Tonight I was at a friend’s house hanging out with her 8 month old son. After he went to bed I started flipping channels and found a show on one of those entertainment/ music channels about “skinniest celebs”. I found it a little ironic, how the same people who dish out criticism of the Jennifer Love Hewitts and Kate Winsletts of the world for being too fat were now talking about how unhealthy all these celebrities are for being too thin, and how all the media coverage was about people being concerned for their health, blah, blah blah. There were even a few people who they talked about on the show who had been “overweight” (in Hollywood terms, of course) who decided to be “healthy” and then “took healthy too far”.
What the bloody hell?
So, let me get this straight, oh great music/ entertainment peoples. This person was somehow not ok before, because they didn’t have what you deem a perfect body, and then in their quest to get that so-called perfect body they went too far and now they don’t again? Did they ever meet with your approval? Was there a magic five minutes where no one was “concerned” about these celebrities?
Um, no.
This is the problem when a culture decides that bodies, anyone’s bodies, are public domain. If it is ok to dehumanize fatties by putting their headless torsos above stories on the OMG OBEEEZITY EPUHDEMIC, then it is ok to dehumanize anyone whose body does not meet with public approval. NEver mind that no one ever really does, because there is a multi-billion dollar industry out there that exists solely to convince people they are unacceptable. Nevermind that the root of the issue lies in the pressure to have that perfect, culturally acceptable body. Not thin enough? The media, the diet and cosmetic companies, even random people in the grocery store will harass you about it, so you do crazy things to defy your own body and force it to bend to someone else’s standards, at which point those same people criticize you for doing they very thing they wanted you to do in the first place. It’s a crazy carousel of death, and there is only one way off. Ready for this? Have the courage to accept your body the way it is. Have the courage to be yourself and do what YOU want to do, anyone else’s opinion be damned. Recognize all those media messages for the bullshit that they are, and remember that it isn’t ok to dehumanize anyone, no matter the color of their skin or their physical abilities or the size of their ass or how many wrinkles they have. Get off the carousel. It’s nice out here.