Girls are meant to be curvy....

and that's ok. Perhaps we should be celebrating that. Before I start writing this, for full disclosure I will cite Robin:

 "This is a post that is going to talk about weight, specifically me worrying about my weight and body size even though I am a thin person. So you might not want to read this if you struggle with disordered eating or body image problems or even if weight talk just makes your eyes roll."

 This post is part of the 2011 Love Your Body Day Blog Carnival

 I just started reading this book (thanks to Marcela, who recommended it to me a short while ago), and I am so thankful I laid my hands  on it. Already on page 9 it knocked me right off my socks. You see, I am a healthy eater. I love food. I try to eat a balanced diet. But still, and I don't know if it is a girl thing, I am guilty of obsessing about my weight and about my rounded girly forms. Yes, I am a slender person. But I also have hips, a bum and well proportioned legs.

 I am lucky enough that even when as a teenager I would feel self conscious because my legs were not as thin as most of the other girls' in junior high school were, my parents would always compliment me on my legs, say they were nice, and so I grew up to learn to love them. Thing is, I am quite certain that with age come changes in metabolism, and in body form. When I was 19 I weighed around 8 kg less than I do now, and the first big weight change came a year after I started university. I am pretty sure this shift can be attributed to the fact that I was living by myself for the first time in my life. I was in charge of cooking and taking care of my diet and that involved lots of pasta, cereal, cookies and ice-cream eaten directly from the 1 L pots that my friends and I would just eat while studying. Yeah, we also ate salads, but I am guessing not enough. Those first 2 years I put on some 12 kg (!!!) and I was at my heaviest.

 In the meantime, without any real plan I lost some of that weight, but I had been obsessing about losing these 4 kg that just won't go away, that are maybe part of me, but that I didn't want to acknowledge because they didn't use to be there in the first place, you know, when I was 17. And yes, also about that muffin top that you can see when I am wearing bad jeans or a bikini. I don't know if all of this has to do with the images that the media constantly bombards us with, that end up creeping in into the minds of girls, but I don't like the blame game. I think this thing we do of "feeling" fat comes with periods, menstrual cramps, swelling, and the general bloaedtness of  those days. And so I wanted to lose those 4 kg, in order to lower my Body Mass Index back to 18.5, to force myself to be healthy, but in the limit of thin.  Yes, crazy, idiotic me. (Not that I was actually doing anything about it, because I am super lazy when it comes to exercise and I am conscious enough to not stop eating).  Anyway, back to page 9 of the book:

"As a result of extensive research, fertility expert and Harvard professor Rose Frisch maintains that only 10 percent of women are fertile with a body mass index of 18. She says: 'Many women who maintain body shape made popular on the catwalks throughout the world are completely infertile '. Even if you are underweight and still have periods, your diet can affect your fertility. This is because your body needs a sufficient intake of fat (albeit the right kind) to produce the hormones required for ovulation". 

Do you realize? That means that 90 % of girls with a BMI of 18, which is supposed to be healthy, who are having regular periods could be sub-fertile. Wow. Yay for the "happy weight". I don't want to lose the extra kg. anymore. I should have known better. But IT has to stop. The pressure on girls to be thin. To believe that if you don't look like Kate Moss you are not as pretty, as valuable, worth it. And I thought I was smarter than all of that. With my silly "I want to be as thin as possible within the healthy standard" reasoning I fell right into that trap. The cultural messages have to change. Girls have to learn, to be taught to embrace their naturally curvy bodies, because they are like that for a reason. For a good, healthy reason. If you want to read more about the subject here is an article about Dr. Frisch (mentioned above) or you can read what these smart girls have written on the subject: Robin, and Lauren. It is up to us girls to break and fight these damaging, toxic stereotypes that drive us crazy for no good reason.