Questionably Fabulous

I recently read an article about “happy weight” – it’s the weight that your body naturally goes to between vacation / special event starvation diets and holiday / time of the month binge eating marathons.  It’s the number you see on the scale when you’re just eating normally, not tracking calories or gobbling down cakes etc.  According to health professionals, this is what your body type was made to look like. 

I object. 

I think a person’s “happy weight” should be where they feel best about themselves.  To which my fiancé responds, those two things should be the same.  You should feel your best about yourself at the same weight that is healthy and normal for your specific body.  And, intellectually, I completely agree.  Emotionally, I just cannot seem to get there. 

Body image issues is a reoccurring theme for me, and I think it is for most women.  For me, the ideal woman is thin and beautiful and graceful – flawless skin, long flowing hair, large breasts, curvy hips and firm but and blah blah blah… I gathered all of this from various media, my upbringing in ballet, my male friends and the feeling of power when I felt like I was close to this.  This message that I’ve clearly downloaded is different for other women, what they feel pressured to look like could vary upon background, race, culture, religion, family and environmental influences etc. 

I’ll admit to something a little embarrassing – the Dove commercials that talk about their Campaign for Real Beauty makes my eyes well up with tears.  I often see it on the televisions that hang above the treadmills at the gym, listening to the message about loving your own body for what it looks like all the while sweating and huffing and puffing trying to change what I look like.   

I look into the eyes of the young girls Dove talks about sending to self esteem workshops and am thankful that the next generation may escape the pressures that my peers and I are stifled under.  Its inspiring.  And hopeful. And it makes me laugh at myself.   Because as much as I think that it all makes sense, I just cannot accept myself at what probably is my happy weight.