As a teenager, and really up until I got married, I was obsessed with how I looked. Not in the, take three hours to get ready, type of way, but I was always aware of what my body looked like. Whether that was being self-conscious of positioning for a picture or changing my clothes ten times because nothing fit just right, I was always, always thinking about how I looked.
It's still there. Not constantly, like in my earlier years, but I catch myself worrying about weight and the way I look every once in a while. I know that I probably eat too much sometimes, but I also have to remind myself of the real reason I've put on some weight. I had a baby! And not only that, but my thyroid was pretty much killed off after I had a baby by my immune system. It makes it pretty tough to lose weight. And I would rather look like this and have Knox than be skinny with no baby :D
SO on to my next point. In today's society, women can seriously never be good enough. I was watching the Today show. And they started talking about The Biggest Loser. I've never watched the show. I'm not claiming to even know how the show works.
In case you haven't heard, the girl who won lost a whole bunch of weight (the point of the show right?) and weighed in at 105 pounds. Now she's being scrutinized for losing too much weight.
This is how women are treated constantly. I'm sure she was made fun of for being too fat. Now she's being torn apart for being too skinny. We can seriously never be good enough for the media.
Just think of how she feels. She worked so hard to get rid of all that weight. What should be a joyous celebration of overcoming a feeling of 'I'm not good enough' is now turned into the same feeling, just in a different way.
Who are we to judge? Only she knows what she did to lose the weight. We idolize shows like this, encourage these people to lose weight for our entertainment, and then complain when we see the results.
I found an article that said the winner lost 60% of her body weight. There was a guy on the show who lost 55% of his body weight. But yet, the girl got more scrutiny. He did very close to the same thing, but because he's a man, I suppose it is ok.
I'm not saying losing that much weight in such a short time is healthy. I'm not saying she even looks healthy. I'm just saying that when it comes to the body image of a woman, there is nothing we can do to make people happy.
And here's a thought...if everyone is so concerned with how unhealthy this amount of weight loss is, why don't we stop watching and cancel the show? Frankly, I don't think NBC will stop it. It is obviously making top headlines--the dream of every tv station.
I do agree people are going crazy about the biggest loser (one of our favorite shows) but this is the first time ever a contestant has looked not healthy at the end of the show. The guy that lost 55% of his weight was 409 at the beginning so he had that much to lose but she weighed in at 260 so 60% is a lot. But I do agree women just can't win with body image issues.
ReplyDeleteAsk anyone who works at one of the "high-fashion" women's magazines and they will tell you that EVERY photo of women are air-brushed. Even the ones with so called "Normal" bodies. Some say it was the launch of the Barbie Doll in 1959 that began the obsessing by our society. The culture today certainly has high expectations for body image. Sadly, I think it's the women pushing it. If you ask most men, they don't mind women with a little meat on their bones. crazy stuff.
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