Hey everyone! So sorry yet again I was not able to write a blog entry sooner in the week but that just means that this week will be a tad extra long. I might also add that this week marks the 40th entry since starting this blog. :) On this week's entry I am going to say this, it's going to have a lot of opinion, perhaps a bit of ranting and yeah I want discussion! I want people to speak out or pass these things along! I want debate! I want people to think! So if you don't like my opinion or what I have to say then please withhold any negative or degrading comments however I am open for a good discussion and welcome anyone who wishes to comment. Let's get this week's topics started shall we?
First off I'd like to say that my own health hasn't been the greatest as we all know and I do try. I have as of late been trying new things and am thinking a different approach needs to be had for my own view of self and weight loss. Yes I workout because I want to tone up my tummy, because I want to fit in those size 8 pants rather than a size 14-16 or extra large tops. I'm 4'11" and feel I shouldn't be this weight and it has taken it's toll on all my joints and my breathing and even my eating. Sometimes I can't eat without heartburn or more like acid re-flux because my stomach is pushing on my ribs. My belly fat is pressing upwards and my breasts have tripled in size too causing me back pain. This is why I want to lose weight. It's not just that I feel ugly when I look in the mirror but because of these health issues. But also why do I work out when I do? Because I find it also fun. I need to find something consistent or more like consistent times that I can do the things I love at. This includes perhaps during the summer getting up every morning at a regular time rather than being lazy and staying in bed til 11 am. I have to start getting up regular and early and eating better, less oil and fatty foods in my diet. I have attempted to also make a change in using the Wii here and there to assist with this and have found a new game called "Gold's Gym Cardio Workout" which includes shape boxing and other exercises such as squats, of which I was successful in doing 32 or more in about 3 minutes though I don't recommend this for those who need to walk the next day if you haven't done them in a long time as it sincerely hurts afterward. It's also been suggested that cross training, or in other words mixing things up with different types of cardio and strength training, might be a good idea.
This leads me next to various articles I have found over the past few weeks also in regards to body shaming and the fact that this concept of "fat talk" is actually a mental health issue or should be looked at as one. It causes a multitude of men and women to look at themselves negatively and eating disorders. We are compelled by media, social media and advertising by popular name brands and franchises to be "thin and popular". We are bombarded with things that say "low fat, low sodium" , healthy choice, less this or less that... etc. Even on TV we're bombarded with fashion models, branding and things such as Herbal Magic and Weight Watchers, Activia and other companies and infomercials. It's literally everywhere!
Over the course of the past two weeks I've been accumulating various articles with this in mind and this discussion. I'll start that to be popular ladies you should probably not do "fat talk" according to this article as it says right there that it makes you less likable and popular if you do. Speaking of being popular let's take a look at another few articles I have found regarding popular culture.
Let's start with models from H&M, yes this is a brand that is trying to aim for most sizes or what would be considered a normal average person or weight. Now I don't know for sure what you'd consider plus size but the model in this story here I find not to be plus size and as it describes she is not average height coming in at 6ft tall. However it is a start in the right direction. And then there is the back lash at a cheer leader among other women in this story, including the famous Kim Kardasian for being "fat" , "chubby" or "chunky". Why do we have such backlash? Why is it that we have to be so very critical of our bodies and others. Clearly we say nasty things in an attempt to show that the individual saying them does not feel comfortable themselves.
I might add that it is not just partial to women and that men also have eating disorders and I share this touching article that I found via a group on facebook of a young woman's commitment not to diet because of what she saw her own father go through. This leads me to men, yes that's right men feel uncomfortable too with weight and expectations of being buff etc. and it's bombarding them too. In fact we also have men who are lead people of franchises like Abercrombie and Fitch that have a thing against "fat and ugly" people. I feel that Mike Jeffries, who is 68 years old, is not all that appealing himself and might as well be saying that he himself has image issues by stating what he has. This has been all over the news in fact so much so it's sparked a petition and people doing things such as handing out the branded clothes to homeless people. It's not just "fat chicks" he's up against but "fat guys" too because not all are going to fit into his "brand". The first story I read about this is here. Quite honestly I don't wear many if any branded stuff because I don't feel the need to be popular that way. I grew up with a respect of having hand me downs and there is nothing wrong with that, why? Because it made me my own person and gave me the right to mix and match and choose my own style instead of being a brand.
