“Does this make me look fat?” It’s a simple question I get asked multiple times a day by friends. “No, you look great!” is the response I tend to stick with. Sometimes I wonder if people actually expect me to answer with “Yes, you do look fat.” In reality, who really does that? The average girl would never tell another girl directly that she’s fat. So why consistently ask? It’s a serious image problem girls face, and it’s got to stop.
I’m ‘naturally’ skinny I guess I would say. No I’m not the width of a pencil, I’ve got curves like everyone else, but yes I do possess an extra small size. Good genes? Probably. My mom was very thin when she was younger, and I have two sisters who are both even thinner than me. I don’t work out, have never even stepped foot in the SRSC. But I eat … a lot. I owe it to a fast metabolism that lets me down several cookies a day without my stomach bulging out the next and it’s simply the fact that I’m human that I’m hungry and crave food most of the time.
Jori wants collegiettes to embrace their bodies whether they are skinny or curvy.
But a lot of the time, I feel like I am being punished for this. Constantly getting comments like “you’re so skinny” or “you don’t have to worry about that because you’re skinny” feels degrading and almost demoralizing, almost like I have to feel bad that I’m not weight conscious.
Yes, I am lucky. Not lucky for not having to worry if I’m going to fit into my jeans, but lucky that having this body type has instilled a sense of positivism in me. Being that I’ve never really had to worry about the size of my body, I don’t look at or judge other people for that.
So when I joined a sorority and found that 90 percent of my conversations consisted of dieting (how many calories that food item has, looking good for spring break, etc.) I was a heartbeat away from joining my guy friends, drinking calorific beer and ordering a pizza. I have a tendency to do that still as an escape being constantly surrounded by girls that fat talk.
I understand that many people struggle with weight; however, most girls are not looking at their weight in terms of health, but in terms of how they and how they think others see themselves. It’s giving them negative attitudes in addition to low self-esteem. A lot of the time, the negative comments girls make about their bodies drive me crazy.
I know that’s terrible to say, that I should understand how these girls feel and sympathize with them. But just once I would love to sit at a meal and not have a comment on how fattening the food is or how bad it is for you. Being in an environment with so much fat talk has even gotten me having negative thoughts about my body or my weight and I’m sure I’m not the only girl affected by this.
It’s up to girls who have not yet been destroyed by fat talk to help those that do think positively. Giving girls good comments about their bodies when you’re not trying to counteract fat talk will help eliminate an “Am I fat?” question in the next couple minutes. Also, not giving in to fat talk and refusing to participate in it with your friends will help to drop the conversation faster. IU’s Pan-Hellenic is putting on a Reflections program to help girls think better about their bodies and I encourage everyone that has the opportunity to go through with it.
In an ideal world, there would be no fat talk and I’d be surrounded by people who were able to eat when they wanted without a fleeting thought and put on an outfit without negative concerns about how they look in it. Now I know this is never going to happen: we do live in a society with stick thin models, reality weight loss shows, McDonalds, and slim fast bars.
So I strongly would like to persuade everyone to not give into fat talk, and help promote good body image. Girls don’t realize the power their fat talk has in affecting other people to have negative thoughts and it’s turning into a dominoes effect on our society.
Being realistic, I know that living in a house of over 70 girls I’m not going to be able to go out for that late night snack without a snarky fat talk comment, however, I love all the girls in my house and hate seeing them feel bad about themselves. So although I’m not going to spend my life protesting fat talk, I am going to promote positive image talk and can hopefully change the attitude of at least one girl. There’s only so much one can do being a skinny girl in a problematic fat talking world, but every effort can be greatly worth the difference.