Body image and cultural norms

A while ago, I talked about the fact that, after being diagnosed with Type II diabetes, I lost a bunch of weight in an effort to get off the drugs (metformin), which was great.

I told myself it wasn’t about the weight loss, it was about being healthy, but losing weight? Felt good. Yes, for the health benefits, but also for the attention. People would come up to me and tell me I was looking good. That’s something that had never happened before. I mean, like, ever. Sigh.

And it’s hard not to think “hmm, there must be some connection between being thin and being good looking.”

And it started to reinforce in my mind the idea that thin good, fat bad.

This is not an absolute, but a cultural norm. Ruben painted what he thought was the ideal woman 400 years ago, plump and well-padded, as above. That painting—the three graces—is not a portrait of anyone specifically, instead, these are goddesses, idealized women, perfect creatures. And, by today’s standards, overweight.

100 years ago, on the other hand, the idealized beauty was boyish, almost androgynous. 50 years ago, it was natural and free—the hippie chick.

These days, we’ve gotten away from the heroin chic stick figure of the 1990s, but people still have an almost unhealthy obsession with fitting into the cultural norm of beauty.

And part of that has to do with the way we talk about it. If someone loses weight, we feel the need to comment about it. We subtly reinforce the thin good/fat bad narrative. Why is calling someone a fathead an insult? I would think that having less substance between the ears would be worse, not better.

I am a big fan of “healthy”, interpret that however you like. But I’m also a big fan of acceptance over perfection. Of self love over self loathing. Of loving yourself as you are right now. I am body positive, sex positive and positivity positive. So if you don’t fit into the box that the current culture says is “beautiful?” That’s okay. Because you are your own brand of beautiful, your own style of sexy. Cultural norms are a fickle beast; they shift and change and just when you think you’re there, they slip away. Does that make you any less beautiful? Not in the least.