I'm worried. Recently, while I was in the gym, I was showing a teen aged girl (who said she was fifteen) how to use the dip/chinup machine that I have come to love, as it works about a dozen muscles at a time and doesn't take all day. She was worried because, as she put it, "last year she went from 98 pounds to 150." She was, as most teen girls are, worried that she "was fat." According to the tyranny of the insurance charts that tell us all our healthy standards, her height/weight would probably be recommended at about 140-145 or so-- she was about two inches shorter than me and those charts say I should weigh between 145-155 (which I am not at, but fairly fine where I am). I assure you, though, that despite the chart (which I do not think takes into account muscle, and that muscle weighs more than fat) she was not by any means fat. She was athletically fit looking. But here she was telling me she wanted to lose thirty pounds! What do you think she saw in the mirror?

I have to say that I do work out, and realize that there is a problem in feminism with wanting to lose weight-- we feel guilty because we figure we are internalizing patriarchal standards, and we complain that those standards are unrealistic and unfair. Last year I did make it a goal of mine to lose the thirty pounds I had gained, thanks to graduate school and a tendency to snack on potato chips while driving to and from my PhD program. I feel a little hypocritical about it, really. I'm calling for more understanding of different body sizes at the same time that I'm trying to squeeze myself back down to a size ten. But truly, some women are fine and healthy at bigger weights-- I think of Oprah who has settled quite comfortably in a non-model thin size, and she looks great! At the same time, the CDC has issued a warning that obesity in our country has reached epidemic proportions, and supposedly, death rates from obesity-related illness is just about to pass up cigarette smoking as the largest cause of preventable death. A few more stats on obesity related health issues for women are:

• Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death for American women.
• One in five women has some form of heart or blood vessel disease.
• In 1998, 459,841 people died from heart attacks and other coronary events; 226,467 (49.2%) of those victims were women. (CDC webpage)

So what are we to do? Maybe starting with the Wisewoman webpage at the CDC is a good first step. Then check out the BMI indicator to see if you really are at a healthy weight. According to the chart, I still am in the overweight category (If I lost two pounds, I'd be "normal"-- but I STILL think it doesn't calculate muscle tone, and/or if I ate a big breakfast this morning!)

My concern with my weight (I was up to about a size 15 from a size 8 when I got married, almost ten years ago, and I haven't even had kids) had to do much more with the fact that my blood pressure had gone up, I had gained too many dress sizes, I could not walk up a flight of stairs without becoming seriously out of breath, and I was an adult woman not in the middle of a normal growth spurt. My "growth spurt" left unchecked could have made me seriously unhealthy. This girl's growth spurt was part of a normal change from little girl to young woman, and would not necessarily keep going at the rate of 50 pounds a year. I'm not at all obsessed with being skinny-- I rather like the new curves and larger bra size my more womanly 30something body has given me. I do like the muscles my working out has sculpted too-- I can lift many more grocery bags and small children than I used to be able to do. Working out for me is fun because I do things like belly dance and boxing with the heavy bag (gets the aggression and stress out wonderfully).

I believe that there is a significant difference with being healthy and being harmfully obsessed. Right now, I look like the big Irish-German woman my ancestry promised-- as my friends and I joke, I could go out into a field and pull a plow. But I also realize that some women are healthy at a higher weight, at a larger dress size than mine. I know that big is beautiful too. So I'm not saying that it's unhealthy to exercise, or necessarily unhealthy for some lucky people NOT to exercise. But to obsess at 15 with losing so much weight seems to be a dangerous path towards never being happy with herself, and therefore the yo-yo diets that will spiral into unhealthy patterns and more and more weight every year.

The problem that I have, and the point of the rant here, is WHO will teach her that in becoming a woman (as a young girl does at 15 or so) means her body will become bigger, but that it is normal and to be desired? Don't they do that in school? (Not to lay this at the feet of our already too overburdened teachers, but don't they have health class anymore?) Hasn't Oprah taught this on her show a million times? Why aren't American women getting that they need to talk to their daughters, or risk them becoming seriously obsessed and sick?! I tried to reassure this young woman that what she was going through was perfectly normal, that she wasn't fat, that it was okay to work out and be healthy but to not go overboard on either side of the equation (too skinny or too unconcerned). But at the same time, she has internalized the message our society gives that for women, beauty equals power. And in our society, beautiful is THIN so thin=powerful. The thinner, the more powerful? Perhaps in her mind. I also remember a website I once saw, titled something like Fifty Perfectly Good Reasons to Hate Young Skinny Women. Now, that's not the answer either-- we can't blame each other, and be spiteful and mean, for the standards and must appreciate thin, too. One of my best friends has a really high metabolism, eats like a horse and is still really thin. A woman at work used to harass her about it and call her anorexic (which she is not). It really upset my friend-- made her sick to her stomach every time she saw the harasser-- what kind of power-dynamic is that? So when I say all body sizes, I really do mean all of them!

