Yesterday morning I was feeding the little guy and flicking around the music channels when I saw the new Mika video, “Big Girl”, here’s the link you have to check it out on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcRiXOONqf0 It really, really made my day!
I’m a big girl, I’ve always been big, I’ve never really tried to change it, it’s just me. But over the years I’ve obviously encountered some problems, firstly people think you want to be slim, but actually if i could change one thing about myself, I’d like to be taller, not slimmer. I hate it when people give me diet tips, “Have you tried Weight Watchers?” “What about Atkins?” “My friend found Curves brilliant”. How do i respond to that? “Actually, I like being fat?” Then people assume if you are happy that it’s an act, while obviously I have good days and bad days it’s generally not to do with my weight, I have awful fat days where nothing looks right but if I was a size 6 I’d still have those. In fact I think I look great most of the time, I love pretty things, clothes and jewellery, I like my shoes and make up, I tend to focus on the bits of myself I like, my eyes, my legs and my boobs, so I don’t notice the tummy or bum, try it it works!
Now another issue is I’m a size 18 which is big, but recently skinny has changed from a size 10 to a size 4….so a size twelve is big, I think our brains have already assimilated this shift, while watching another lot of videos recently I saw a Geri Halliwell video, and I thought God she looks fat, she must be a size 10 in the video, but after watching the previous videos where all the women were tiny she looked big! This is a real problem, kids watching videos and reading magazines are gonna be affected even more by this distortion. In the Mika video obviously some of the women are big,big but others are just normal sized, but that’s judged as fat in today’s society!
Now I’m in no way promoting obesity, I think we should all eat healthily (myth number three fat people eat huge amounts of burgers and chocolate and never exercise) I love fruit and veg, fish is my favorite protein, I eat porridge every morning but I definitely drink a bit too much wine and I’m fond of chocolate. But I take responsibility for my health and I try to be responsible and an excellent example to my children, but also I am not ashamed of my body or my size, that would be an awful example to set. I’m beautiful, it’s nothing to do with my size I’m just fab! I know some amazingly beautiful fat women and some not so beautiful, just like I know some gorgeous skinny girls!
Now there has been a huge backlash against the media berating the size zero models and actresses, I think that’s as bad as berating fat people, these girls are naturally thin (now I know some aren’t and this is where the problems start) and they are lucky that being naturally thin has opened doors to them as models (no stranger has never approached me in the supermarket and said, “God you are so fat, you’d be a great spokesperson for my double choc chip ice cream!” ) Why can’t we just celebrate difference in beauty, Skinny, slim, fat ? What’s wrong with that? I know there’s no money in happiness, and that’s the reason, but maybe we could just try to make small changes, accept that beauty comes in many different sized packages and just embrace it.
As my daughters T-Shirt said today “Be cool, Be Happy, have fun”, stop worrying about the bloody bingo wings, or flat chest or wobbly tummy! Love ourselves, we all deserve that!
This is gonna be a two part post I think cos I’m wrecked tonight, but coming soon “If I’m so fecking fat how come you can’t see me?” :-}
Midget Wrangler 