Size is just a number

I apologise, but I feel like a rant tonight so allow me to deviate briefly from my usual Rhodent posts...after all, blogs are all about personal opinion. :P

I've recently been reading a number of pro-ana blogs (if you don't know what pro-ana is...well, you have internet. Google it) and it's provided some surprising insight for me. No, I'm definitely not anorexic - those of you who know me will know this for certain ;) and I do realise that anorexia is a mental disease. But it set me thinking about the media in general and how the 'skinny' image is permanently being shoved down our throats. It's easy to say "Be happy with who you are!" but God knows I feel inadequate 90% of the time because of these images. Why? Because that girl with her hip bones sticking out and her skeletal legs will never be me.

I know this sounds like a personal pity party, but bear with me for a moment. I've come to accept that being skinny is not natural for me. OK maybe if I starved myself for a few months then my hip bones would stick out, but I would still look odd because my bone structure means that I have naturally wide hips and would not get much narrower than I am now. And no matter what I do, I just don't lose weight. But today's revelation came when I was reading a blog and found that this supposedly 'anorexic' girl was delighted that her weight had reached 127lb. She's 5"4. I'm 5"2 and my weight is exactly the same, meaning I'm only slightly heavier (taking height into account) than a girl who classes herself as anorexic. Wtf??

So in the end, I've realised that, hell, I don't actually want to be skinny. Sure I wouldn't mind having the body of a swimsuit model, but they're not skinny - they're toned and curved in the right places. I have wide hips and a narrow waist; I can feel the muscles in my stomach hardening from doing situps and I can clearly see defined muscles in my calves when I wear heels. I can run my skinny friends into the ground when we go jogging and beat them when we play squash. So yes, I may have a big butt and small shoulders, I may not be tall or blonde or have a perfect, model-worthy face...but I'm healthy and I'm fit and I can outrun most of my friends with little or no effort. In the end, that's what matters to me. And for any guy who doesn't like it, there are bound to be ten who do. So there. :P