On A Serious Note

While I usually write in this blog to declare sarcastic viewpoints on the world around me, I do have something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. And that’s body image. 

I’m currently training for a half marathon, which means I run or cross train almost every day. I’m finally back in long-distance running shape, after a school year of fitting in barely effective work outs between lectures, study groups, and extracirriculars. This means I’m gaining muscle and becoming lean. It also means I’m gaining weight. 

I might look skinnier, but I assure you the number on the scale is higher than it’s been in a long time. It doesn’t seem fair that getting in shape means having a higher weight, but after watching my food intake for a few days, I resolved that I wasn’t one of those runners that eat the kitchen sink after every run. I simply have muscle in my stomach, on my legs, on my arms. I’m a 21 year old girl and I can’t weight what I did when I was 13 anymore. I want to have kids and if I didn’t accept these changes in my body, I probably wouldn’t be a very healthy vessel for the very healthy babies I hope to have. 

Still, the numbers climbing on the scale really bother me. I keep rechecking myself in the mirror: am I really becoming that much heavier? I question my decision to participate in these two half marathons. If they’re making me gain weight, is it really worth it? I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t drink any liquids except green tea and water, and my food is limited to a very healthy diet inspired by Target Living and Food, Inc. Am I such an anomoly that I’m the only person in the world who’s going to get fat off of oatmeal and green beans? The fact that I’m bothered by the numbers on the scale also worries me. I’m not interested in becoming one of those girls that counts calories or is too scared of gaining weight to spend a night at the bar or an afternoon baking cookies. But that’s exactly what’s happening. 

So why is this an issue? Why is finally getting my body into great shape causing me to develop unhealthy concerns? 

A part is certainly the media. Does anyone remember when this picture circulated the news outlets?

 

This is supermodel Tyra Banks. In this picture, she weighs 161 pounds at a very model height of 5′10”, putting her BMI at a very healthy 23.1. Tabloids blasted her for being “obese” and Ms. Banks immediately went on the defense, appearing on Good Morning America and eventually taking the cover of People Magazine, telling her critics to “Kiss my fat ass!” because she was healthy and young girls needed to see a healthy role model instead of the stick thin, ribs protruding, tiny waisted models plastered all over fashion runways. The picture above isn’t flattering, but Tyra, at this weight and shot from the right angle, looks amazing:

Except, after all the preaching about how healthy Tyra was and how she was being a good role model for girls everywhere, two years later, Tyra lost 30 pounds. She claims she watched Sex and the City for a half hour day while on the elliptical and replaced her unhealthy meals with better choices. Can someone just yell bullshit at her? I find it competely offensive that she paraded her healthy body in the media and then turned around and paraded her unhealthy, 131 pound body in the same manner. Tyra’s new BMI is 18.65, which is barely in the healthy range of BMI and frankly, most nutritionists would consider anything below a 20 unhealthy:

Frankly, I don’t give a shit if Tyra Banks is in the healthy range of her BMI or not. But as a young girl who’s stuck checking out her image every time I want to read a magazine, I would appreciate it if she would stop sending mixed messages. After losing 30 pounds, she was once again in People Magazine–but this time for her weight lose regiment. And nobody even pointed out how completely hypocritical she was being. 

Tyra Banks, of course, is not the only celebrity guilty of this tactic. Consider Jennifer Love Hewitt:

 

 

This picture was taken in December 2007 when Jennifer was vacationing in Hawaii with her boyfriend. This particular image, as well as several other ones taken from even less flattering angles, was on the front page of the National Enquirer and New of the World with headlines proclaiming that she was a heifer, a whale, a previously tiny girl who had let herself go. Jennifer took a stand, writing in her blog:

“A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn’t make you beautiful. … To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini – put it on and stay strong.”

Since then, Jennifer has been in People Magazine and other glossies discussing how her boyfriend helps her diet, her fitness regiment, and how she’s toning down. But, she, of course, still loves her body.

I guess I’m confused. Jennifer and Tyra say they like themselves heavier, yet they lost all the weight they were ridiculed for. Can someone clarify for me how this works? Can someone explain why no one has called them out for their contradicting opinions? 

Even if I wanted to lose a few pounds, I’m not sure where I’d even start. I suppose I could follow any of the diet plans advertised  through pop-up windows that launch everytime I open my facebook page or positioned squarely next to my email. Using big brother antics to know my location and secret fear of obesity, they announce, “Looking for a Flat Tummy in Minneapolis? The secret? Click here!” or “Michigan State Girls Diet Right! Our Company can help!” I didn’t know I was looking for a flat tummy or that I was on a diet! Why are those the advertisements google chooses to show me? I just want to check my email, I wasn’t looking for a body analysis. 

