?
My weight has been up and down since I gave birth to my son, mostly up, but I have recently lost down to the weight I was before I got pregnant, the weight I was at twenty-five. I worked hard to get there, and now I am working hard to maintain at that healthy weight. I was recently asked to speak at a women’s conference in Hilo on the subject of loving your body. I suggested to the Stake Relief Society president that maybe we could make the topic more inclusive and make it about loving all aspects of yourself. I realized that my old fat jokes and self-deprecating humor would no longer work.
“The only part of my getting thinner is my hair.” No longer true. (Now my body and my hair are getting thinner together.)
At my high point, I weighed twenty-five pounds more than I did when I was nine months pregnant. So when people began to notice my weight loss, and I was approaching my pre-delivery weight, I joked with them.
“Thanks. I now weigh what I did before I had my son.”
“Congratulations.”
Then I would smile and say, “Five minutes before.”
Women loved that joke. It made them feel better about their imperfections. And now I can no longer use it. I wondered for a moment if I could possibly be that woman that other women dislike, that woman who tells you from the pulpit how to deal with problems she appears never to have had. I don’t want to be that woman. I am NOT that woman. Even if I have conquered a visible challenge, I’ve still got plenty of imperfections on which I’m still working.
I wondered how I could talk to the women about loving themselves. As part of my talk, I wore a banner that proclaimed me an “Inner Beauty Queen,” complete with plastic pink tiara. I told the women to stop comparing themselves to others. That will never happen, of course. I have realized that some of the insecurities we have can be tracked to the expectations and comments or actions of others, but I am convinced that most of the time we willingly partner with them and meet them more than halfway.
I told them how I have always hated my thick ankles. I told them I was sure that several of them were thinking “How could they ask someone with such thick ankles to be a presenter?” They all laughed, of course, but it is ridiculous the amount of time we spend worrying about things nobody else even notices. I read once that being self-conscious is a form of vanity, to imagine that other people care so much about us that they are going to focus on that pimple or other flaw we allow to be front and center. The truth is, they are too busy worrying about their own flaws to notice ours.
How often have you heard this phrase echo inside your head?
“I suppose she thinks . . .”
I am certain many times I have attributed thoughts to friends or acquaintances that never existed except in my own imagination. I remember last fall having lunch with a group of athletic friends in town for the Iron Man Triathlon. I remember thinking I probably had more body fat than the six of them combined, wondered if every person who passed our table was singing that Sesame Street song. “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn’t belong . . .” One of the ladies was interested in hearing about my books. Yet, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t beating herself up about not being an author like I was browbeating myself because I was not a world-class athlete. Why do we do this to ourselves?
First, let’s accept and acknowledge the fact that our physical appearance is visual. Whether or not we like to admit it, we judge many things on their appearance-cars, homes, businesses. They say “You can’t judge a book by its cover” but nevertheless, much effort goes into cover design because people DO judge a book by the cover. They may read it and find it doesn’t measure up to what they expected, but the cover is what attracts attention and gets them to read it. We don’t have to have a perfect figure to be well-groomed and pleasant looking. We tell the world what we think of ourselves by our appearance. We should acknowledge that appearance is important and then do what we can to improve or maintain ours. As the army says, “Be the best that you can be.”
Next, let’s have realistic expectations. My goal was to get to a healthy body mass index, which I have accomplished. By supermodel standards, I am still considered HUGE. Ask me if I care? My husband, who is a family therapist, says that most of the unhappiness in the world comes from unmet expectations. And many unmet expectations arise from having unrealistic expectations. Have attainable goals by not overreaching or setting yourself up to reach an impossible ideal of perfection.
Change how you think. When you see a magazine cover of a beautiful woman, remind yourself how insecure those models and actresses must be, to know that behind them there is always a line of beautiful women ready to take their place, to feel that even as beautiful as they are, someone has to touch them up, remove their imperfections. Say whatever you have to until you convince yourself their life is not enviable.
What does it mean to be “attractive?” We attract people by our attitude. Our countenance goes a long way toward telling people who we are. A happy, cheerful person is a person who attracts others. A person who is genuinely interested in others and cares about them is attractive. You can be less-than-perfect and still be attractive.
Stop comparing! Stop comparing yourself to someone half your age or who has given birth to seven fewer children than you have. Stop comparing yourself to someone with a different build and different genes and a different metabolism. Stop comparing yourself to someone with a cadre of hairdressers and make-up artists and a personal trainer. Do what you can to improve and then focus on other more important things.
One year when I was dieting for an upcoming class reunion, I informed my son that I had lost a quarter-inch off my ankles. (I have lost fifty pounds, and yet I still have thick ankles.) Scott put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. “Mom, I want you to remember that this is the part they put in the ground when you die.”
Truth be told, we should be obsessing more about our unruly habits and less about our unruly hair.
We should be more worried about being good and less about looking good.
We should be editing the content of the book instead of worrying about the cover.
We can all be “Inner Beauty Queens.”
NoraAugust 7, 2013
And the women are still talking about your presentation. Be thinking of another attention getter for next year, Sis. Susan. Hilo will be waiting for you.
Susan CorpanyAugust 6, 2013
Marm, email me at [email protected] and I would be glad to share that info with you. Wendy, I've missed you, too! I haven't been in crisis or anything, just stuck thinking I'd already said everything.