Someone made a comment today that prompted me to write this week's blog entry about prejudice and discrimination against overweight women.
Firstly I'd like to point out that I am pretty happy with my body; even so, when someone makes a negative remark it can be quite upsetting and make me quite self-conscious. Someone was looking at a picture of me today and told me (even though i never asked for his opinion) that my arms looked "flabby". Why is it that that comment upset me? it might be because the media has taught us that being bigger built or flabby are undesireable characteristics in a woman. however i think the main reason why it upset me is that it's bad enough if strangers judge you but you'd think that your friends wouldn't because they are your friends for different reasons. I just know that i never notice if any of my friends gain or lose weight. and it's not because i dont care about them but because i just don't find their outer appearance of importance. Unfortunately there seem to be people who do care about their friend's outer appearance.
Given the profound negative connotation of obesity for women, it is not surprising that even normal weight women tend to be very concerned about their weight.
Why are so many women unhappy with their body-shapes and sizes?
One reason is that they are constantly exposed to unrealistic standards of thinness.
I remember the first time i heard that Madonna (the singer) doesn't allow her children to watch tv or read newspapers/magazines and how i felt sorry for them. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=7&entry_id=1341)
I have to admit that by now I completely understand and i respect her for being so strong with her children. they might still grow up in the spotlight but they won't be (so) affected by the media in so many ways.
They will not grow up thinking slim in beautiful, they will make their own decisions and maybe not even stereo-type (as all of those ideas are formed by the media too, since the media likes to focus on negative news). For example, the only time mental illness comes up in the news it is usually portrayed in a negative light, thus the steroetype that the mentally ill do bad things.
Most parents try to shield their children from the world but fail by the time their children become adolescents. It is not even such an extreme action to be taken, but the same way cigarrette ads were banned from tv and news-papers, slimming ads should be banned too.
Am i getting off point here? I just want to add one last point. Singapore is especially bad when it comes to slimming ads and whitening ads. Telling their own country-men that they need to be whiter and slimmer to be considered beautiful. What is up with that? Telling your own people? I'd never seen slimming ads in Austria and even there I was aware of being a bit biger built so I cannot imagine growing up in a country like Singapore where the ideal body is advertised at bus-stops, on tv, in magazines and you are always given a brochure when u walk down Orchard Road. There is just no way of escaping from it.
It's just so sad.
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7 comments:
I totally agree with you, Julia. I feel you hit the nail on the head when you said that its suprising that personal friends may be judging each other this way. It's like, a few years ago when I was in JC, my friend and I had to attend Trim-and-Fit club cause we were overweight. And she wouldnt stop complaining and yakking about it, and went on this crazy diet to lose kilos of weight in a week to get out of the program. I felt very very offended because I knew i had to remain in the program for weeks and I felt that while i wished her the best of luck in losing weight since thats what makes her happy, i felt she should have been more sensitive to my feelings and not made it seem like it was the worst thing in the world to have other people see you exercising in the field with all the other TAF students.
And then i realized that it was nothing personal, its just that while she cared about what others thought, I didnt care. Being overweight hasnt been that big an issue for me because I've been surrounded by friends who have never judged me for it. So thats the best thing we can do in this crazy world where the media is just obsessed with stereotypes of beauty. That, and speak up when something others say bother you, like the usage of the word "fat".
haha, i get alot of that from some friends too. they keep telling me 'you need to lose weight'. although i can see their point of view that its for reasons such as improving your overall health, i'm simply comfortable with the way i look and my weight. a close guy friend used to keep telling me that i needed to lose weight. my stance was to respond to him consistently everytime that i'm very happy with the way i look and my weight. moreover, my weight was still within the acceptable range. so i don't see the need to lose weight on purpose. after quite a few times, he finally gave up telling me to lose weight. incidentally, during conversations with our other mutual friends, we realized that he has been going around telling many of our female friends that they needed to lose weight even when their bodies looked pretty proportionate without much flab. i like what the model, Tyra Banks, say to such people. she even started a 'So what' campaign on her talkshow to spread the message to other females that its ok to feel comfortable with your weight and being in your own skin. her response to what my guy friend commented about my size would probably be: "So what! So what if i have some bits of jiggly flesh on my arms and thighs? So what if i've got a tummy?"
Although no one has ever told me that i need to lose weight but i alwayz have people telling me that i need to put on weight. many people thinks that being thin means you'll look gd but i really don't agree with that. people said that i look anorexic, i eat alot but i hardly put on weight, many might kill me for saying this but it really is a pain when you're eatin so much tryin to put on weight yet there's no effect and you get the 'are you anorexic' look. I don't really care how others think, but just that i think i'm really too skinny n don't look gd in some real pretty clothings. *sighz*
Ah how true! Everyday, as I flip the newspaper the ads just keep appearing. It's like if you don't lose weight, you look like some frumpy old granny. Even then, what's wrong with frumpy old granny? I have a friend who went into depression because of her weight and attempted to take slimming pills. She say that she wants to look slim and pretty but not exercise. She IS pretty. But she said her size doesn't conform to the normal pretty. She's not fat by they way, just really tall.
I think that if it's to be slim and healthy, it's okay. But you have to exercise to be healthy right? But the slimming ads don't emphasize on exercising at all. They usually claim to let you lose weight by not exercising. They even have treatments that target so called "problem areas".
What's wrong with us? Must we all look like the same shape before it's called ideal? If that happens, it'll be called, Boring.
THis is the thing, yeah? Media knows that advertisement are literally more attractive with so-called *ideal* sized models. This horrendous persuasion we have is ridiculous. Why the media portray all women that way even though only a small minority is actually that way? I guess its all to sell a newspaper. They know that we will attribute more positively the product if the people looked more attractive. Sad - psychology to turn a profit, this is. :(
Yeah, because of the message that the media keeps sending to the people in Singapore, now the trend here is to be 'Slim and Thin' especially for the ladies. It's really sad and makes people especially the not so slim ones uncomfortable sometimes. Because it's a trend here, if you are different from the slim ones, you are like an 'alien' to them. Most ladies in Singapore try to be as thin as possible. Whenever I go to Orchard, I can see so many slim and sexy ladies walking around. And sometimes they will give you a kind of negative look to tell you that you are FAT even though you are like only 3 or 4 kg more than them.
The slimming clinics and their hard sell! has to be experienced to be believed. I have a friend who is a Tai Tai and a mother of a kid. I think she looks great, but once she got conned into signing up for this package which promised losing weight with 'wraps'! for goodness sake. She paid up and the only thing that is slimmer is her wallet. Now her 13 year old boasts how she can survive on 1 idli the whole day.
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