BODY, BODIES, BODS

It's one of those things women can't ever seem to get right.  Fashion dictates one thing, men desire another, surgery creates the unnatural. Medicine suggests we fit into the narrow lines of a chart, one look around the locker room tells us that isn't realistic.

This weekend I was sitting poolside with my sister and her daughter.  My sister is concerned that her daughter is too heavy.  Her daughter seems to be quite comfortable in her body.  My youngest daughter is heavier than I think she should be, too.  I struggle with talking to her about it.  What must it sound like to have an obese mom talk to you about your tummy?  I worry because I don't want her to go down my road, she worries because she is okay with how she looks - is that bad?

There are  girls trying to be super thin and also girls getting to be  fat.  The fat girls, because there are so many more of them than there were in the past, aren't getting quite as stigmatized.  They call themselves curvy which suggests they have chosen their look just as the skinny girls have.

This morning I heard about a study in the UK that 7 out of 8 women didn't feel attractive.  How sad is that?  I know that at my advance age and size I feel past being attractive, but I still have my days.  So when I think of all those young women out there not feeling pretty, it just makes me feel sad. 

There is something so wonderful about that feeling of being attractive - feeling young and alive that I still remember.  It gives a glow.  It is really about happiness.  If women are happy, it doesn't matter what their physical appearance is; how symmetrical their features, how big their bust or slim their hips. 

So that is the answer - not to take away our daughter's happiness with themselves.  Offer them the opportunities to make healthy choices and love them and nurture their happiness and beauty.

MY POSTER GIRLS

At the Women's Colony there is the occasional posting of Secret Girlfriends to counter or accompany the Secret Boyfriend posts. I have women I have admired throughout my life. But my interest in these women has mostly to do with their bodies. So I will call them my Poster Girls.

This started when I was a young teen and watching the movie "How to Marry a Millionaire". I told my mom I wanted to look like Lauren Bacall. She was tall, elegant and sophisticated. Mom told me I was never going to look like that - I was more the Marilyn Monroe type, which wasn't a bad thing since men seemed to like the way she looked!

I never got over my admiration for the tall and elegant - and I have lived much of my life as a curvy woman of average height.

In my 20's I started working out. I was an early adopter of weight training due to bad knees which didn't allow me to run, the need to burn calories and the obsession of the guy who ran the gym with a certain woman weight lifter named Lisa Lyon. He was certain he could help me get my thighs to look like "tight little sausages" like hers. This poster was on the wall at the gym. And on my wall at home.

I was not so certain my thighs would ever meet that expectation, but I loved that she had such a big round bottom and was proud enough of it to bare it! Ladies, this was in 1978, long before J Lo and Beyonce and the cult of the booty.

All that was half a life ago. Now I am about as round as I am tall and I must do something about it. So my new poster girl will be Helen Mirren.