Women, “health”, and the beauty standard

*Note: possible eating disorder related trigger

So I’ve been thinking a lot about how much of women’s “health” is aimed at things other than, you know, actual health. I speak here, personally, as a young, fairly thin woman. Not fashion model material, but measuring as the so-vaunted hourglass figure. I also speak as someone who has watched a mother gain weight from medicine, and the aftermath of that.

To start, a few personal stories. At one point, I basically stopped eating. I was having solid food once every three days or so. A number of people complimented me, told me how good I looked, how wonderful it was that I had managed to lose weight. Even though I was already at the very bottom of the “healthy” scale. (My BMI is naturally somewhere between 17 and 18.)

Another incident: Last semester I enrolled in a strength training class. Yes, for my health. Primarily because exercise helps my mood immensely, secondarily because I just plain want to be a bit stronger and thought it would be better to get some training in a supervised environment instead of hurting myself on my own. I was amazed at the number of responses that, explicitly or implicitly, said that I was doing it for my weight. Some were outright warnings not to “get too into it,” because I would start looking “masculine” if I gained too much muscle mass. Some were comments like “Why would you do that? You already look great!”

Note one thing in common here: while both situations were framed as being about my health, neither really ended up having anything to do with my health. My “health” apparently consists, almost exclusively, in how attractive I look. This, I think, is the important point. Our society frames healthy in terms of what it thinks is attractive. These need to be divorced from each other. The most obvious connection is in eating disorders, but this affects all of us. Health is a complex thing, and we are almost expected to sacrifice it for the sake of beauty. In closing: take care of yourself, sisters, no matter what body shape you have, and don’t let anyone tell you that you are healthy or unhealthy based on whether you are thin or fat.

Oh, and, feel free to discuss more ways this affects heavier-weight women, women of color, etc.  Like I said, I am naturally thin, I’m sure there’s plenty of effects that I’m missing here.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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