Something has changed. I no longer ask myself how I look. Occasionally I’ll stop at the mirror and think: hmm, tired. Other times, it’s: okay – not bad.
I also don’t step on the scale daily, after a lifetime of doing so. I consider this progress after decades of obsessing over my weight, like millions of other American women.
- How concerned are you with appearance?
- How quickly do you judge yourself or others by appearance?
- Are you hyper-critical of your weight or body type?
- Hyper critcal of your… whatever?
Self image and raising girls
Lindsey, at A Design So Vast, recently shared her feelings on the Dove ad campaigns addressing issues of beauty, and raising our daughters to understand real beauty before the media distorts their perception. We’re all bombarded with images daily, offering narrowed views of what is acceptable; hence, cosmetic surgery not only for mature women, but starting in the teen years – an alarming trend.
It was bad enough when we were all convinced (and still are?) that how much we weigh – as little as possible – is a major determinant of self-worth.
Now intensified by the availability of surgeries, procedures, and products reinforcing limited standards of beauty, the assumption is that a “perfect” appearance guarantees happiness.
Diversity is sacrificed. Inner work is relegated to second tier status.
Self image and raising boys
I was shocked when my sons went through a stage around 12 or 13, when they were worried about their weight, with absolutely no reason I could discern – other than peer pressure and media. I reassured them, regularly, that they were “normal.” By 14, as they hit puberty and rapid growth spurts, their concerns evaporated.
I’ve tried to minimize my tendency to pick at my own appearance in front of my sons; I give myself mixed reviews on that one. There have been diets over the years, and irritation when I gain weight due to careless eating or too little exercise. They see, they roll their eyes, they say: Mom, you’re fine.
But raising boys also means teaching them to respect girls as individuals, to see people in context of character and personality – not just a pretty face, a rockin’ bod, or a status symbol.
New year, new diet?
It’s the first of a new year. So fess up. Did you start a diet? Are you beefing up your exercise routine? Is it a matter of feeling well, appearance, or numbers on the scale?
- Do you eat properly and exercise reasonably?
- Have you checked the range on ideal weight for your height, age, and gender?
- Have you accounted for BMI (Body Mass Index), overall fitness, and general health?
- If you are in the normal range, why are you on a diet?
- Would you be better off asking how you feel, rather than how you look?
How do I look?
I don’t generally ask men how I look. From time to time, before going out, I might say: Do I look okay?
I realize now that’s a specific choice of words, hoping for acceptability, expecting neither a negative response nor a glowing one. While that’s a conversation for another day, the point is – my question is about appropriate attire and acceptable appearance.
But is it insecurity that nudges us to ask how we look, directly or indirectly? Is it fishing for compliments when we don’t generally receive them? And isn’t that a related need for affirmation?
How do I feel?
More often, I take a few minutes to focus on how I feel – partly for health maintenance, partly because conserving energy throughout long days is vital to any parent’s arsenal. I also ask how I feel when making decisions – listening to the inner voice, rather than ignoring it. Time once spent worrying over appearance is more productively used, for me, by knowing that well-being at any age is both possible and essential.
What do you think?
I’d like to believe I’ve also experienced a shift toward substance. I prefer engaging in a discussion about something. In a relationship, I’m more likely to ask what you think, not how I might look. This is reflective of moving beyond me – to you.
Don’t get me wrong – I care about my appearance, but in the context of a more balanced approach to the rhythms and needs of body and mind. When did this occur? I have no idea, but I’m working on achieving that balance which enables me to be a better parent, a better friend, a better person. I don’t always manage it, but I strive for it. And I stay off the scale.
HALLEFREAKING LULAH, woman! I don’t even OWN a scale.
Here’s my story in a nutshell: in a family dominated by petite, short, tiny, fierce women, I was five eight by age 15 with DD’s and a solid 150. I felt like an ogre and it is amazing I didn’t become anorexic.
When JFC was born, I took her birth as the catalyst to the rebirth of my self-image. I never felt more beautiful or more USEFUL than when incubating babies and that is when I took the best care of myself. My best weight is 160. Anything less than that and I just start to feel sick.
