The Clarion Online

Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: Opinions

Media Credit: Denise Heady Denise Heady

I'm 5-foot-2 and weigh 112 pounds.

Most people consider me to be average. Some would even say that I am on the skinny side.

But I feel enormous. Up until last year, I never weighed more than 100 pounds.

You might think I'm weird, or even crazy, for considering myself to be too big. But let me explain.

First, take a look at the culture we live in.

Images of women are plastered everywhere. They are used to sell everything from fishing line to fast food. These models are tall and slender.

The women in these ads are 5-foot-10 and weigh 105 pounds. How can real women compete with that kind of body image?

Women's magazines are filled with articles urging young women to get in shape.

They claim that if we only lose 15 more pounds, we will achieve the perfect body, which, as a result, will give us the perfect life.

And who doesn't want a perfect life?

Most of us grew up playing with Barbie dolls. However, that widely popular toy gives little girls a false ideal of the female body.

Researchers have found if they were to generate a real woman with Barbie's proportions, her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel.

If a real woman were built this way, she would suffer from chronic diarrhea and eventually die from malnutrition.

This is the type of body real women typically strive for, unattainable perfection that can eventually kill them.

One out of every four college-age women use unhealthy methods of weight control: fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative abuse and self-induced vomiting, according to the American research group Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc.

Not only that, but 70 percent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight.

If you take a look at the women portrayed on television, you will find skinny actresses playing the roles of everything from a mother to a lawyer.

Canadian researcher Gregory Fouts reported that out of all the women on television sitcoms, three-quarters of the females are underweight and only one in twenty are above average size.

Full-sized women never seem to stay in the limelight for too long. Skinny never goes out of style.

Us "normal" women are always told we are not OK the way we are. There is always something about us that needs to be fixed. And we keep subconsciously sucking in these messages.

I know I'm not medically "fat," but if you were to stand me next to Nicole Richie or Victoria Beckham, I would look like a hippopotamus.

I'm content with my figure, but I know it's far from perfect. In our society, for a woman perfection means being extremely skinny.

I wish I could say I've embraced my womanly curves and love the extra bounce in my walk. But I haven't quite reached that point of self acceptance yet.

And I know I'm not the only one who hasn't come into terms with what a real woman should look like. If that were the case, women would not subject themselves to diets and pills taken to slim down to the size society tells them they should be .

Denise Heady can be reached at dheady8@yahoo.com

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