One of the things I want most in life is to just stop participating in the cult of thinness. I spend so much time thinking about how I’m not small, perfect and fit, that I don’t do things that would help me be healthier. Yes, this is one of those “women’s rants”, so guys, if you’ve had enough of that, you had best just quit reading now.

I thought about my father’s mother recently. For my entire life, until she died when I was 18, my grandmother was a thin person. I picture her this way. But I look back at pictures of her in her 40s and 50s, during WWII and after, and she was a robust, buxom woman. Remind you of anyone? Sure, she ate lots of starches and butter and wonderful cuts of meat, but she lived to be 85. Isn’t that long enough? I’d be satisfied with living that long. My father’s father lived to be 91. That’s way long enough. And he was a trim, but barrel-chested man. None of my family are truly petite; we are robust, heavily muscled, and handy.

Did I hear Red Green just now?

What I’m trying to get to is my perception that I am supposed to be any particular way. Yes, I need to lose weight to be healthier. Yes, I would look better if I lost weight (by my own standards and desires, not those of the Thin Cult). I would like to have clothes fit: I don’t like my shorts riding up between my legs or my backfat spilling over the wide band of my 38DD industrial bra.

I’ve told this story before: I somehow grew up with a very harsh anti-fat prejudice. I thought fat people smelled, and would hold my breath when one walked by. Seriously. And no one in my family expressed disdain for fat people. I grew up in a time (late 60s, early 70s) before the real anti-fat movement got into full swing with Jane Fonda videos and the expectation that everyone should belong to a gym and work out. Exercise those days meant watching the Jack LaLanne show (that guy still looks good) or following Euell Gibbons’ diet of raw crunchy nutty things including the edible parts of pine cones (the joke back then was that old Euell died by choking on a pine cone. He actually died of an aneurysm due to Marfan Syndrome).

I have a strong body (except for my back, but we’ll get on that problem another time). I can’t go fast, but I can go far. I’m built to carry things up mountains, not get them across a distance in a hurry. Some of us are rabbits, and some are pack mules. Eee-aw, eee-aw.

Still, knowing all I do about my genetic inheritances, knowing that my body has a slow metabolism (medicated, to little avail, alas), knowing that I spent some time ignoring my health, I can’t change my self-concept enough to consistently adhere to a routine of yoga, or stretching, or the elliptical trainer. Do I chalk it up to brain chemistry, or attitude, or programming, or what? And how can I not think about it in such black and white terms?


Oy, it all makes my head hurt.