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Every morning my routine begins the same way: get up, go to the bathroom and pee, wash hands and face, return to bedroom, put in contacts, weigh myself, frown/smile, go about the rest of getting ready in bad/good mood. Yes, I weigh myself every morning. I know that it is not what you are supposed to do, and I don’t really learn anything useful from my AM weigh in, but I am far from the only woman obsessed with her weight.
Traditionally, this affliction tends to more frequently affect middle and upper-class white heterosexual women, a small slice of the world’s population, but of course a disproportionate share of ink gets spilled over the topic. I know that I am only adding to this annoying focus on the issue, but given the recent ban on super-thin models in Spain and the number of blogs I see about weight, I thought it worth re-visiting anyway.
Generally, women with a body mass index (BMI) of 18.5 to 25 are considered to be healthy weights. According to an online newsflash from the BBC, “The Spanish Association of Fashion Designers has decided to ban models who have a BMI of less than 18†in response to protests from health experts at the Madrid fashion shows last year. I found out about the ban from Jane at Complain Jane last week. She astutely noted:
The critics of banning super skinny models need to shut the hell up. By banning super skinny models they're saying it inhibits the creative process of the designers... [and] ‘that the careers of naturally "gazelle-like" models could be damaged.'
A few episodes ago on Project Runway the designers just couldn't make close [sic] for the normal size woman. It was total bullshit. The modeling industry is so afraid of a bit of weight. There was also an episode of PR where the designers were talking about one of the models as being "zaftig" or a bit plump. She was so super skinny when we were finally able to see her…
So don't give me this crap about "designer creativity"
While I hate the idea of banning someone from anything based on how she looks, I just laugh and laugh at the panicky defense of the 0.01% of “gazelle-like†women who naturally are over six feet tall, 115 lbs, and have giant breasts. Whatever will these poor women do for a living now that they cannot be walking clothing racks? While I have had insomnia lately, I can guarantee that I am not lying awake with worry about how designers might have to make clothes that the rest of the population can fit into and that the flock of “gazelles†might be forced to work regular jobs like the rest of us “fat†working slobs. Sure, it is insulting to be forced to deal with us porkers, but no one said life is fair. We can’t all win the genetic non-gazelle lottery, can we? (Uh, scratch that – I guess most of us did…)
The immense hatred that many women have for their bodies because we live in a sick culture does, however, keep me up at night sometimes. A commercial ran on TV recently for a diet plan in which the woman in the ad excitedly declared that she dropped from a size 6 to a size 2, and that she can finally be proud of her body. My jaw dropped at this increasingly shrunken (now there’s an oxymoron) standard. Even with size inflation, since when is a size 6 fat? When I was young, I suffered through at least 20 books in the Sweet Valley High series in a pathetic fruitless attempt to fit in with my peers. The twins who starred in the books were always described as “a perfect size 6.†This was in the late ‘80s, barely 20 years ago. Are the novels edited to now say size 2 or even size 0 is "perfect?"
It’s hard to be immune to such insanity, unless you are neglected by mainstream advertising and media anyway (which may be why women of color tend to possess more positive body images, although this may be changing). My friend Sara, who I consider to be in fantastic shape with a fabulous figure, recently discussed her body issue with humor at A Musing Farf:
I love the Shakira song Hips Don’t Lie. Except it got me