This leads me to how this affects young people today. It disgusts me too that as per another article from the states that I read that we should allow our youth to be having contests that determine who is hot and who is not in a popularity contest that again brings down self esteem and boys treating girls as nothing more than objects in an age that we should be past this. Women are not slaves or objects. We are people just like any other race or sex. We should all have equality. So why is it acceptable in some areas to have this going on and why are parents not having more discussion about it?
Finishing off about youth I found this very inspirational post by a photographer mom who definitely shows that we should inspire our little ones to be what they want to be and not look at the artificial. I found this article about Jamie Moore just the other day about it and encourage people to go to her website to see the other photos.
We shame ourselves, we should be giving positive feedback to ourselves and as per another blogger she says it best when she says she too, like I, am not above being subject to all of this. I go through days where I literally tell myself I am ugly and fat and disgusting and no one will want me. Here are a couple of blog posts that I thought were inspirational against body shaming and to love our bodies as curvy women that I think we should all read. I also point out that like above there is a movement of artists that are speaking out as well. One artist Haley Morris-Cafiero who is also a teacher did just that. I applaud her.
Now leading into the last points of this week's blog. There is a difference between being heavy and still beautiful and wearing it well and being unhealthy. Some might argue that these photos (warning they contain nudity and to some may offend), though some beautiful and not saying that these ladies are not good people or anything by any means, but I question how healthy they are with this kind of weight. I also argue are we mocking these women in these photos in any way by doing such photography or "art". These women might even be considered "morbidly" obese. I have seen men and women this heavy and they are not in the best of health at all in fact friends and or family have tried to seek out help because they risk diabetes, asthma, heart attack among other things. This is where I say and ask, is this "healthy"?
And not only this but we also have obsessions with how we look. There are obsessions with becoming barbie and altering ourselves so much that when it becomes a sickness and the doctors say stop and refuse to give any more, some have resorted , like this woman, to injecting themselves with cooking oil! To the point of becoming so disfigured that she is unrecognizable from the person she was. This is in the end a mental illness and it is in fact becoming more and more popular. It has to stop! I leave this segment of beauty and the concepts of body shaming etc. with this wonderful inspiring video which all girls and guys even should watch! Will I Be Pretty? Amazing speech and so true and it should be something we should teach our children when they do ask that question.
The last thing I'd like to touch on, as I've touched on it briefly in the past. Nothing is safe to eat now a days. I have nothing against vegans or vegetarians, to each their own. But my opinion is that I like and will eat meat. I think that our ancestors ate meat when crops etc. were scarce and for survival and therefore it is acceptable to eat animals. The reason why people think that eating meat is bad and with new "studies" as per a report here, is honestly not because of the research but because of animal rights activists who feel that animals shouldn't be eaten and are subject to cruelty. I admit that there is some cruelty to killing of any kind of an animal and no I am not saying that I agree with putting hormones and chemicals into the animal and subjecting them to enclosures and breeding beyond what they should be capable of, in fact I'm sure that aliens might do the same to us if you consider that concept. I mean just look at V perhaps?
But I do think that we should be eating meat and I think that it's also silly not to consider plants living things and not to consider the cruelty they go through to get to our plates too! We sing to flowers because studies have found that they respond better to that and sunlight when taken care of, some people take care of plants as if they were pets! And here we are pouring pesticides and claiming "organic" foods? I might also add that we have an increase in allergies to various fruits and vegetables over the years, including peanuts which are not actually nuts but a legume like potatoes that grow in the ground, that's right people... in .. the .. ground! Covered with fertilizer and other chemicals just like our apples and oranges are sprayed with stuff to keep bugs away. Oh yeah bugs.. yeah bugs are a delicacy in some places and we kill them off too!
We as humans kill off everything in our path and make excuses why we can't be healthy and eat this or that and why we are fighting for survival. Well maybe if we took better care of the earth over all we wouldn't have this problem. And if we took care of ourselves and noticed and helped our neighbours rather than just the outpouring of grief over someone we don't know and the sick things our own kind will do to each other, maybe we'd have a better place to live. Maybe if there was more funding in some countries towards the mentally unstable or mentally ill, and supporting research and a cure, we would again, be in a safer, healthier place.
However again... there is no utopia and no one will be happy and there is no way to stop our nature. At least, we haven't found one yet.
This concludes this week's blog. Next week there may not be one because I'm on vacation! :) So happy reading and stay as healthy as you possibly can and again up for discussion on all the above topics!
No comments:
Post a Comment