please stop hating on people’s bodies.
This morning was like every other weekday morning has been since my summer started - I got up, wandered downstairs and my granny greeted me and handed me a Daily Record. I flicked through it for a bit, then I found something that really incited me - an article about Topshop using ‘size zero, stick thin’ models on it’s website.
I’m all for anti-anorexia, but this model didn’t look unhealthy or any bit like she suffered from any eating disorders. She looked, just as she explained, naturally skinny. But people were shocked at how thin she was and forced them to change the photo.
This is what pisses me off.
While appreciating bigger bodies, and discouraging anorexia is great, people need to
S T O P hating
on naturally skinny people!
We need to all live together, and accept that there are all different kinds of body types, and that, yes, some people are naturally bigger, and yes, it’s great that you’re trying to stop discriminating against bigger bodies, but why why why do people insist on fighting fire with fire? ‘No stick-thin models’ ‘people that thin are gross’ ‘people that thin must have an eating disorder’ all are discrimination against thinner people. Yes, big is beautiful - but average-sized people and thinner people can also be beautiful too.
Let me give you an example- my mum, as a teen in the mid-70’s was a UK size 4. US size 0. I was unable to find the picture, but she was healthy. She ate 3 good-sized meals a day, and she got decent exercise. I, as a teen right now, even after a year of being totally lazy with exercise and binge eating every day, am no bigger than a size 8 on bottom and size 6 on top (that’s US sizes 4 and 2). And there are countless models who have been deemed ‘too skinny’, even though they cannot help their naturally skinny body type and fast metabolisms - just as much as larger models have been discriminated against for a body type they can’t make smaller.
Saying that all thin models will give young girls the impression that they must starve themselves to be skinny is just as wrong as saying that larger models will give them the impression they must gain weight to be that size - it is discrimination, and it’s wrong.
True, some models do starve themselves and diet until they are that size - shouldn’t we be tackling only those with the eating problems, rather than generalizing all skinnier people as ‘anorexic’ - just as not all ‘fat’ people have an overeating disorder, not all ‘skinny’ people have an undereating disorder either.
So, yes, continue putting big body types out there - but please stop telling us skinny people that our natural body types are too thin and we have to put on weight to be bigger. That’s just like us telling you you’re too fat and to diet to be skinny, and you don’t like that any more than we do.
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katiecanfly posted this
