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Someone tweeted (I’d have put her tweets here but I didn't ask her permission) about how her "fatness" made her feel insecure at a certain point in her life. At first, I was flummoxed. Where was the insecurity coming from? This girl is beautiful. This negative reaction to her own self, her body, was as a result of living in a society that preached “Thin” = “Beautiful”. We have to stop this horse crap lest our daughters are born into a society that pushes young women into the jaws of eating disorders. If we have the need to lose weight, it should be because it's a healthy thing to do. We shouldn't embark on a weight-loss journey because we want to conform with the "normal" beauty ideal.

I was irked when I saw an acquaintance’s ticket to a fashion show. There in the picture was a model. The first thing I did on seeing the picture was to count her bones. Lord! She wasn’t just skinny. I must say she looked grotesque! She looked malnourished, impoverished. I was wondering how she ever made herself look like this.

Questions for us (women):
1.Why is thin, horribly thin, beautiful?
2.At what point in history did we (women) allow thin and malnourished become the beauty ideal?
3.When did “less meat” become the new “it”?
4.Why can’t we (women) be seen as beautiful with our normal bodies?

When I write normal bodies, I’m referring to the type of body we will have if we decided to eat three square meals everyday. Honestly, some of us do not eat three times a day because of we're scared the scale would ask us to come back alone whenever we want to weigh ourselves.

Few of my friends are models. I feel bad when they tell me the lengths they go to get jobs and keep them.

“I can’t take ice cream and pizza with you. I can’t be fat,” said one.

“I need to catch malaria or salmonella. I’ve added weight,” another said. This girl is absolutely gorgeous. I felt she should add about 6 pounds to her frame. Yet, she was telling me that she needed to lose weight.

I hear asinine things and I wonder, “Why do women go to these extremes?” For models, I understand it’s their job. Bulimia and anorexia are occupational hazards for this job, I guess.

This is unfair!

It gets more annoying when pictures are photoshopped to give us an image of the ideal woman. What is the meaning of that?

Am fleshy and i love myself that way.

The media blatantly lies to us. It shoves an unrealistic woman at us telling us that’s how we’re meant to look. The media cannot pretend it doesn’t know how powerful it is. For Heaven’s sake, it is an agent of socialisation! It will inadvertently influence the audience, society. I was beyond elated when Zendaya called out a magazine, Modeliste, for photoshopping her picture. She took to her Instagram page and made a side by side comparison of the photos.

One of my favourite feminist writers, Naomi Wolf in her book The Beauty Myth, wrote:

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”

Oftentimes, I jocosely tell my sister that there is “die” in “dieting”. I buttress this point with a part of W.B. Yeats’ poem, Adam’s Curse:

“The “beautiful mild woman”—whose voice, is so sweet and low it will cause many men heartache—replied that to be born a woman is to know that one must work at being beautiful, even though that kind of work is not discussed at school.

Being Thin doesnt mk you beautiful .some men love fat ladies ..one man's indomie is anoda's spaghetti

This line got to me: “one must work at being beautiful, even though that kind of work is not discussed at school”. This goes on to say that it should be an inherent knowledge. We (women) MUST know that we have to be beautiful. And beauty is work. It's like we should be preoccupied with it. Indeed, this desire, which bears a semblance to obsession, to be seen as beautiful has played up our narcissism. As Maureen Dowd aptly put in her book, Are Men Necessary:

“(...) women are evolving backward--becoming more focused on their looks than ever. Feminism has been defeated by narcissism.”

Feminism in this context is gender equality. If he doesn't have to take time to look beautiful, she doesn't have to take time to look beautiful. Naomi sums it up with this:

“The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance.”

In Ovid’s Art of Love Book III Part II, he wrote:

“Beauty is a gift of the gods: how many can boast it? ... Taking pains brings beauty. Beauty neglected dies (...)”

There you have it. You must work hard to be beautiful. It seems like an aim. It has always been the “thing” to be beautiful if we want the society to validate us. Naomi put it like this:

“Beauty' is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age (...) best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.”

