LeliaThomas.Com

What does ‘healthy’ look like?

The majority of the world frets on a daily basis about how they look, whether they’re underweight or overweight, have freckles or wrinkles, and so on and so forth. But, with the obvious exclusion of extremes (e.g., anorexia and obesity), what does “healthy” look like when it comes to weight? Apparently a whole lot of people know, and they’re very interested in telling you!

Slender Georgia Horsley, who has been crowned Miss England, has been told to pile on the pounds if she wants to win the world title.

The size eight florist who tips the scales at nine stone has the figure most women would die for - but the organisers of the Miss World competition are looking for a contestant with more curves to win this year.

Georgia is now on a high fat diet to help her plump up in time for the beauty pageant.

…She said: “Miss World judges like naturally curvy girls and don’t like the stick-thin women you see on the catwalks.

“They promote healthy eating and I want to help them get that message across, so I’m giving it my all.” –“Miss England told to ‘fatten up’ if she wants to win world title” (Daily Mail)

Anyone else find this disgusting? Whether you think Horsley is too thin or not, I think most of us can agree that her trying to “put on the pounds” for a beauty pageant pretty well puts a finger on society’s vapid pulse. (And having the name Horsley sucks for her enough, as is!)

This is something close to my heart, frankly. I have always been a thin person, despite eating when I want and what I want for all my life. According to the BMI, until very recently, I have mostly been “underweight,” whatever that really means. I have good metabolism, which hopefully will stick with me as I hit my 30s and beyond. But as the media has taken it upon itself to make right the world’s thin women, I have had some people–thankfully a minority–assume things about me. This used to bother me a lot. Now, it just makes me angry, mainly at the media.

I don’t know if this Horsley woman is naturally thin or not (I don’t really care), but I know it is her body, and her body should not be said to need to set an example for young women across the world. There are going to be slender women, average-sized women, and slightly larger women, and none of it will be largely–pardon the pun–defined by this women. There are going to be women who want to change, who will have trouble doing so, and there are going to be women who do change, when they wish they wouldn’t. There are also going to be the abnormal fringe sizes, which encompass the anorexics and bulimics and the obese. The fringe groups are the only ones who need to seek help and be helped, because those are clinically unhealthy body types. Everyone else is all right. Probably even you, reading this, are fine.

Really. Believe it. There is more than one “healthy.”

Now, leave people alone.

Comments ordered from oldest to newest.

Edrei

I have a suspicion I knew what ticked you off about this. :)