Friday, April 30, 2010

Body Image Confusion Ramble

I'm beginning to think there might be a serious disconnect between how I actually look and how I perceive myself. There is a fat blogger I read that likes to talk about fashion and hair and other visual stuff like that. She is super cute and trendy and posts pictures of herself a lot. I have always thought that we were more or less the same size which has really helped me on my journey of undoing all the negative messages about my body that I've been sent by society at large because I really like the way that she looks and I'm proud that she is proud enough of herself not to be invisible but to go out and take up space with loud clothes and a sassy attitude that very often fat people (and I daresay fat women in particular) don't feel allowed to do.

However, recently she was reviewing a dress for a plus-size online boutique and she was talking about the sizing and in doing so she spelled out her dimensions. She is about six inches shorter than me and weighs close to a hundred pounds more than me. Now to some degree the whole height/weight thing looks different on all people and so I don't know exactly how far off my perception is, but with that great of a disparity we can't look all that similar.

It's a bit jarring. I mean I know I'm still fat because 1) I can see myself. and 2) Most of society reacts to me as though I am a fat person. I just may not be the kind of fat I think I am which is disheartening because I thought I had...well okay really I don't know what I thought but I'm just feeling very weird and not happy about this at all. I've been working really hard at gaining a realistic self-image and then becoming fine with that. ( I plan to do another post about my destructive dieting/ overexercising/ perpetual goalpost moving and my subsequent quest to recover and develop healthy food and exercise relationships eventually, but I'm waiting to have time to do it well.) And it seems that I'm not doing nearly as well with that as I thought I was. It sucks is what I'm saying.

2 comments:

Liz Aguerre said...

Whether I weigh my goal weight or need to lose, I never see my body as it is.
P.S. Thanks for your comment on my post. It was very insightful and helpful!

Summer said...

It's good to know I am not alone. It is a real problem for me. One time I lost over 70 pounds and literally saw no change in my appearance. It was straight up bizarre and spooky. I am not even a person who feels that fat is unattractive on other people so I don't know why body image is such a big hurdle for me. I just know that I want to have a healthy mindset toward food/ weight before my son can understand me because I do not want to accidentally pass this on to him or any other children I might have.

P.S. I hope I was helpful you sound like a great parent to me and I really love reading your blog.