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"She'd be so pretty if she was thin"
Jan. 4th, 2008 02:25 pmThat sentence is one that is guaranteed to send me into a full on rant. Many of you have probably already heard it, at great length and volume, but it can be put simply thus:
Thin != pretty
Fat != ugly
You can be fat and beautiful, you can be thin and ugly. Weight and Beauty are not related or directly proportional - you don't get prettier the thinner you get.
I'd always used 2003 Pop Idol winner Michelle McManus as a case in point. She was (and is) a larger girl, and she is not exactly a beauty. I heard at the time so many comments along the lines of 'poor girl. She'd be so pretty if she lost some weight...' No. Really, no she wouldn't. She's got a strange face, not a pretty face, and even if she was 8 stone she would still have a strange face.
Dawn French is beautiful. She's huge, yes, and also beautiful. Janet Street Porter is a moose. She's as thin as a rake, and a total and complete munter.
I have a new example now, in the case of Natalie Cassidy, who played poor Sonia in Eastenders. She was always a bit of a chubber, she was in the soap for YEARS, and had varying levels of chub over those years, but was always very much a chubber. She's gone the way of so many stars now, done a fitness video, and lost loads of weight. Good on her, I say. It's a more believable fitness video, for a start. She's not some stick like unrealistically thin gazelle of a woman making a fitness video, she's a normal girl who has visibly lost loads of weight. Her legs look brilliant. Women can see what she looks like now, and really think 'wow, if Sonia-from-Eastenders can do it, so can I!'.
Thing is, and my bitch is showing here, now she's lost the weight, she looks great from the neck down. She's not a pretty girl. She's got very pointy features, with an elongated head and tiny little eyes. I am looking at the before and after pictures, and while I think her body looks great, because we're conditioned to go thin=better, I can't help but think she looked so much prettier before. Not that she was ever a pretty girl, in the conventional sense, her appeal always lay in her 'normalness', she was down to earth and is generally thought of as 'sweet'.
I think she does look great, and I'm super impressed with her, I lost a lot of weight on weightwatchers once and it was HARD. But she really did look prettier when she was heavier.
This year I want to try and lose a bit of weight, but not too much. When I was at my lowest weight, I hit 8 and a half stone. From the waist down, I looked brilliant, and was a size 10/12. From the waist up, I looked like a famine victim. My eyes were sunken in hollows, and my cheecks jutted out, my ears stuck out the side of my head like handles. I am not designed to be that thin, not on my top half anyway. So whenever I think 'I'd like to be that thin' I have to remember, that doesn't suit my face. Not at all.
My vanity lies in such a way that I would quite happily put up with an extra stone if it means my face is prettier.
And ultimately, I'd MUCH rather be *healthy* than thin. The constant preoccupation with weight and diet and food intake and celebrity weights and dress sizes is tiring and yet shows no sign of abating. The pressure to be teeny-tiny is enormous, and I can't see that changing, however many 'real beauty' campaigns Dove run.
Thin != pretty
Fat != ugly
You can be fat and beautiful, you can be thin and ugly. Weight and Beauty are not related or directly proportional - you don't get prettier the thinner you get.
I'd always used 2003 Pop Idol winner Michelle McManus as a case in point. She was (and is) a larger girl, and she is not exactly a beauty. I heard at the time so many comments along the lines of 'poor girl. She'd be so pretty if she lost some weight...' No. Really, no she wouldn't. She's got a strange face, not a pretty face, and even if she was 8 stone she would still have a strange face.
Dawn French is beautiful. She's huge, yes, and also beautiful. Janet Street Porter is a moose. She's as thin as a rake, and a total and complete munter.
I have a new example now, in the case of Natalie Cassidy, who played poor Sonia in Eastenders. She was always a bit of a chubber, she was in the soap for YEARS, and had varying levels of chub over those years, but was always very much a chubber. She's gone the way of so many stars now, done a fitness video, and lost loads of weight. Good on her, I say. It's a more believable fitness video, for a start. She's not some stick like unrealistically thin gazelle of a woman making a fitness video, she's a normal girl who has visibly lost loads of weight. Her legs look brilliant. Women can see what she looks like now, and really think 'wow, if Sonia-from-Eastenders can do it, so can I!'.
Thing is, and my bitch is showing here, now she's lost the weight, she looks great from the neck down. She's not a pretty girl. She's got very pointy features, with an elongated head and tiny little eyes. I am looking at the before and after pictures, and while I think her body looks great, because we're conditioned to go thin=better, I can't help but think she looked so much prettier before. Not that she was ever a pretty girl, in the conventional sense, her appeal always lay in her 'normalness', she was down to earth and is generally thought of as 'sweet'.
I think she does look great, and I'm super impressed with her, I lost a lot of weight on weightwatchers once and it was HARD. But she really did look prettier when she was heavier.
This year I want to try and lose a bit of weight, but not too much. When I was at my lowest weight, I hit 8 and a half stone. From the waist down, I looked brilliant, and was a size 10/12. From the waist up, I looked like a famine victim. My eyes were sunken in hollows, and my cheecks jutted out, my ears stuck out the side of my head like handles. I am not designed to be that thin, not on my top half anyway. So whenever I think 'I'd like to be that thin' I have to remember, that doesn't suit my face. Not at all.
My vanity lies in such a way that I would quite happily put up with an extra stone if it means my face is prettier.
And ultimately, I'd MUCH rather be *healthy* than thin. The constant preoccupation with weight and diet and food intake and celebrity weights and dress sizes is tiring and yet shows no sign of abating. The pressure to be teeny-tiny is enormous, and I can't see that changing, however many 'real beauty' campaigns Dove run.
