...to be so sad about the fact that women can't just be happy with their bodies.

[justanothernotsoyummymummy]

The thin ones are told they're not "real" because they don't have curves.

The heavier ones are told they need to follow fad diets to become thinner.

Why can't we just be encouraged to lead a healthy lifestyle and to embrace our figures for what they are?

It really upsets me.

I agree with Teapigging.

Eleanor Roosevelt said quite brilliantly that "Nobody can make you feel bad about yourself without your consent."
If you don't subscribe to this body nonsense, it you treat it all with the contempt it demands then it cannot touch you.

I think more people should worry more.... There is a huge obesity epidemic in this country. It's rising. It's affecting our children

The NHS say this is a mounting problem.... Obesity related illnesses, along with smoking related is the biggest killers

Don't kid yourselves....

Heysoulsister. Low self esteem and body hatred does not cause people to be more healthy. It makes them more depressed which leads to more unhealthy habits as people self punish by over or under eating.
Happy people are healthier not people who hate themselves.

thants a bit of exercise releases endorphins, can only be a good thing. Don't doctors recommend that?

Playthepinkoboe - such mixed thoughts on reading your post :(

Am going to steal that poem for my FB page and send you hugs for the comment :( Am edging towards 16 stone here, size 22 up top and 18 below - and although I have real self esteem issues, i actually bloody love my body. I am however realistic and know that i am not a healthy weight and need to lose some weight, but for no reason other than fitness 0 im buggered if i am going to beat myself up for not being thin!

I have often been made to feel bad for my size - but only ever by women!

I am not kidding myself either!

If you read your post you said you thought people should worry more. Worrying more means disliking yourself. Yeah eat more fruit and veg and do more exercise that's great. But worrying and being unhappy is not and I think it's wrong that you want to encourage that.

Oh i see this has moved on to surgery - well as a person who never wears more than a teeny amount of mascara and the occasional smattering of lippy, i have never ever been vain - but i tell you something, If i had the money, id be having work done

I used to mock those women who have filler in their lips - stuff that, that will be the first thing i sign up for - i swear my lips have shrunk! Oh and then i'd have some sort of surgery so that no more hair dare grow on my face ever again. I don't think i'd have botox as i have quite a high forehead and would look really silly though. Liposuction and tummy tuck? ummmm, maybe, ah go on then, why not. Boob job - nah, don't need one - i have 38FF beauties that still defy gravity although i can't help but wonder if my tummy is offering some assistance these days Oh and if someone could just do something with the tops of my legs........

I am because i always swore i'd never have work done - and realistically, i wont because i can't afford it and im a wuss, but i would actually reallly like to have a few bits sorted.

I'm pretty happy with my body on the whole, but I am fed up with hearing/reading/being told that 'real women have curves' or 'men like meat on a woman's bones' or that I need to 'eat a burger'

Oh and my DP lurrrves my body - so if had work done it would be 100% for me, the only other person i am remotely interested in pleasing is him, everyone else can do one!

freddie - i take it you are of a more athletic build then? I suspect that those who you hear that from will be jealous! I do think more men than we realise like women with curves, just as lots of men like ladies who are slim - we are, thank God, all different!

Lem try working on why you dislike yourself rather than dreaming about surgery. How you look is simply not that important. Definitely not worth mutilating your body for. Maybe try counselling to work through your body issues. Wounding your body and risking your life will not lead to happiness.

Oh, thanks for your concern Thants - I can assure you that i really don't have body image issues and the list of "work" that i would have done is total fantasy rather than a dream. Honestly, wans't being entirely serious - have had too much I am having counselling for my self esteem issues and my body is definately not on the agenda, if you read my previous post you will see im actually happy with it. Despite my wish list to the contrary

To all of you saying that extreme obesity or being severely underweight is a bad thing - obviously I realise that, and that isn't what I was referring to. What I mean is size 8 women being told they aren't "real women" and size 14s being told they need to be skinnier.

Please bear in mind that I did say in my OP - we should be encouraged to have a healthy lifestyle - i.e. obesity and being very underweight would naturally need addressing.

Sinful1 there are plenty of people, myself included, who are healthy but skinny. For me it's a combination of high metabolism and genetics. Why should I be told I won't appeal to men as I'm not curvy?

DD (16) is just like me. We ordered her a bodycon dress for a party. She tried it on and cried because she has no curves; and thought the dress looked bad. Why can't girls grow up feeling happy in themselves?

This makes me feel so depressed.

I think it is a real shame. My friend is in her first trimester and is basically not eating because she doesn't want to go from having a good figure (in her words) to being overweight. She is determined to be a yummy mummy. I'm a bit worried about her/

I'm thin and hate it. Someone in a shop the other day asked me if I ever ate anything . I find it so offensive, I wouldn't dream of suggesting to someone overweight to lay off the cakes.

I'm 5" 4" and weigh 7.5 stone, have done for 30 thirty years and really dislike the way I look, actually that's not strictly true, I'm fine with myself until somebody makes a comment like the one above, or that I need feeding up, or some meat on my bones or other such delightful comments. Then I feel like crap .

YANBU at all.
It's not just about being underweight or overweight. It goes A LOT further than that. Look at the women who are represented in the media, even women in serious and important roles are picked apart in magazines, their outfits, hair and figures analysed and criticized as if a womans worth is based on her appearance.

Yes, it happens with males too but not as much. Women on TV are regularly being replaced by younger, more glamorous women who conform to a certain ideas of what an attractive woman is. Tv programmes, films, music videos and magazines constantly reduce women to their appearance, ignoring their character and them as a person, it's so easy to be influenced by this and to want to conform and 'be as good as' the women that are represented in the media. This is fed to girls from a very young age and continues to be fed to them. With SO much importance placed on the appearance of women, it can be bloody hard for a woman to be happy with their body, especially when that celeb beach body diet plan tells you that you can achieve a figure that has actually been airbrushed and altered to death and can't be obtained because it doesn't exist. Or when you're constantly told that men like 'curvy' women but there are very specific rules for those curves and the celebrities they fancy are actually very thin women with various implants, a figure which can't really be obtained without plastic surgery...

I'm not happy with my figure, I'm tall but fatter than even my height can handle, starting the gym tomorrow for my dc's - fit healthy mummy - and also to fit into clothes without looking for either fat sizes or a fat people department.

I love me though and although I'm a fat shit I dress nice and am confident in myself most of the time.

YANBU

and a very good question.

Opalite what a lot of men want is for a woman to be slim but have big boobs and still be able to eat steak and chips with him.

Opalite after what you wrote in your post i thought you may be interested to see this article Spotted it in my twitter feed earlier this year.

www.vulture.com/2013/04/leading-men-age-but-their-love-interests-dont.html

"I'm a fat shit"

I know you prefaced that comment with "I love me" and obviously you can describe yourself however you want but I felt quite shocked and sad to read that. If you'd posted that someone else had called you that, it would look like the most brutally abusive language.

I was doing really well, until an awful 'friend' at the gym. Decided to take me aside and say she was worried as I'd put on weight since the wedding. (Size 12 instead of size 10 - over 9 months)