I'm not really sure what I want to say in this post. But I know I want to say a few things about about a couple of subjects. I want to talk about weight and appearance; which I know is a difficult subject at the best of times. Also I know that I am coming at it from a slightly strange angle because I am quite thin slim.
I don't really know how to talk about this without sounding like a 'skinny bitch' whining about being what a lot of the girls i knew at school wanted to be.
I have always been thin. Forever. Since I can remember. I have always been the 'skinny' girl. Through school I was short and skinny, so I always looked younger than my actual age, and I seemed to be the last girl to hit puberty (despite being one of the oldest in my year).
Being skinny didn't really bother me until about the years 8/9 (so about the ages of 13-14) so where everyone (all the girls at least) hit puberty and grew into little women. I looked round me and suddenly all my friends seemed to be becoming and looking like adults and I was still buying school trousers made for children. What I remember most vividly is being asked by a friend, a boy mate that I had known for years, who asked me, straight to my face, are you anorexic? Or you know, bulimic? So I was like WHATTT?! no, of course I'm not. I like cake as much as the next person. Then I suddenly looked at myself and wondered, why? do I look so bad and thin that you feel the need to ask me that? I think this is when I started to worry if I was too thin. I was always an active child, did a lot of sport, but I ate as much as my friends did. Sure, I ate smaller portions at a time but I ate, and still do, eat and snack more often throughout the day. I don't think it help that my closest girl friends had womanly curves and were considered very attractive among the girls and boys in my year. I wanted to be curvy like them. Not skinny and what I perceived as shapeless like a little boy.
If I ever told anyone about my weight and boy issue worries I felt that my worries and feelings were brushed aside - 'What have you got to worry about? You're so thin.' And I wanted to shout at them, 'No, you don't understand. I don't want to be thin. I want to be curvy and womanly, like you.' I think the fact that I had a pair of boobs meant that people didn't see why I should or could even consider being worried about my appearance and body image. But I had no arse or hips to speak of, so in my head I still didn't look right. It didn't help that some of the curvy girls which I wished I looked like said things like, 'Men want curves, only dogs want bones.'
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So on the one hand I can't express worries about my weight and body image because I should be thankful that I am naturally thin but on the other hand, no man is going to want you anyway because you're thin. I'm sorry I don't meet your expectations. The worst thing is I didn't know if these girls meant what they said, they didn't think skinny was attractive, or they were worried about their own weight and envious that the slimmer girls looked more like the women on tv and in magazines, so felt the need to belittle skinny girls to make them feel better. Unfortunately, I think there is a bit of a trend now to shame skinny girls because of the rise in 'real women' campaigns. I don't look like any of the models in these campaigns, does that make me unattractive? So when girls were dieting I was trying to put on weight to look more like everyone else.
It wasn't till I was 18 years old that I realised I was slim because that is what is normal and healthy for me.
However, what would you know, my body decided that I had one last growth spurt in me. So at 20 years old I have filled out some and now have 'curves' around my bum and legs. And the madness of it all is that, now I am growing to the size and shape I had always wanted, I worry and I an finding hard to adjust to my fuller figure. I nearly had a meltdown over the fact that I now struggle to fit into my old jeans. I am an idiot, but its what has been shoved down my throat my the media. All weight gain is bad. Even though its what I have wanted for years. But I am mostly at peace with it now.
Although, I still have days where I worry about how I look. Swinging wildly between thinking I am too thin or worried I look too big. But I think this has something to do with my general anxiety.
Basically, what I think I want to say is...what I should, and I suppose others should strive for is to be a healthy size and weight for your own body, through eating healthily and doing the appropriate amount of exercise. We shouldn't shame other people because of their body type or size because everyone is different. Not to mention the fact that peoples standards of attractiveness differ wildly; what one person likes, another might not.
This probably doesn't make a lot of sense. Its such a big issue spans so many facets of our lives. I just wanted to get a few things off my chest.
I am pretty sure I need to go back to this at some point, but for now...
Thanks,
TheTinyBookworm
xx
