Why we should love all body types--even the skinny girls

The most recent full-body shot taken of me--not even two weeks ago.

I'll warn you that this is quite possibly the longest blog post I've ever written.  But, I think it's important.  I’ve actually been noticing this for a long time, but I’ve always been afraid to say anything about it.  (I know, what a strange feeling for me.  I think I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been afraid to say something.)  But my sweet friend Sami posted a Tweet about it, and I was completely shocked that someone had the guts to do it, so I decided that it was okay for me to say something.  I responded to the Tweet, and then was inspired to write a Facebook status, but as usual when I’m ranting, Facebook decided it was too long for a status. This blog post turned out to be way longer than I originally planned, but oh well. Here goes.

I’m five foot one.  According to my doctor, I'm small-boned.  This is not due to osteoporosis or some other condition.  I’m just small.  My bones are small, my muscles are small, even my mouth is small.  (Figuratively, it’s huge, but that’s another subject.)  My father is only five foot eleven, and my mother is five foot three.  I will never be a tall or muscular person.  My genetics just say, “I know you wish you didn’t have to wear heels everywhere, but you’re tiny.  Deal with it.”

Up until I started college, I heard statements like this constantly:

“Ugh, you’re so small.  Eat a sandwich.”

“Real women have curves, Sarah.”

“No wonder you get cold so easily.”

“You need some meat on those bones!”

Despite being a size 0 to 3 for most of my high school career, I always felt fat.  I realize now I was actually underweight during times.  In high school, the most I ever weighed was 108 pounds, and the least I ever weighed was 93 pounds.  Still, I managed to convince myself that I was obese. I always said, “The scales must be wrong.  Yes, every single scale in the world is wrong.  I must weigh much more than that.”  I found myself lying about my weight in my head, actually believing that I weighed much more.  While people were telling me to eat a sandwich (which isn’t even the optimal weight-gain food, by the way, so I don’t understand that at all), I felt guilty every time I thought about eating.  Perhaps the most puzzling part of my thought process is that I always viewed my sweet older sister as having the perfect body—yet we were usually about the same weight.  We even shared clothes (and still do, when we visit each other).  How does that make sense?

But when I went to college, I actually started to really gain weight.  I guess it was the cafeteria food, plus the fact that college students are broke but still insist on eating all the time, resulting in a diet of Ramen noodles, Dunkin Donuts coffee, any fast food chain’s dollar menu, and vending machine candy.  I gained the freshman fifteen in my first semester.  I still wasn’t the size of an elephant, but my jeans no longer fit.

And then I met a whole new different type of criticism.

“Damn, Sarah, are you really going to eat all of that?”

“Look at that ass jiggle!”

“Are those love handles I see?”

Granted, a lot of these comments came from my own mouth, but they also came from friends and even family.  Fifteen pounds may not sound like a lot of weight, but when you stand at five foot one, even one pound shows on your midsection quickly.  And I started to hate myself.  Yes, I hated my body for not looking like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but I really started to hate the girl who lives inside this body.  I constantly punished myself for my love of food.  I’m thoroughly a Southern girl who loves her fried food and syrupy-sweet tea, but I didn’t feel like this was okay.  My sense of self-worth became tied to my body image.

This isn’t a post to make you feel sorry for me.  I’m not a victim of bullying.  I can handle criticism.  In fact, I’m here to tell you that I did handle the criticism.  I decided that I was sick of hating my body, so I started dieting.  And exercising.  I like everything to be fried, and I love carbs more than I love most people, but I avoided all of that.  I started eating certain healthy foods I absolutely hate.  I started jogging and doing various exercise routines I found on Pinterest.  I even started doing jumping jacks when I was in public and was forced to wait in a line or something.  Yes, it earned me some funny looks, but it burned calories.

And I lost ten pounds.

So what is the point of this post?

Well, now that I’m ten pounds lighter, I’m actually starting to feel better about myself.  Yes, I still dislike my body.  I’m thinner, but I’m still soft, without any real muscle tone.  Some call it feminine, I call it doughy.  But I don’t cringe every time I look in the mirror.  However, even though I just wore a bathing suit yesterday and barely thought about my body…people are being rude once again.  But am I still being called fat?

No.

I’m being told to eat a freaking sandwich.

I’m being told that I’m not a real woman.

Even Pinterest, as the beautiful and thin Sami pointed out, is degrading me because I don’t shop in the plus-size section.  Pinners are pinning pictures of perfectly healthy girls and labelling them "unnatural."  And let's not forget all the pins with plus-size models that say "Real women have curves."

Never mind the fact that I’m five foot one.  Never mind my undersized bones.  I’m a small human being, so I’m “unnatural.”  I’m not a “real woman.”

Women with “more meat on their bones” (what a ridiculous statement) have long said that they’re persecuted.  Movies like Real Women Have Curves and Hairspray have championed overweight women, telling them that they’re beautiful and they shouldn’t conform to society’s pressures to be a size zero.  And that’s all true.  Some of my most beautiful friends shop in the plus-size section.  Adele, Tyra Banks, and Jessica Simpson have all been persecuted for their weights, but generally people agree that they are absolutely beautiful and talented.  There is nothing wrong with having “more to love.”  (I’m so sorry about these ridiculous sayings.  These weight clichés have got to go.)

