Impossible standards rant (for us women)

hey guys.. i've been watching tv this morning (waitin for the hubby to wake up so i can make some real noise.. hehe) and have been wondering (oh no.. not again!)

What is up with these impossible standards that the media bombards us with?  I swear to god that 9 out of 10 women on tv look impossibly underweight!  I liked the dove campagin for real beauty, but has anyone seen those commercials lately?  i haven't.. mabye they figured that people didn't like it.. but personally i found it refreshing.  I am so sick of seeing these twigs that the media is trying to pass off as the only acceptable way of looking. 

Why, in this day of rampant obesity, do they continue to make the standards of what weight is accptable as lower and lower and lower.  It's no wonder women are never satisfied with how they look and that eating disorders are out of control in this country!  I know when i look at these twig people i feel like well.. i'll never look like that so why am i trying?  I know why i'm trying.. because i want to be healthy.. but come on!  these twigs don't even look healthy to me!  they look tired, drawn, and sickly.  so is that what we all are striving for?  to go from being over weight and looking unhealthy to being underweight and looking unhealthy?  what is wrong with being HEALTHY??  i say nothing!  i say we should all strive to be our ideal weight and ignore the media and their unrealistic idea of "beauty". 

i remember reading somewhere that super models are chosen by clothing designers who are usually gay and are looking for their idea of beautiful (male) so they choose women who are fairly androgenous, ie. no chest, no curves, no pizzaz!  real women have curves and i honestly think that real men love curves (i know mine does.. hehe)! 

so let's get strong and stick to being healthy!  who's with me??

(sorry for the rant.. :)

That is exactly why I am not going by what the charts say at the Dr's office that I should weigh...Who really knows what I should weight.  I know being obese is unhealthy but I honestly cannot see myself at 125 lbs.  I am going to get to 170 and have a feeling I will want to go to 150 and stay there.  I am short and petite but who cares.  I want to look good and be healthy.  Not be some skinny model in a magazine or on TV.  It makes me sick.  My husband use to adore Faith Hill and he has found her to be too skinny now...(gotta love him for that one)...I believe I mentioned it in another post.  One of my really great friends recently lots 30 lbs (she was skinny to begin with)...My husband says she looks sick now....Don't want to hurt her feelings I am very proud of her and she has  helped get me motivated.  I am just not out to be a beauty queen. 

A few years ago, when I dropped to 148 at 5'7" I got lots of comments from guys... the biggest comment.. "what happened to your ass?"  followed by "You look too thin, no shape". Hell I wasnt even at the standards guidlines of 138! I can just imagine what they would have said if I dropped another 10 lbs.

I'm hovering around 177 now and besides this little pouch of fat on my stomach, my image looks good. Curves and all!  I'm thinking that I just want to flatten my stomach, I dont really care about losing that much more weight. Well, all I do is fret over the lack of success making my scale move down. Maybe I should just be happy and work on those abs? Its looking more and more like this is realistic and losing more is the frosting on the cake... and I dont care that much for frosting.

Most of the women on TV are severely thin and anorexic looking.   At one point I was down to 140 -145 where the charts say I should be.  I looked really skinny and did not look right.  My husband does not like me too look that skinny anyway.  This is why I am ignoring the charts and I am going to stick with a comfortable 155-160.  My goal is to be healthy, strong and comfortable at a weight I can maintain.  I have a curvy type of shape anyway, not just because I am overweight but its because of the way I am built.  If I am a healthy size 12 or 10 so be it....... I think it is so sad that women think they have to live up to the standards that media has set. 

This guy likes curves!  The anorexic look just doesn't cut it for me in a woman!  =D


On the topic of media giving more air time to folks with a certain physique...  Personally, I feel seeing pictures of guys with a good body reinforces that having and maintaining a fit and muscular figure *is possible*.  If some joker on TV can do it, so can I.

Every day when I'm walking into the gym, I visualize my head on Arnold Schwarzenegger's body with Brad Pitt's abs.  :)  Sounds a little silly, but I know that if I work hard enough, that visualization will come closer and closer to reality.

Without the media pushing those images into my head, it would be one less tool for me to use to motivate and push myself.

Maybe I'm trying to make a negative into a positive here; but the simple concept of seeing someone else with a great body reminds me that I can have one too.  :)

Yeah, I've seen those dove commercials. Matter of fact, you can see those women online... I think that's where I actually saw it.

Ya, my husband's actually on me for wanting to lose weight. He doesn't like skinny women. I'm not too big, just right for him... and he doesn't want me to lose my umm booty. So ya, most men I know don't like skinny little women, so I'm not trying to be one of them. :) Just a little smaller's all I'm going for.

Although I agree that the media does often push "twiggy" as beautiful, I have also seen some truly beautiful and curvy women touted in the media as well.  Jennifer Lopez comes to mind as the most well known with her famous curvy butt lol.  there are lots of beautiful curvy women out there too who are admired for being veluptuous, sensual, and healthy looking :).  I think the media should not hold such a strong influence over us and we should go by the standards we choose to hold ourselves too.  For me, starving doesn't look healthy so I don't choose to be overly thin.

As for the charts at doctors offices those are very general and don't take into account women's different frame shapes/sizes.  I am naturally very small boned and petite, therefore at 115-120 I am going to still have curves and muscle definition.  Someone my same height with say a larger bone structure/muscles would look ill at the same weight.  You have to judge based on you not a generality... those are only very loose guidelines :)

I personally am trying to find my right "blend" I want to be thin enough to look good in my clothes, but more I want to look strong or as I heard someone say "Lean and Mean" LoL... I am building muscle and trying to get that toned look that is still curvy, but strong.  I think women with a little muscle and curves are sexy and that is what I am aiming for :)

Gotta respectfully disagree on the J-Lo thing... that woman is NOT curvy.  Salma Hayek, now....