It’s impossible to turn on a television without seeing Jillian Michael’s telling me to get off my ass and exercise. Her TV show in itself is a giant contradiction: I’m supposed to sit on my couch and watch people work out? She muses that people will be inspired to get up and do the same. Doesn’t she realize that if I get inspired, I won’t watch her show? I’m tired of seeing the Kardashian sisters, a family who’s made their name because their dad defended OJ Simpson and their oldest daughter had a sex tape encourage me to buy their weight loss pills to “really ramp up my diet.” Most recently, I saw this ad during an episode of “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” a show aimed at 12-18 year olds. 

Diets in general are ridiculous anyways. They all claim to hold the easy path to weight loss success: Avoid carbs! Only eat watermeleon! Only eat this cookie twice a day! Have a shake! Eat our cereal instead of real food! Eat grapefruit! Eat cabbage soup! Don’t drink soda! Drink magic potion water! Only drink food! Don’t eat after 6! Don’t eat fruit after 3! Don’t eat after dinner! No carbs after 6! And of course, the age old wives tale: When you’re hungry, just enjoy that feeling because it’s your body burning fat.

I’m not a nutritionist. But, doesn’t it seem like your body should do a little of everything? Have some carbs, have some watermelon, eat soup sometimes? And why the hell can’t I have fruit after 3? At 3, does my body automatically convert fruit into cellulite and plant it on my ass? Furthermore, that feeling of hunger? That’s your body telling you it would like to be fed. It’s actually hungry because it’s out of fuel to burn so it can do stuff for you, like regulate your heartbeat and make sure your brain has the energy to think.

I’m baffled by the messages sent to me about exercise too. I’m supposed to exercise 5 times a week for at least 20 minutes, but I should also exercise 5 times a week for 30 minutes, and I should also try and do some intense exercise 5 times a week for 15 minutes. And I should cross train. And I should walk everywhere I can, always take the stairs instead of the elevator, park as far from the mall as I can so I get extra exercise in walking to and from the shops, invest in Sketcher’s new crazy shoes that apparently will make my walking even more effective so that I can get even skinnier while I walk, and I should invest in a pedometer so I know just how far I’ve walked every single day. 

What the hell?! Between exercising as much as all these experts say and eating all these things (or more like, not eating) all these things these experts say, will I even have any time left over to have a job, raise kids, get married, and maybe watch some reality television every once in a while? It doesn’t seem possible.

The worst, offenders, however, are models like Gisele or Heidi Klum, or really, any celebrity mother who gives birth and within weeks, parades her Post-Baby body on the front of magazines.

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On behalf of women everywhere, including future and current mothers, these magazine covers and these people offend me. Their ability to lose 35 pounds in six weeks, while unhealthy certainly, is their own damn business. But, parading their bodies on magazine covers and giving interviews about how they did a lot of “prenatal yoga” and “breast fed” their way back into their size 00’s is completely misleading. Gisele, who gave birth recently to a baby boy, Ben, was modeling for Victoria’s Secret’s Spring Catelouge two months later. Her secret?

The smart side of my brain just cannot believe  that breast feeding got her looking like this:

The truth is, they hired a trainer, a chef, and a nanny and worked out until they couldn’t move. I’ve had friends younger than these women give birth and I’ve seen them six weeks post-birth. They can barely keep their eyes open, much less find the time to push out six miles on a treadmill and cook a healthy, organic, colorful meal of fish and steam veggies. They’d rather nap. 

With the media shooting all of these images my way, it’s a constant battle between what I see every day on the street: beautiful, healthy women, and what I see everyday on the news: beautiful, very tiny women. My intelligent side says I should aim for heathy, but my vain side wants to be as tiny and glamourous as the woman on the cover of this month’s Cosmo.

Is there a meeting point? Is there a way to protect myself from further damage to my body images and self-esteem? And what about my own daughter someday? How do I convince her that she’s beautiful just as she is, when she has weight loss pills and diet tricks shown in commercials during her Disney shows? 

I’m not sure what the answer is. I’m not sure how you to end this cycle of acceptance and yo yo dieting. I just know that it’s 10:19 at night, and I for one, am going to have some carbs.