And, like you, I am careful to not make disparaging remarks about my weight or my body. JFC has made comments about my weight and has asked me why I don’t try to lost weight. I was hurt, but I realized she was genuinely curious why I wasn’t as image-conscious as the other girls at school. I take those opportunities to explain a few things to her and I hope that it is sinking in.
You have introduced so many important topics in this post, I don’t even know where to start!
To answer your questions, I do start the new year with a diet. My husband and I avoid all sugars. We are pretty successful, unless I get pregnant. Which I seem to do at the beginning of each year. (Not this year! Yay!) Exercise? I love to exercise. I love the feeling of working off every naughty thing I have consumed that day. So, yes, my resolutions usually include a new workout plan.
As for substance in a relationship? So important. I do ask my husband if I look okay, but that is secondary to the foundation our marriage is built on. A foundation of mutual respect for our individual intelligences. Conversation is much more invigorating than keeping up appearances.
Thank you for making me think!
Great post again.
I have never had weight issues in my entire life until this year. I turned 40 and my entire metabolism changed. I have always eaten a balanced diet but was also able to enjoy ‘junk’ a little more often. I purchased a scale just this past year and step in it daily. I enjoyed the holidays but was going to start a ‘diet’ of sorts in order to look really great in my bikini on a family cruise this February.
I am glad that I read this post as I realize that although my teen daughters are tiny little waifs, I have recently found myself telling them that when they reach my age they wont be able to just eat what they want to. I need to stop that.
I have taught them to eat well and balance the bad with the good. So I think that is important and will get them through but, thank you for opening my eyes
You know – as we get just a little bit older, with a bit less of the waif-like look, we actually look younger. And for me, what I have found, is that when I don’t diet, my weight stays stable. It’s when I do diet, that things get out of wack. If you haven’t already – peek at Lindsey’s post – the linked post to the videos from Dove. They make some points about girls and beauty that are best accomplished through imagery, and very few words.
Oh yeah, did it again didn’t you? I’ve just got to blog about this, because you didn’t just touch a nerve with me, you took the freaking sledgehammer here and smashed the hell out of ’em…all…every single one…even the one that like makes me wonder apprehensively if I look good naked and then has to honestly admit, no, no I don’t…not so much anyway.
Not your fault. Loved this post and it so needed to be written.
I’d like you to consider this: You’ve had 4 kids. If your body didn’t tell something of that story – that very beautiful story – if everything in film, and magazine, and online didn’t make you feel like the life you are leading has no place on your flesh – would you still feel that way?
Recently, I saw a strange little French film. The female lead was a young woman – 20, maybe – and by today’s typical standards – overweight. Buxom, round, but firm and very sensual. Probably a size 10 or 12. Think about that – a size ten or 12. Her breasts were definitely real – plenty of nude scenes. I looked at her and thought – she’s really got a beautiful, woman’s body. And then I realized that was the body I had before kids, except I was a little bit smaller – sometimes a 6, or an 8 or 10. And all the years I thought I wasn’t beautiful, I realize now that I was seeing myself through an artificial lens. My body was beautiful, and I never knew it. It just wasn’t what was considered beautiful in the must-be-skinny-70s-80s-and early 90s.
In other cultures, age is – at the very least – not dismissed. The lessons of age are considered wisdom. I find youth as beautiful as the next person, but we need to start insisting to ourselves and for ourselves that we are beautiful, that aging is natural, that being sliced open without medical cause is not a requirement for theoretical well-being; that is what is unnatural. Just my opinion.
I’ve noticed, as I get older, that I no longer care very much about appearance. I care only that people take care of themselves and care about their appearance. Beyond that, if the results are not supermodel awesome, I just don’t care. It’s becoming much more important what a person thinks these days. Recently, and I can’t explain why, I’ve had women throw themselves at me (I swear I’m not trying to be conceited by saying that). And, my reaction is that I just want to know what people think. I still find women attractive or unattractive; that won’t change. But, the qualities of what makes a woman attractive are changing.
As far as weight is concerned, I do care. I care that people, men or women, are not gluttonous. I believe 95% of us have the ability to be beautiful provided we take care of ourselves. The fact that only 20% of us can be classified such is a sad statement into our habits, not our genetic makeup.
