I didn’t want, or need, to be thin until I left my small hometown of Comox to go to college. I moved to the most superficial city I’ve ever been to in my life – Kelowna, BC. It was only there, when I began my first 2 years of college, that I became self conscious about my looks – weight, hair, makeup and fashion.
When I was in high school I wrote an English essay on the unfortunate circumstances between young girls, media and eating disorders; but back then, I didn’t consider myself one of the girls suffering from body image distortion. If anything, I considered myself lucky because I didn’t care.
I played volleyball religiously from age 12 to 17, in school and club all year round. Boys, fashion, makeup and nice bodies never really concerned me then. I didn’t care, or have the time to care. I was happy in my sweatpants and hoodies, with my face as clean as an untouched canvas and hair up in a messy ponytail.
That was then. I was happy in my ignorance.
Now I probably fret over my weight dozens, if not a hundred, times a day.
I’m writing about this subject because I’ve been reading the autobiography of model Crystal Renn called Hungry. Renn began her modeling career at 16. She was 5’9″ and 95lbs. To stay that skinny, she lived off of steamed vegetables, iceberg lettuce with fat free dressing and diet cokes. Her hair began to fall out she became lethargic, fainted a few times and didn’t maintain enough energy to attract any big modeling contracts. In order to land magazine covers, she needed energy and vivacity, both of which she lacked due to extreme anorexia nervosa.
It wasn’t until she began to eat and put on some weight that Renn landed the big magazine covers and contracts. She became happier and more comfortable in her skin than she was when she was skinny. When she was anorexic, she was never happy, never thin enough.
Renn says that she realized that all women are different, with varying bodyshapes and genetics and genetically, Renn knew she wasn’t meant to be 95lbs and a size 0.
Now she’s a size 12, and with her weight gain and renewed sense of well being, Renn’s success skyrocketed and she quickly became the world’s first plus-sized supermodel. The change was epic, and her entire life was altered as she accepted her body for what it was meant to be, not what she had to force it to become.
She was meant to be curvy.
model Crystal Renn, left at a size 12, right at size 0, 95lbs
With her new-found confidence she met the love of her life and married him. Everything fell into place only after she became happy with who she was.
As I am reading this book now, I’m wondering, will I truly ever accept the fact that, like Renn, I’m not meant to be rail thin? That it’s genetically impossible for me to look that way without threatening my own health?
At nearly 6 feet tall, I weigh over 200lbs – but I don’t look it. Most people are astounded to learn that (they usually guess I’m 30-40lbs less than I am). At my thinnest I was told I was too thin and should never get that skinny again – little did they know that at my thinnest I still weighed 175lbs, not 150 like they thought I weighed.
My heavier weight, however justified by height, muscle mass and bone structure, looms over my head like a black cloud that is constantly pouring unhappiness and self-consciousness over me. It eats at my happiness like a bright sponge sitting in a pail of acid. And I’m not alone.
Genetically, like Crystal Renn, being thin isn’t something that comes naturally in my family – not among me and my sisters, anyway. All 3 of us girls have always been Amazons, very tall ranging from 5’9″ to 5’11″ with a lot of muscle and larger skeletons. All of us have larger legs than what’s socially accepted as “sexy” but there’s no amount of weight we can lose to change their shape. My one sister even lost 70lbs and is still miserable about her legs.
I tell her “It’s genetics. It doesn’t matter how much weight you lose or how skinny you get. They’ll always be bigger.”
She hated that.
According to the Body Mass Index, for my height, weight and sex combined, I’m “obese”, which I actually laugh at. To see me, the word “fat” wouldn’t even register. I know the BMI is bullshit and is hardly used by doctors today, but when have women ever been rational about something so sensitive as weight? Being called “obese”, even if it’s by a chart, doesn’t feel good and stays with you for a long time.
I get told I’m “beautiful” and “gorgeous” often enough, but I wave off the compliments because all I have to do is look down and see all the uglyness that overrides any beauty others see in me. I often wonder if I’ll ever be happy with myself and accept my body for what it is, like Crystal Renn, but the media barrages women with unrealistic and unobtainable photos of what we should look like and makes it rather difficult to think you look even okay compared to Gisele Bundchen.
Renn points out that in the early 90s, at the height of curvier Supermodels (Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Stefanie Seymour), only 30-35% of young girls had body image/eating disorders. Now, after heroin-addict thin Kate Moss introduced the “waif thin” look to society, almost 90% of North American young girls suffer from either eating or body image disorders.
90%.
Body Image disorders: what girls see in themselves.
It’s a losing battle. After a series of models died in the past 2 years from starvation and heart failure due to anorexia and bulimia, the fashion industry in Spain, Italy and Israel have began cracking down and trying to regulate the weight of runway models, but they’re not enforcing this. And it’s not enough.
I wait for the day that I can be happy with how I look, but with the constant barrage of skinny girls in ads and movies, I don’t know if I ever will be. I’m an Amazon, and should be proud that when I dress up as Wonder Woman for halloween, I win the prize for best costume, but whatever pride I feel soon dissipates whenever I open a magazine or look in the mirror.
Hell, if Wonder Woman existed, she’d probably punch me in the face for how I think of myself and tell me to smarten up!
But I’m just one girl who hates her body in a sea of 100 million others in North America who feel exactly the same way.I have seen too many friends waste away from serious eating disorders, and others who are already too thin seriously cry their eyes out because they think they’re fat and hideous. I’ve almost lost my best friend to an eating disorder and I never want to be that close to losing a friend again.
What is wrong with this world we’re living in?? This isn’t a society I’d ever want to raise a little girl in. According to research studies, girls as young as 9 years old are beginning to suffer from anorexia and bulimia because they look nothing like women in magazines – they haven’t even hit puberty yet. At this rate, what will little girls feel like in 10 years?
And when does it stop? When will bodies like Marilyn Monroe’s, a much healthier and more obtainable ideal, become beautiful again?
More importantly, when will smart girls like me outsmart the media and stop being so stupid about body image?
Crystal Renn has started something here. Curves ARE beautiful, not hideous, and she flaunts them in a way that puts Gisele’s scrawny limbs and bony hips to shame.
Kate Moss only wishes she has something that Crystal Renn does: 100% unshakable confidence in herself.
Crystal Renn - no clothes, no make up, no eating disorder. Beautiful
And as I look at photos of Crystal Renn, I notice that I’m becoming enviable, but not of her body. Of HER. Of her exotic look, her beautiful face, how she holds herself: her confidence.
If more girls in the world would start wanting to be like Crystal Renn, perhaps that statistic of 90% suffering from body image distortion would plummet.
I’m going to try to be among that dropping percentage.
.
Remember this?
