Rethinking Beauty

I want to revisit and earlier post I wrote about how the industry needs to start seeing beauty as something more than "perfect" curves and a size 0-2.  In that light, today I saw a post on Yahoo! about a plus size 16 model.  She was curvy and beautiful, but not unhealthy, and that's the best part.  I believe there is still this dichotomy in people's minds about size and health, that somehow a size 0-6 is healthy and a size above 10 is not.  That's not true.  Having been a size 12 since I was 18, whether I was dancing/working out 3-4 days a week, following a vegan diet, or just existing, I've always been within a 10 pound flux, and those 10 pounds always put be at a size 12.  Now, sometimes the size fit a little nicer than others, and aside from the temporary gain of 15-20 pounds after my mom died, I've really hovered in this 10 pound flux consistently.

And after battling myself for more than those 10 years, I'm finally getting it: that's JUST my body.  My husband can't believe it, often commenting "for someone who eats as well as you do, you should be so much thinner"...and the true part is he doesn't mean it maliciously, he means it in the way the rest of the world views sizes like mine: that we must be doing something wrong.

Now, if I get on a scale it says my BMI is 33...not going to lie, that's not a super awesome number.  Ever.  For anyone.  So I got a trainer for a while, and he even noted that after a certain point I stop losing and start bulking (not in a bad way, but in a way a really solid pit bull is stocky....and the way he'll never be as thin as a greyhound).

So I've learned to try loving myself more.  And it's freeing.  REALLY freeing!  And when I see this picture of this size 16 model on Yahoo!, my hope is that other people see what I see when they look at it...not the initial "omg, is that really beautiful?" or "her stomach is so not Jennifer Aniston's", but rather, "she is solid, and beautiful, and not fat and roll-y".  Because people like us aren't - we try and we work at it and we make the right choices, but we will never become the size 2s and 4s we have been taught to aspire to for so long.

AND THAT'S OK.  It's time to start teaching people that HEALTHY is BEAUTIFUL.  Choosing what's GOOD for your body is BEAUTIFUL, and whatever size that leads you to as an equilibrium, is YOUR beautiful.