To wonder why we hate our curves?

[malificent7]

Ive been reading the beauty myth by Naomi Wolf and she makes some very intetesting points about the diet industry.

In the 1950s etc when women weren't in the workplace, curves were celebrated. Monroe was a size 16.

Since the 1960s when Twiggy was a role model, women were more succesful at work so the patriarchy had to make women slaves to being thin to keep them in check.

So do men prefer curvy women? Isn't fat on females healthy? Ive read on here that men stop fancying their partners when they put on weight?

So are thinner women more attractive or is that just what society wants?

From experience and after reading threads on here, dieting makes us miserable and we have a bad relationship with food..so why hate our natural curves (not obesity rolls of fat.)?

Well Im curviest when Im thin.
If I go overweight my curves get filled in and I dont go in and out and in again any more (i.e. CURVing).
So I LOVE my curves but I dont have them any more if I go over a size 10/12....

"Fat" isnt curvey.

A BMI of 10 -15 is no worse than a BMI of 40+

It is much much worse . At a bmi of 10 you are fairly likely to be dead. That is a very scary thing to write. Mine is 23 btw before someone jumps up and says that I am obese and in denial.

OP curves are a body shape, many of us are actually pretty straight up and down with small breasts and hips and that is normal. If I put on weight I don't become curvy, I just get fatter in the same body type.

Are someone's grroming standards low if they have sagging tits? No. So I think you've got my post completely wrong

No I didn't. You specifically asked why we should care about what we look like. Personal grooming is part of that. You cannot say it's excluded. I have no clue what saggy tits has to do with it though, because generally we tend not to walk about with them swinging by our waist bands.

dieting makes us miserable

Bitchy rubbish. Its a myth that being fatter makes you jolly

Eating "badly" makes me feel foggy, grumpy, depressed, gassy, painfully bloated, achey, headachey and snappy.

Eating healthy without excessive calories makes me feel more energetic, makes my mind clearer/sharper, my digestion more comfortable, my bowel movements more regular, my sleep better, my stress management better and I just feel generally happier on a good "diet"

Agree with that springhen

Too much rubbish food is sold to us as 'normal' and we are led to believe every single activity we do needs to have junk food attached

I hate where we are with regards to food

Being overweight isn't healthy, some use it as at way to be nasty about others, because they don't find it attractive or because they enjoy being twats, let's face it fat shaming isn't done out of concern or love. Same goes for slim women being berated for being too skinny or being mocked for their 'lack of curves' just look at the shitty comments Ray/Rey from star wars got. Women are always too fat or too slim, men don't get anywhere near this level of scrutiny.

Instead of why not love X, y and z why not collectively decide that what someone weighs has fuck all do with the general public.

We are so lucky to live a in world where we can look the way we want, wear what we please, have access to cheap procedures to make us look better - fake tan, botox, hair dye, even plastic surgery to correct what is troubling us. It's brilliant, why not make the most of it instead of resigning ourselve that our looks are gone forever when we reach 39.

Wtaf . Different people prioritise looks to a different degree. It is up to the individual. I'm not that bad for my age but hell would freeze over before I had a fake bake or sat there while some woman fannied around with my nails.

teateanadmoretea - okay, maybe I mean BMI 50+, I don't know. Whatever BMI it is when a person is in as much medical danger as someone with anorexia.
I might have got the numbers wrong but the point I was making was, I think, the same as yours. Fat isn't the end of the world. Anorexic often is.

I like having my nails fannied around with.

It's just part of your culture. It's not really important, just about what other people say is important.

I think I'm lucky in that i grew up in culture where health trumped superficiality.

I'm 5'2" and a size 22 and I am curvy. I have big boobs and a small waist and big hips. From the front I look great. Most of my weight is on my stomach, bum and thighs. I don't eat unhealthily but I don't do enough exercise and my job is fairly sedentary.

I have hated the way I looked all my life. I married an abusive and controlling man because i thought that he was as good as I could get because I was fat and ugly.

After I finally left him I had a short lived boyfriend. Short lived because after we had sex for the first time he told me I was too fat to satisfy him.

After that I stayed single and celibate for a decade before meeting my current partner - a talk, good looking and athletic man who thinks I'm beautiful. He doesn't have a fat fetish. He just loves and fancies me.

The worst comments have been from women. In particular those who can't believe that a) I have a successful career - I'm an architect and have my own company and b) that a good looking vet could possibly find me attractive.