She went on to write that:

“No matter what a woman's appearance may be, it will be used to undermine what she is saying and taken to individualize - as her personal problem - observations she makes about the beauty myth in society.”

The desire to be thin has caused young women to suffer from eating disorders. I know people that throw up after eating. A friend once told me, “I just couldn't keep it down; the guilt. I had to throw it all up. I just couldn't sleep with that food weighing on my tummy, thighs, hips and conscience.”

Nowadays, some women compete with other women based on beauty. It's like we're striving to be the "most desirable woman in the universe". And it gets annoying when it seems a beautiful woman has an undue advantage over women that are considered "unpretty". Beautiful women easily attract men. This way, these women can wrap men around their tiny, little fingers. I've seen how this play out.

READ MORE ON:https://thefemmemedia..com.ng/2015/12/dying-to-be-thin-sorry-i-mean-beautiful.html#more

prettytasha:
Being Thin doesnt mk you beautiful .some men love fat ladies ..one man's indomie is anoda's spaghetti

True, my sister.

skinny used to be hot...everybody I know is eating to be thick these days

prettytasha:
Being Thin doesnt mk you beautiful .some men love fat ladies ..one man's indomie is anoda's spaghetti

ur beautiful

quiinnBee:
why should you let society's definition of "beauty" get to you.
as long as you're comfortable with yourself in your skin,thats all that matters

I feel people are different. What gets to Person A might not get to Person B.

SunehriLasgidi:
I feel people are different. What gets to Person A might not get to Person B.

that just shows insecurity.

Specialbaby:
Am fleshy and i love myself that way.

am addicted to bbw

Estharfabian:
Well, if You don't like Your Body...There's always means of changing it..-\ plastic surgery, eating right? workout?

Fat isn't healthy....Most especially Abdominal Obesity..( it could lead to many complications...)Despite the fact that most Niggaz prefer fat women..

I Ain't even close to slim Buh atleast I could boast of A tiny stomach n A slim waist... coz I Workout a lot n eat right..

If You wanna change the way you look...You could always do it, by hardwork n determination...Don't do it just because U wanna Look good for some guy...do it because U wanna feel healthy n be healthy..

most niggers prefer fat women.......sorry, I don't, and I can say majority of my friends don't as well, but your last paragraph is the TRUE punchline......

Until competition among ladies stop, "dying to be beautiful" will never end.
Sebi we read of one yesterday making use of 'toxic' snails to enhancing beauty.

Ehmmm i dunno what to say

eroticecstasy:
am addicted to bbw

Two of you should connect. HEHEHE...

ayobase:
Until competition among ladies stop, "dying to be beautiful" will never end.

Sebi we read of one yesterday making use of 'toxic' snails to enhancing beauty.

Are you serious? I didn't read it.

Estharfabian:
LoL!

You've probably not seen a fat girl That made You drool...

Move to My school...They've taken over..All the Dudes Want The big Ass, boob, Arms and gigantic Belly...

probably that......but I have big girls as friends and I like them, but dating them is a no for me, maybe cos I'm skinny I just don't find them attractive no matter how BEAUTIFUL....
maybe someone will change my view on this..

and what school is that?
are you a big lady

N I'm here doing my all to gain weight? I think a lil flesh is ok.

Alezy:
ur beautiful

thank u sir

SunehriLasgidi:
Two of you should connect. HEHEHE...

i have not seen any yet, do you have any to reccomend?

Who said that?Abeg that one happens with those anorexic white bitches..In Africa,thick(not obesed) is the in thing.Im even trying to eat more to become fatter

Hello,

The shows you have is great, and it is my brand. Thank you for the presentations.

Being overweight or underweight isn't healthy. I feel we should calculate our Body Mass Index (BMIs) and make sure it's within the healthy range.

Specialbaby:
Am fleshy and i love myself that way.

then we are compatible, team bbw4eva