I know my response might seem a little tangential, so I’m sorry. But, I think people should not step on scales. I think people should try their best to make the most out of what they have, then be satisfied with the results.
I weigh myself once a month. I do not own scales. I use a girlfriend’s set. I have in the last two and a third years made a more conscious attempt to get healthier. I am down about sixty pounds since then but still not back to what I weighed pre-baby #1. I am not sure I will ever get back to that weight. I am not sure I want to.
Our culture places way too much weight on physical appearance. I am not totally comfortable with my body but am getting better on that front.
It is very, very important to me NOT to own a scale. You know too well that I have had issues in the past with food, and while I am VERY lucky to have escaped, after 10 years, with my mind and body intact, it’s still a tenuous balance. You have to know that there are places you can’t go to and be disciplined enough to avoid them.
Yes, it’s important to me how I look. But happily, that’s what clothes were invented for. And Spanx.
My Buby, who was reportedly the belle of her brothers and sisters, but pretty much a Buby to me, was also a very natural and earthy woman (more in the Willa Cather vein than the art-film beauty, of whatever body-type). She always implored me to read Martin Buber, but it was decades after her death that I got around to it; Buber, in espousing the importance of seeing the sacred and eternal beauty in all others, beyond judgment, beyond desire and beyond any sort of “use,” frames the pinnacle of existence as “the essential deed” of relating in this manner. No matter what anyone else thinks, if we can pull this one off before the mirror, seeing past even our own opinion, we learn a certain way of loving that can generalize out to the way we experience the world, liberating us into happiness. But because this is so difficult to manage, children are great Buddha’s of teaching us to see the sacred in others (as are plants, animals… anything we can love free of fear and desire, even for a flashing second). Even Buber says that it’s impossible to live this way in any sustained manner, but he really encourages to go for those eternal moments. Even though he was a Jew, it was the Jesuits who first saw the beauty in what he had to say. So, here’s to seeing some beauty at the center of how things just are this year.
Namaste and Happy New Year to Wolf et. al.
Growing up I was an athlete and never thought or worried much about my weight, but I never felt really at home in my body until I started practicing yoga about four years ago. Through yoga I began to understand my body – lessons that were only enhanced during pregnancy and while nursing two babies. Now my body is a little softer, but I know its power more than I ever did before becoming a mother.
I don’t even know where to begin in this thought-provoking discussion, BLW. I also don’t own a scale and when I did I used to play many games with it that consumed my time and energy. My weight has been stable for over 9 years after many, many years of unceasing misery and weight gains. I exercise because I love the type of exercise I do, it gives structure to a day spent writing at home, and it keeps depression away. And thank goodness, my only New Year’s resolution for the last nine years have been writing resolutions!
Look, bottom line is your health. There’s a reason you don’t see any seriously obese people in their 80’s ’cause you can’t live that long with that much weight and strain on your body. But, beyond that, is the issue of respect for your partner if you’re in a relationship, respect for yourself, and if you’re not in a relationship a basic understanding AND acceptance of how men and women differ at the initial stages of meeting one another. Top of the list for women is humor and security from the man (meaning is he a good provider). Top of the list for men, like in real estate, is looks, looks, looks. A “good man” cares for more than “looks” but won’t stay around to find out the character of the woman if she’s not attractive to him. This may not be “fair” but it’s honest. I recently gained some weight and my second wife (we’ve been married just a year), has made regular jokes about the bowling ball I’m carrying around my middle (I had an accident and wasn’t able to work out for a while during which time I gained 15 pounds – unusual for me). She was partly joking and partly telling me to get rid of it as she didn’t like it. She felt that I’d changed the deal on her, especially at this point in our lives, in second marriages. She’s right. Usually, it’s the reverse and the woman, especially the one that has had children, “lets herself go,” but in our case it happened to me, the man. I think she’s right, period. If I don’t “own” it then I’m a hypocrite about all I’ve said before, in this comment. So, long winded that I am, I say women need to care and work at it for their men, whether they’ve got one or want one. And men should care themselves, if only for their own health and well-being. Do you think I’ve rambled enough yet?