The Skinny: I'm Sick of Being Told to Shrink Myself

As a self-titled Fashion Girl, being thin used to feel necessary; size 00 sample sizes, the Kate Moss mold, model diets of cigarettes and Diet Coke. The world is certainly changing, but no matter what plus-size brands come into fashion, many women are still on the quest for a smaller waistline, haute couture aside.

I can’t stop snacking, help!

I didn’t eat all day so I could go ham on this birthday cake LOL

I just really want to lose five pounds. (-Regina George)

I need to lose some weight before our beach trip next month.

Why is it always about lessening and losing? Taking away food, taking away five pounds, taking away whatever it is our bodies are telling us they want. Not to worry Vogue editors, the fashion industry is not solely to blame. The smallness in weight is merely a representation of the smallness we’re expected to take up in the physical space of the world.

In the subway or on a crowded plane, I cross my legs, hold my purse over my lap, and try to shrink myself as small as possible to make everyone else around me more comfortable. Maybe it’s an act of compassion, and maybe it’s polite, but I think it’s more gender-specific than a matter of manners. The position men often sit in is a confident stance, with their knees spread and their arms crossed. They’re typically the bigger gender in frame, and yet, they’re less conscious about the physical space they’re taking up, on a crowded subway or otherwise.

Men also have a bigness in their speech. Historically, they know to talk over others, to be confident and vocal in what they want. In high school English papers, the teenage girls write “I think…” and “I believe…” far too often, to give the reader room to disagree (an attempt to make others more comfortable). Teenage boys, however, statistically state their opinion by way of fact, feeling no need to prepare for possible discomfort from the reader. A powerful male CEO is called “successful” or “smart” rather than “bossy” and “bitchy.” The cultural desire to be skinny is just a physical and sexualized representation of the cultural decision men made centuries ago that women are supposed to be “small.”

Well, quite frankly, I am sick of being told to shrink myself.

The quest to make ourselves smaller is stressful, destructive, and a complete waste of energies. Obsessing over our bodies is only distracting us from more important things like running successful companies, being mindful in moments with our families, and putting compassionate and worthy people into government.

Besides, those extra inches on the waistline; those extra five, ten, fifteen pounds, is where life happens. That’s the extra glass of wine with your boyfriend, the trip you took to Paris with your best friend, your favorite chocolate cake from the bakery down the road that tastes like the one your mom used to make. It's the late night pizza you had with friends when you laughed so hard that ranch came out of your nose, the ice cream cone at the beach in the middle of August. Why are we so focused on shrinking these moments, demoting them to be worth nothing more than a pants size or a fat roll?

We are so focused on making our bodies smaller that we forget about the loves, the laughs, the hugeness in us that makes us actually happy. Why don’t we just let our bodies exist in the healthy, happy space they want to be in, no matter how much of it they take up?

Every woman should make the conscious effort to stop trying to shrink herself, and rather love her bigness. My advice to you, dear reader, and my call to women everywhere, is to love what's big: in body, in personality, in altruism, in voice, in confidence, in aspirations. Keep trying to be bigger and bigger and bigger until the world can no longer point at you and call you small. 

---

---

What to Read Next