Weighty issues
Jun. 5th, 2003 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
percivalLast Thursday, I opened a copy of Elle at a bookstore in Walla Walla. I hoped to find some interesting nutrition information - after all, it was the "body issue". Lo and behold, the three cases of overweight women (or women with weight problems) were women who I'd consider perfectly healthy. One women who really wanted to shift some weight was 5'7" and weighed 140 pounds.
Hhhhhhhhhhhwhat? Say that again?
I'm 5'7" and weigh ten and a half stone. I've struggled with my weight all my life, and now that I've finally decided to be happy with what I weigh, this. An invitation to feel really bad about myself and start dieting.
I let the magazine slip back onto the stand as if it were hot coals.
I am healthy, my Body Mass Index is fine, my husband loves the way I look, and I'm definitely not fat. (Whew - I can't believe I just typed that last clause ...) We can all eat more healthily, but believe me, this was not about health, even though the article advocated 7 servings of fruit and veg a day, it was about losing weight.
What's so bad about your set-point weight being within a healty Body Mass Index range of 18 to 25? (The set-point weight is the weight your body tends to naturally stabilise at.) Especially when each new, radical diet that is not a permanent change of eating habits makes your metabolism more efficient, to the point that after a few crash diets too many, you pile on the pounds by merely looking at a carrot. More often than not, when you read the story of really heavy women, they started getting huge by going on a crash diet to lose a couple of pounds that wouldn't shift - after a baby, for example. After their crash diet, these women went back to eating normally. Their bodies reacted by stockpiling reserves, because they had just been starved. The weight went back on and then some. Time for another diet ... Imagine going on diet after diet, only to end up hugely obese! If these women had been able to accept their few pounds over the limit and tried to maintain that weight, they would be far more shapely and healthy now.
What we need is a mindset that encourages people to just eat healthily and get enough exercise, not a race for the most svelte body.
Thank you for listening
::gets off soapbox::
Hhhhhhhhhhhwhat? Say that again?
I'm 5'7" and weigh ten and a half stone. I've struggled with my weight all my life, and now that I've finally decided to be happy with what I weigh, this. An invitation to feel really bad about myself and start dieting.
I let the magazine slip back onto the stand as if it were hot coals.
I am healthy, my Body Mass Index is fine, my husband loves the way I look, and I'm definitely not fat. (Whew - I can't believe I just typed that last clause ...) We can all eat more healthily, but believe me, this was not about health, even though the article advocated 7 servings of fruit and veg a day, it was about losing weight.
What's so bad about your set-point weight being within a healty Body Mass Index range of 18 to 25? (The set-point weight is the weight your body tends to naturally stabilise at.) Especially when each new, radical diet that is not a permanent change of eating habits makes your metabolism more efficient, to the point that after a few crash diets too many, you pile on the pounds by merely looking at a carrot. More often than not, when you read the story of really heavy women, they started getting huge by going on a crash diet to lose a couple of pounds that wouldn't shift - after a baby, for example. After their crash diet, these women went back to eating normally. Their bodies reacted by stockpiling reserves, because they had just been starved. The weight went back on and then some. Time for another diet ... Imagine going on diet after diet, only to end up hugely obese! If these women had been able to accept their few pounds over the limit and tried to maintain that weight, they would be far more shapely and healthy now.
What we need is a mindset that encourages people to just eat healthily and get enough exercise, not a race for the most svelte body.
Thank you for listening
::gets off soapbox::
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 01:50 pm (UTC)(And you most definitely are NOT fat, and what's more, you look perfectly nice to me. *hugs*)
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 01:51 pm (UTC)proof you are home now
Date: 2003-06-05 02:12 pm (UTC)thanks much!
It seems I will be hanging around south
coast of england at Hove in august perhaps
about 7-21 so that is a good ways from you.
perhaps iona another or next time...
it seems we may, some from Moscow and I joining
them, go to Medjugorje in whatever country it
is now(Croatia?) in first days of august..
+Seraphim.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 02:37 pm (UTC)West Indian men love women whose bones are covered with a healthy amount of substance. Here it's a sin to be bony.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 02:54 pm (UTC)But people love extremes. On the one hand there are those arguing that 300+ lb. weight is purely an aesthetic issue, and on the other there are those who seem to wish to live in a world of 99 lb. waifs.
Where's the logical medium, I ask you?
Also strange is the way in which female fashion culture has diverged from the aesthetic preferences of the normal male. Not that those aesthetic preferences are necessarily entirely benign- but model-thin is not the preference of most men.
I can remember my horror a few years ago when I discovered that the phrase "thin thighs" was supposed to be a compliment...
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 06:26 pm (UTC)And you look very good. I think you're at a perfect weight -- thin but healthy. I have to wonder if these magazines ever mention the problems of being too thin. Um, infertility anyone? But I suppose for the younger population that would be an added bonus.
This focus on unnatural thinness is an attitude that is unfortunately perpetuated by every aspect of the media with a few occasional exceptions. It's maddening and I applaud everything you said about it.
BTW twin, I've been wanting to post about weight-loss in my LJ for the past two days. :p
Piper
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 11:49 pm (UTC)No you are not. You look good! With your curves, you were probably never meant to be skinny.
And, as
no subject
Date: 2003-06-06 08:32 pm (UTC)Bless you for saying that! I would still like to lose a few pounds though. The curves are getting a little too curvy for my liking.