"Dying to be thin"

This blog entry is inspired by a conversation I had Friday night with my friends Megan and Heidi. The conversation revolved around size, weight, and the term "plus sized."

Today we all live in a society where we are told that thin is beautiful. If you aren't thin, you aren't beautiful. Simple as that. However, I think the topic goes much deeper then that. I honestly believe that you can be beautiful at any size. Size doesn't determine beauty, self confidence does.

That being said, first and foremost I would like to say that I have struggled with weight all my life. I have been overweight since the age of 5. I am what would be considered plus sized on top, and "normal" size on the bottom. That hasn't always been the case though. When I was 16 years old I weighed the most that I have ever weighed. (some where between 300 and 330lbs) I have been teased all my life. It seems that when ever some one has a problem with me their comments are immediately directed at my weight, no matter how relevant it is to the situation. Since 16 I have lost a significant amount of weight, and gained a portion of it back. I now weigh in at around 260lbs. I am 5'11" so most people would never guess that is what I weigh. But by medical standards I am still obese. By magize standards I am not beautiful.

So many women today judge their self worth by the number on their clothing. The number on the clothes goes up and their self worth goes down. There are so many things about that that's not okay. Why should we let the number on the scale or the number on our clothes wreck our days? Marilyn Monroe, one of the most beautiful women in history, was not a size 2. She wasn't even a size 4 or a size 6. In todays standard Marilyn would have been a plus sized model. But she was breath takingly beautiful.

Today there are so many teenagers, adults, and middle age people with eating disorder it is astonishing. People are literally dying to be thin. People would rather die then be "fat." I think this is absurd. Why can't we as human beings except ourselves for who we are. Whether we have gained weight from a pregnancy, illness, injury, or just a bad life style why must we constantly be reminded that we are not good enough?

That leads me to the term Plus sized and plus size stores. Why does there need to be a term plus size? Why can't it just be another size. Why must there be stored specially intended for bigger women? I have experienced the looks walking into a plus sized store and shopping in the plus sized sections. The looks that say "yep, there she goes into the big girls store. then she'll probably head to the food court and get even bigger." Or that's at least what it feels like the looks are saying.

We as people need to stop making it okay to attack other people for how much they weigh. We need to stop putting worth on other humans because of there weight. We need to stop making okay for magazines to tell us that if we aren't thin, we aren't beautiful. Most of all we need to support each other in weight loss journeys if that's a goal that we have. Whether you're a size 2 or a size 22 you are beautiful. Your size doesn't determine your value, you determine your value. We need to stop telling little girls that they have to be thin to be loved. We need to stop dying to be thin. Being thin should not be our goals. Being healthy should be. So lets all together stop the name calling, stop the stares, throw away our scales and be happy being the person you are!