I love JK Rowling. I thought this was really cool:


http://www.jkrowling.com/....cfm?id=22

Being thin. Probably not a subject that you ever expected to read about on this website, but my recent trip to London got me thinking...

It started in the car on the way to Leavesden film studios. I whiled away part of the journey reading a magazine that featured several glossy photographs of a very young woman who is either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder (which is, of course, the same thing); anyway, there is no other explanation for the shape of her body. She can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off (hooray! Another couple of ounces gone!), but her concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms tell a different story. This girl needs help, but, the world being what it is, they're sticking her on magazine covers instead. All this passed through my mind as I read the interview, then I threw the horrible thing aside.

But blow me down if the subject of girls and thinness didn't crop up shortly after I got out of the car. I was talking to one of the actors and, somehow or other, we got onto the subject of a girl he knows (not any of the Potter actresses – somebody from his life beyond the films) who had been dubbed 'fat' by certain charming classmates. (Could they possibly be jealous that she knows the boy in question? Surely not!)

'But,' said the actor, in honest perplexity, 'she is really not fat.'

'"Fat" is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her,' I said; I could remember it happening when I was at school, and witnessing it among the teenagers I used to teach. Nevertheless, I could see that to him, a well-adjusted male, it was utterly bizarre behaviour, like yelling 'thicko!' at Stephen Hawking.

His bemusement at this everyday feature of female existence reminded me how strange and sick the 'fat' insult is. I mean, is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I'm not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain...

I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn't seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? 'You've lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!'

'Well,' I said, slightly nonplussed, 'the last time you saw me I'd just had a baby.'

What I felt like saying was, 'I've produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren't either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?' But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate!

So the issue of size and women was (ha, ha) weighing on my mind as I flew home to Edinburgh the next day. Once up in the air, I opened a newspaper and my eyes fell, immediately, on an article about the pop star Pink.

Her latest single, 'Stupid Girls', is the antidote-anthem for everything I had been thinking about women and thinness. 'Stupid Girls' satirises the talking toothpicks held up to girls as role models: those celebrities whose greatest achievement is un-chipped nail polish, whose only aspiration seems to be getting photographed in a different outfit nine times a day, whose only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs.

Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but it's really not. It's about what girls want to be, what they're told they should be, and how they feel about who they are. I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before 'thin'. And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls. Rant over.

she ROCKS!!!!!

That was good.

when you've lost weight and people start fawning over you
it feels so disingenuous. and yet we all do it all the time.
"oh, you look so great!" what? i looked that horrible before?

great post thank you!

I can't force myself through her books, but this is good.

Wow, as someone who has struggled with weight since childhood, I really needed to read this. When someone tells me that I look good after losing a few pounds, the good feeling I get sticks with me for a long time. When someone tells me I did a great job singing at a concert, the good feeling lasts for just a little while. Why am I more proud of my weightloss than my musicianship? Does my size make me a more worthwhile person than my talents? Of course not, but in some way I feel like people will notice me more if I am the "right size", rather than if I have a great singing voice. That's messed up.

BRILLIANT piece.

rosie was alughing abot this the other day on the view.

she said "I loove how people always tell you you're fat like you don't know. Whenever someone disagrees with me, the first words out of their mouth is always "YOURE FAT!!" and i'm like 'yeah. it's okay.' They always go right to that first."

UCantHavaDaMango said:

it's not your fault. in order to persuade us to buy into the products and the need for their products, advertising agencies have mastered a formula as follows:\

first they hold up an impossible and unrealistic standard, the perfect body. then they force us to admit that, by comparison we are not perfect. thus they destroy our self-esteem and render us more likely to be willing to buy it back. it works for all kinds of cosmetic products, too. teeth not white enough? hair not got enough body? skin not soft and smooth enough....??

XxAxX said:

You're so right! I must have been pretty bored, but one day I did a little research on cellulite, mainly to find out what it really was. I was surprised to learn that women in the US really didn't have a problem with their cellulite until the 1960's, when companies began advertising treatments for it. The introduction of these treatments made women see their cellulite as a body flaw, and they have been damning it ever since. It looks like the best way to make moeny is to make a woman feel insecure, then offer her a solution.

XxAxX said:

My only slight disagreement with this is the bold part. I think it encourages us to destroy our own self-esteem.

self-image and weight is such a touchy subject... unless you've been through weight problems (and I mean at either ends of the spectrum) it's hard to comprehend just how hard it really is. I was speaking to a friend recently and she is extraordinarily slim - to the point that the doctors are telling her she has to put on weight as a matter of urgency so she is able to still look after her son. she's naturally very slim, but has lost weight in the last 9 months or so due to illness, and she's finding it every bit as hard to put on weight, as I do to lose it. (and I'm talking about real weight gain/loss, as opposed to just a few kilo's - anyone who thinks it's even close to the same thing is seriously mistaken)

a very emotional subject for many...

Natisse said:

I've read this before...thanks for posting it. This really struck me...

I mean, is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'?

I love that woman.