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"I know that becoming anorexic is completely stupid and anti-feminist.... but that's just what a fat girl would say!" ~Lisa Simpson

so i was in the GD just now and i saw a topic about pro-ana/mia websites and i really just felt i had to say something about it. I've struggled through eating disorders, diets gone wrong, and feeling like a piece of s**t because i'm not an acceptable weight. it's a gross habit to get into and it's very very hard to stop. i eat normally right now but i still scrutinize every single aspect of my body when i look in the mirror.

my question here is, why do women feel that they have to look like tiny little models to be beautiful? what is it that makes us go so crazy about our body image? Marilyn Monroe, one of the most beautiful ladies of the 20th century, was a size 12. being at a normal weight is sexy. but we still diet, we're never good enough for our own standards of beauty. it's time to change that. we can be powerful without beauty, we can have control in other areas in our lives.

people who think they need to be a toothpick are just dumb. was venus goddess of beauty skinny? NO!

im still stuck as an outpatient at an ED clinic....even though now im @ a normal weight. i think pro ana sites are awful and they only exacerbate bad situations...plus they can stunt recovery. (i know for awhile they did for me what with people "encouraging" and offering tips and crap like that) but i think eds deal a lot with societal pressures and these glossy images the media offers, and not so subtle insinuations about what the "perfect" body looks like. i dont think young kids especially should be subjected to stuff like that because i think then they have a flawed perception of what a normal body is.

i know how you feel..i have no eating disorders but i do look in the mirror and judge my own appearence. i'm sorry you're struggling and not feeling good about yourself, i really hope things work out for you. you are right though..i seriously dont understand why normal body weight is not exceptable.

i think a lot of it is absorbed at a young age, before we're mature enough to decide what we want to do with our bodies. older people make offhand comments about their weight, and when we see our mothers [for example] become overjoyed when they fit into something that used to be too tall. obsession over weight, i think, also stems from a desire to be viewed as attractive. attractive has become synonymous with skinny.

i've never officially had an eating disorder, but i've been borderline-anorexic before. for me a lot of the satisfaction stemmed from pushing myself, like, "wow, i haven't eaten in three days! look at the self-control."

people think it makes them skinner, and eating healthy will, but extreme diet restrictions result in your bodies feeding off of your own muscle. i knew a girl who was hospitalized because she wasn't eating enough while keeping up the practices of a nationally-ranked swimmer (which she was).

Our society sucks with body image. It infects men to, with standards of being muscular and other things, but the overall burden on the male population is not nearly as large as that on women. I've struggled with body image a lot, especially hair. Dammit, why can't women be hairy? Our society is compulsive about removing hair, it's quite sad and sick, just like much of the other propganda around how the female body "should" look like. My opinion: this propaganda and hoopla is to make money off of us, suppress us, distract us from issues that are really important in life and control the way we look to fit certain aesthetics. There is little to no regard for our health in this matter. And it's constantly getting worse. That, and for the simple reasons that it feels more real and is easier, is reason for me to toss the razor (I've been hairy except for the upper lip for at least 7 months now), I wear little makeup for most of the time (I do wear it sometimes, but my idea is basically:if it doesn't make me look much different, what's the point? I go after thick black eyeliner, bright eyeshadow, and what not. I think I might start drawing on myself with makeup biggrin ), wear what's comfortable for me and oay little attention to what's in fashion, etc. I want to start an armpit hair revolution: women having armpit hair and being prooud of it! armpit hair can be made an acceptable and even cool thing. I want to dye mine blue...see, it could be cool thing! Or maybe purple...or multi-color...

biggrin I give you virtual high-five for that, sister. I also have purple hair dye.....I still need to use it... *devious look*

It is ridiculous that the media today promotes the toothpick image for a woman. I am a size twelve and I think I look great. I don't want to lose weight because I don't want to let the media and general population think they have won. I don't want to be a typical girl. And I don't want to lower myself to the expectations of the media's view of a beautiful girl. I am not ultra skinny, I have a huge nose, long fingers/toes (wear a size 11 shoe), but I love how I look. Most importantly I love who I am.