But in the process of making bigger women feel comfortable in their bodies, people are belittling the skinny people.

Let me just say that I understand the frustration with Hollywood’s definition of the “perfect body.”  Women like Angelina Jolie, Rachel Zoe, and pre-baby Nicole Richie make me want to vomit—not because they’re disgusting women!  They’re far from disgusting.  But they make me want to vomit because I vomit when I haven’t eaten all day, and these women look like they haven’t eaten all month, and my stomach feels so sorry for their poor stomachs.  I don’t think any woman should ever attempt to look like that, because it’s not healthy when your bones protrude from your body.

But what is wrong with being slim?  Not eating disorder skinny, not chubby, but just slim.

I hate to remind you, but slim is healthy.  Slim means your arteries aren’t clogged up.  Slim means you are at a smaller risk for heart disease and diabetes.  On the other hand, slim means there is food in your belly.  Slim means your muscles, bones, and organs are being nourished.  Slim means that you have more energy.

Slim is…great.

So why is being slim/slender/skinny/small/petite/WHATEVER such a bad thing?

I realize that most people would love to be small.  I realize that movies, magazines, and TV are advocates of “Thin is in.”  I realize that overweight people—or even “thick” people, whatever that means—have to deal with a lot of jackasses who make fun of them.  I realize that “bigger” people are beautiful.  They really are.  But in our efforts to make the bigger people feel better about themselves, we’re chiding the smaller people.  We’re making the small people feel persecuted.

This needs to stop.

Probably my biggest pet peeve out of all of this is that line I keep using—“Real women have curves.”  Lane Bryant, a plus-size store, is always using the words “real women” in their ad campaigns.  In the movie Dreamgirls, Jennifer Hudson (who has lost a lot of weight since the filming of this movie) says to Jamie Foxx that he needs a “real woman” instead of “birds” like Beyonce.  There is even a movie called Real Women Have Curves.

I will repeat my stats to you: I am five foot one.  I weigh 110 lbs.
And I have curves.

Yes, ma’am, I do.

My friends (and sister and mother) have nicknames for my boobs and my hips, because those parts of me are just so…out there.  I’ve been told on multiple occasions I have an hourglass figure.  It’s taken me a while to get to this state of mind, but I absolutely love my boobs and hips.  I like the fact that I don’t have to buy push-up bras.  I like the fact that these trendy high-waisted skirts look amazing flaring out from my hips.

But, despite all of the teasing I get for my boobs and hips, people still insist I don’t have curves, because I’m a size six.

Girl, look at that body--these are curves!

Oh, and since I don’t have curves, I’m not a real woman.

So, what am I?  A girl?  A fake woman?  A fictional woman?  If I’m not real, do I even exist?
Exactly.  You see the ridiculousness of this thinking.  A real woman is someone who was born with a vagina.  It has nothing to do with weight, body type, or sizes.

I have curves, anyway.  But even if I didn’t, I would still be a real woman.

So, I guess this entire rant is just to say to the persecutors: stop using skinny people as a way to make yourself feel better.  Skinny people have feelings, too.  I’ve been in your shoes before.  I know how it feels to hate skinny people because they call you fat.  I was never more than a few pounds over my body’s ideal weight, but people were still cruel.  I used to feel nothing but resentment toward people with amazing bodies.  But now I’m realizing that I am skinny—I am just curvy, in my own way.

And for God’s sake, don’t call skinny people “unhealthy,” “sick,” “anorexic,” or even insinuate that we’re not “real.”  There are people with eating disorders, of course, but the majority of thin people have perfectly healthy relationships with food.  We’re very healthy.  We’re not sick.  We love to eat.  I once had an extremely unhealthy relationship with food—I either used it as a crutch or completely ignored it when times got hard.  Now, not so much.  I love to eat--healthily.  And I think I look decent in a bikini.

Finally, my last point: as I said, I do realize that there are many celebrities who are too skinny. I can even think of personal friends who I just want to take to an all-you-can-eat buffet and force-feed them so they'll digest some calories this month. But what good does it do to pin pictures of these women with the words "unnatural," "sick," "disgusting," and "ohmygod look at those ribs she looks like an alien and she needs to eat a sandwich and gross"?  IT DOES NO GOOD. You do realize that the reason these girls are starving themselves is because they are disgusted by themselves, right? So why the hell are we exploiting them and egging on their beliefs that they are "disgusting"?

I just don’t like to be mocked for my weight any more than you do.  And other skinny people don’t like it, either.

Don't make fun of someone for their weight. Don't give them suggestions on how to eat or exercise. And don't use adjectives to describe them, unless they're positive adjectives like "beautiful." It doesn't matter if they're too skinny, healthily slim, slightly pudgy, overweight, or obese.

As Dr. Seuss said, "A person is a person, no matter how small!"