I am sick to fucking death of being judged for my weight, lectured about healthy eating and given unsolicited advice about how to loose weight. I a, constantly justifying myself and explaining why I am fat and having to share private information about the state of my health in order to get them to stfu about it.

I am tired of feeling less, or being blamed for the NHS crisis and at the moment constantly bombarded by cancer fucking research telling me I'm going to get cancer.

I may lose weight and become more acceptable in this society. I may not. One thing is for sure though - my partner is right. I am beautiful.

Good for you bluelady each to their own.

manic here is no upper weight that can possibly be as dangerous as having a bmi of 10.

I'm a size 6-8, BMI skirts around the lower end of healthy and slightly underweight (18ish) but I have curves. I'm not Kim Kardashian but my waist is smaller than my hips and at 28D I'm not completely flat chested. I don't diet, it's my natural frame. Whether or not 'real women have curves' or not is irrelevant to me - my body is my body, and whether or not that's attractive to men is neither here nor there tbh.

I just wonder if it's healthy to aim for a size 10 if it means being on a permant diet/ exercise regime.

What?

I'm an 8 and not on a permanent diet. I also do 0 exercise, my work is about 5 mins from my house so I'm basically sedentary.

I just eat healthy and don't overeat. I eat carbs for dinner and normal food. It's not hard and I've never felt like I'm suffering. I like being slim more than I like desserts or junk food or Coca Cola, which actually isn't that much (because cravings for that stuff disappear when you don't eat them) - maybe on a hangover I'll get a fry up or takeaway, but that's like every 3 months.

Being healthy isn't a "permanent diet" fgs it's a lifestyle, one we should be aspiring to.

Those blessed with them tend not to hate their non-euphemistic curves.

(Though currently a stone or so overweight, I’m not either kind of curvy.)

Also do you mean rolls when you say curves?

I love my curves (waist:hip ratio) but hate when I get rolls.

Everyones on a diet FFS
Just some are healthy diets & some arent.

Bitchy rubbish. Its a myth that being fatter makes you jolly

could not agree more.

moretea - are you sure? What about those people who can't move and weigh 600-800lbs? I've had a BMI of 10.4 and have lived to tell the tale. Lots of people that overweight are dead as a direct result of their weight. Likewise some very low weight anorexics are dead and some of the super morbidly obese are still alive. I think both extremes are dicing with death and require immediate change but I'm not sure one can be said to be definitively worse.

But I don't know why I'm arguing the point really seeing as my original purpose in posting was to disagree with the person who said that being fat was no better than being anorexic!!

manicinsomniac
Fat isn't the end of the world. Anorexic often is.
Bollocks.
Many, many times more people die of obesity related disease than die of anorexia
(definitely in the West and pretty much on a worldwide scale now)

The word curvy has been used to replace the word fat because to say someone is fat is seen as fat
Curvy is not fat
Curvy is a defined waist flat stomach bigger hips and boobs not rolls upon rolls of fat

But a current size 8/10 is a healthy weight. You don’t have to do a stupid diet to achieve it. You just have to eat healthily, excercise portion control and not eat rubbish. 50 years ago people ate much healthier diets and didn’t snack. Most women were that size. They weren’t alway “ on a diet” The problem is the abundance of readily available, cheap, tasty, unhealthy food now that make it harder to eat healthy and makes people feel the need to go on diets to have the will power to avoid.

Is a size 8 a healthy weight? 8 is very small.

As someone pointed out above, MM's body was much softer than what you'd probably expect to see on a film star today, so our expectations have changed. But no way was she overweight or obese. I don't believe anyone should be shamed for their weight, but equally being fat (ie having significant rolls, being at a weight that is heavier than you should be for your height) is not healthy. At the moment, I'm way above my fighting weight. My BMI is fine, but I just need to look at myself in the mirror to see that I am way heavier than I should be. And that is because I eat loads of crap that I don't need. To be a good size 10 I don't need to be on a "permanent diet", but I do need to not eat chocolate and cakes everyday. Which I do.

Of course size 8 is a healthy weight size for most individuals. I'm 5'6 and a size 10. I have wobbly bits. If I lost 10-12lbs and toned up a bit, I would be a size 8 and be as healthy as I am now (healthier for doing more strength training) and look better, too.

Why would you think a size 8 isn't healthy?