Athletic is seen as good-- especially nowadays with Madonna sporting rock hard lats and Gwen Stefani with her flat, flat belly. This I see as a positive thing. The over-thin heroin chic days seem to be gone, and even the supermodel poster-girl for that look (Kate Moss) has gotten a little more bulky, (even though still needing to eat a sandwich).

I know this might get me into trouble, and I don't mean to hurt those readers who are struggling with weight issues. But at the same time, I am afraid to go too far in trying to understand that not all women can be a size 6 to give an excuse to not try to get more fit to people who are unhealthy. Not all women can be a size 8, but being a size 20 is probably a health risk that could be diminished significantly by walking a mile a day and not eating the chips that got me in my own predicament, but snacking on healthy things like fruit & veggies. I do not mean a diet here. I lost 30 pounds not by dieting, eating only protien (which is seriously health-risking, putting your body into ketosis and likely to gain back all the lost weight when you go back to eating "normal" food) or grapefruit. I ate normally-- skipped dessert and soda pop, and exercised about an hour every day. (Tennis, bike-riding and weight lifting). So you can do it, slowly, and healthily.

But at the same time we're talking about exercising, let's tell young women and men that their bodies are beautiful! That they can be healthy without being sticks! That thirty friggin' pounds is TOO MUCH for a 15 year old girl to lose! I want to try to be an example to this girl who works out at the same time as me-- to show her that fit is not the same as skinny. I hope I can do it, but she has other more powerful than me forces to learn from.

Think of a quote from Susan Bordo's theoretically powerful Unbearable Weight:

Through the exacting and normalizing disciplines of diet, makeup, and dress-- central organizing principles of time and space in the day of many women-- we are rendered less socially oriented and more centripetally focused on self-modification. Through these disciplines, we continue to memorize on our bodies the feel and conviction of lack, of insufficiency, of never being good enough. At the farthest extremes, the practices of femininity may lead us to utter demoralization, debilitation, and death. (166).

I don't necessarily agree that wearing makeup and doing your hair is dangerous to your health-- I'm too much a third waver to buy this wholesale and believe that "norming" less "female" practices is any better. But we definitely have a sort of schizophrenic attitude about this (which I'm really noticing in this rant-- I am shifting back and forth in my discussion so much!)

What's the answer? Do we sacrifice our health for our principles (just be an Earth Goddess and damn the patriarchy)? Do we say it's not feminist to also work out? (I answer no to that one, because in other ways than weight loss, exercise is quite empowering). And who should we task? Parents? Teachers? Everyone? How do we change so that normal is more NORMAL? I really do like this one magazine called Grace that's available online that shows healthy images of women who are curvy, and beautiful. Maybe supporting stuff like this is a step in the right direction, maybe it's just more of the weird dichotomy of thin vs. curvy that's screwing with my head.

I don't know the answers here, and am not saying that I know what's healthy for everyone, or that people who are heavier should feel bad about themselves. I think maybe it's something we each have to come to terms with, deciding what is healthy FOR US, individually. But there needs to be some realistic discussion and real standards to look at. And who can we get to do it? I admit to not having ANY answers here. But I'm open to suggestions...

Also, I've noticed a lot of the "clicks" this site gets over to Amazon have to do with body image books. So here is a list of books that MIGHT help deal with this issue. If you don't see something you like, reload the page and the books will change. These are recommended by Amazon, so allow some leeway if some of them come up "odd."

So if you want to hear more of the things that get under my skin (plus a few of my favorite things), check out my old rants in the archives.

XOXO.....

Disagree with me? Want to rant about something completely different? You might get published, if you've got the chops, and don't mind working for peanuts. Or no peanuts and just the general thanks and appreciation of a grateful nation.... for more info, see the contributor's page.