Saw a story the other day about Portia DiRossi ("Nell" from Ally McBeal, or Ellen DeGeneres' current squeeze, depending on your frame of reference) and her recovery from anorexia.  The article called her now 5'8" and a "up to a healthy 125 pounds."  Last _I_ checked, that gave her an underweight BMI.  Why not say "she's still too skinny but she's improving?"

Saddest story ever: My little sister's best friend went to college.  You know, your mom packs things like Q-tips, kleenex, first-aid kits, things that you'll need but will have forgotten to buy cause they were always around in your house.  HER mom packs, for her 17-year-old, 5'11" 140 pound daughter... diet pills.  Thanks, Jamie's mom.  You shallow b@##@.

Um, yeah, that was a rant.  It's a ranty kind of thread.

I read somewhere that models are smaller than 98.8% of the world's women.  So they are obviously the minority.

a good woman is like a good steak, meaty with a little bit of fat around the edges

man I totally know how this stupid media is. I agree with everything and honestly I think i am over effected by the disire to be skinny. I always say I belonged in the days when you were considered not good looking to not have some weight, lol. you know its true though men do prefer woman with a BMI of 21, and u know the media seems to try and hide it, i hate it, y can't they just let the real population of ppl beshown instead of a small few who are unhealthy and the minority. jeeze, and clothing lines should be made to fit real bodies, not twigs, thats wat gets me, and you know I probably shouldn't complain cause im pretty healthy weight of 115 at 5'5, but still it really gets to you sometimes....

most models are about 150lbs. and 5'10" or taller. many smoke like chimneys and pop diet pills like they were pez.

gee. that's who I wanna be. *spits*

and don't even get me started on the nastiness that is hollywood. damned twigs probably share a salad between four of them. and argue over who has to eat the tomato.

when an actress is so scrawny that you can see the scenery between her legs when she's standing with her legs 'together', there's a problem. a big one.

The media is even more vicious than you think-- they'll hound an actress over being too plump until she goes anorexic and becomes a walking skeleton. . . at which point they immediately begin to hound her for being too thin!  Definitely this is a bad time to be a female celeb in America.

lindsay lohan is considered the perfect size right now because she's admitted to having an eating disorder!  i don't think making women feel like it's hopeless is a motivator at all  (just my opinion)  but if it works for you ...

Im kinda 50/50 on that matter, cause ya it does make your motivated to loose weight, just maybe the wrong way so its sorta half and half, although i admit to looking at her pictures sometimes and wishing i was that thin, yikes totally not a good thing i admit, but ya so i think the media is rather stupid, they should focus on REAL woman, not the minority of overly skinny ones.

I removed this post to avoid conflict.

I guess Chris' comment just brings us back to the "double stadard"
portion of this rant.  The ideal male physique, while difficult to
achieve, is _healthy_ where the "ideal" female physique, the 18.0 BMI
models they constantly show us, is NOT.  If I go into the gym (and
believe me, I do visualize Gwen Stefani's abs and Madonna's arms) I
would be headed for the Ahnold look if I was a guy... great.  But
as a girl, I'm expected to try to look like Mary-Kate Olsen. 
uh..... hm.

what I remember the most about watching tv during hs, (which is the only time I've had it on a regular basis!) was that, while I was steadily gaining weight, I was faced with the media, the actresses...and living in CO, which is like CA in that about eighty percent of the population is either healthy, or too skinny...that stressed me out so badly, it's no wonder I just continued to gain weight--despite going to a personal trainer, despite having extrememly healthy and attractive siblings...

Now, I'm losing weight for so many different reasons, and the urge is still there to make myself lose it as fast as possible, and go down to, like, 120, or 115...but the thing that /really/ stops me from doing that...well, my sister came and visited me, (I'm in NC now, and she was in AL,) just after she graduated from HS last year, and she was so stressed out, and took it the other way...:: shakes her head :: she was so skinny, had dark circles under her eyes, wasn't getting enough sleep...I remember not wanted to touch her because her bones were sticking out of her back, (you couldn't see her ribs, but that was about it,) and she seemed so fragile...I don't want that for myself!
  Right now, I'm /strong/...I'm not as energetic as I want to be, but I know that I can do a lot of things that, if I were as skinny as I "want", or "dream" of being, or have in the past, (alicia silverstone comes to mind as my idol for being as skinny as...and /that/ brings to mind that scene in...ah, can't remember, but she's complaining about eating too much and she's eaten, like, nothing,)...but if I were that skinny, I know that I wouldn't be attractive, because I'd look sick, have clammy skin, etc, and that I wouldn't be able to live my life as I want to...just like now...so that's as crippling as being the weight I am now, or where I started fifteen pounds ago...I don't want that at all!

Needless to say...I've been avoiding tv, and will at /least/ until I've reached my goal, 'cause I just plain don't want the pressure, or the stress!

My goal is to have a healthy BMI. I do not want to look like a walking skeleton. And I don't think that's very many guys idea of sexy. The media pushes that at us, but honestly, you can be very sexy at a healthy weight if you are toned. I love being curvy. I couldnt' imagine looking like a stick. I don't want to be overweight but that's mostly because of health reasons.

How many of us would actually wear the clothes they stick on their models during those Paris fashion shows? Most of the clothes to me are ugly as sin and I wouldnt' be caught dead wearing them. So why should I be forced to be the same weight as the model wearing the clothes? I don't think she's a bit attractive. She's be prettier if she had a little meat on those bones.

But that's just my opinion. I'm Sagittarius and I'm known for telling it like it is. ;)