When my Marie Claire arrives every month, the first thing I flip to is plus-size fashion stylist Ashley Falcon’s column, Big Girl in a Skinny World. Ms. Falcon says she is 5’2″, weighs 220 pounds and wears a size 18. Her column and blog have covered everything from the best boots for wide calves to the best online stores for plus-size clothes.
I love her biting wit:
“I’ve struggled with weight — and how to camouflage it — my whole life. The skinniest I’ve ever been was in high school, when I weighed 150 pounds and subsisted on nothing but undressed salads. I long ago made peace with the fact that I’ll never look good in a slinky dress or pleated paper-bag-waist pants, even if Coco Chanel herself came back from the dead to hand-stitch them for me.” — Ashley Falcon
I also appreciate her fashion advice, even if it no longer applies to me. Every month I read her column, and every month I ponder the same question: “What would I have thought about this when I weighed 300 pounds?”
I know that I would have read it, and probably filed away some of the style advice. But I never would have felt this surge of fat pride that’s on the rise these days — just take a gander at Young, Fat and Fabulous and Fatshionable. These ladies recently held a bloggers conference in NYC, and they looked as great as any gamine fashionistas who’ve ever strutted the city streets.
Even when I weighed 300 pounds, I was confident. I was (and, some may say, am) beyond confident; I had an ego. I had many outfits that I considered stylish, but there were those few frumpy tops and ill-fitting size 24W jeans (tight in the gut, sagging in the rear) in my closet to remind me that I couldn’t wear all the clothes I wanted.
I read these blogs and feel so conflicted and confused. These women celebrate their weight with fashion; my weight loss journey began so I could celebrate fashion.
I also feel conflicted because while these women look so healthy and beautiful today, I can’t help but wonder what they’ll look like in their 50s. There is no question that obesity is hard on your body and health. I totally get that you can be healthy at every size and that a few pounds above your BMI recommendation are nothing to lose sleep over. But hormonal imbalances and other health issues aside, I find it hard to believe that a body would stabilize itself at more than 100 pounds overweight if you were eating healthfully and exercising regularly. Ask anyone who’s lost a significant amount of weight — as soon as you start to exercise and watch what you eat, the first few pounds melt away.
While these bloggers’ health is none of my business, I can’t help but cringe when I think of the fabulous, young, overweight women reading these blogs. I want them to feel beautiful and accept themselves as these bloggers do, but I also want them to consider their health and their futures. Obesity could catch up with them long before middle age; it is quite clearly linked to infertility. I didn’t realize how good I could feel until I started to lose weight; as a 300-pound person, even at age 20, I always felt slightly sluggish.
Truly loving your body is about more than celebrating what you see in the mirror. It means taking care of your health today, so that you can celebrate life, health and happiness for years to come.
What do you think? Does celebrating ‘fatshion’ in the blogosphere send an ultimately unhealthy message?
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to be fashionable or proud of how you look being plus sized. Being fat doesn’t mean we have to wear sweat pants and huge t-shirts just because we’re overweight!
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Dressing for your weight is an amazing feat, and I’m sure there are plenty of 300 pound women that dress more stylishly and more flattering than I do at 160. Obviously you shouldn’t have to wait until you reach a healthy weight to dress fashionably. But I’m not for the fat acceptance movement. I think these people’s health is still a concern. And even though you say the blogger’s health is none your business, I feel like it is. The obesity epidemic is KILLING PEOPLE. Do people simply say that the AIDS epidemic in Africa is none of our business or that the those affected by hurricane Katrina were none of our business? No. It IS our business. Those ladies may look beautiful at their size, but it’s also HURTING THEM.
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GOOD POST. While I think it is laudable that these women are so confident in their bodies (most of us could stand to be more confident at any size), I do think the long term health implications are serious and I hope the women who read these blogs are intelligent enough to balance confidence with wanting to improve their own health. Nothing wrong with (or taboo about!) striving for better health, no matter how confident and happy you might be.
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This article from the NYT magazine talks a lot about this topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01plussize-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&hpw
There is such a difference between loving your body and accepting the fact that you are grossly overweight — it shouldn’t be accepted! Obviously, you should not engage in unhealthy habits in order to reach a “healthy weight” but being upwards of 100 pounds overweight should not be lauded…ever.
I like this post. I think it’s a great idea for women to feel comfortable and dress well at any weight. I always remember what Stacy & Clinton say on What Not To Wear about not waiting until you’re thinner to dress properly. A lot of people (myself included) feel like they shouldn’t wear fashionable things, or go shopping until they’ve lost 10 more pounds or they’re at their happy weight. This is nonsense. You can wear beautiful clothes at any weight. It does wonders for self esteem and makes you feel beautiful. You ARE beautiful!
However I think striving to be healthy is important as well. If you are significantly overweight it IS a health issue. It’s going to effect your overall health in the long run, and you will have a greater risk of diabetes, heart disease etc. It’s great to be self confident and happy at any weight, but you should still be working towards getting healthier. This doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s not impossible, and with baby steps it can even be enjoyable. Don’t use “i’m happy with the way I look” as an excuse to continue to eat junk all day everyday and never get a smidgen of exercise. At that point, unfortunately, I think there’s something wrong with the whole “fat acceptance” mentality.
This is something I really, really struggle with; on the one hand, I want everyone to love their body and think people can be beautiful at all sizes, but on the other hand I know that I feel better and healthier when I’m thinner, and I’m vain enough that I think I look more beautiful when I’m thinner. I think you can really only make the call for yourself; people shouldn’t police other people’s weight. When I worry is when concern turns into condescension on both ends.
No one is doing that here, of course, but I think as long is someone is a responsible, capable adult no one should be making judgment calls on how healthily they should be living their life or whether they should feel proud to be at that weight.
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I wrote about this pretty recently:
http://healthandhappinessinla.blogspot.com/2010/07/happiness-determinism-and-huge.html
I totally agree with your basic dilemma. I want everyone to feel good about themselves and I don’t think you should ever wait to live your life, love yourself, and dress fashionably. But I also want people to be healthy and I hate the idea that there’s nothing you can do about your weight. That’s not true. Lots of people think they have to be fat, get diabetes, get heart disease, etc. because their family members have, but your genetic predisposition is a small factor compared to your daily habits and lifestyle.
I think it is a little presumptuous to say that a person who weighs 100lbs more than they should doesn’t eat healthy, work out or take care of themselves. I have to work really, really hard to maintain at 100lbs more than I should weigh, and to lose weight I have to focus on weight loss like it is my job. At every size, I’ve always had a healthier lifestyle than lots of people around me with lower BMIs.
This fat fashion, ‘Omg, they are so unhealthy!” thing is a trend lately, but honestly, why not look at the thin fashion icons who smoke, drink, eat a lot of fast food? If you want to worry about people’s health, it is easy to pick on overweight people because you can see superficially the results of possibly bad choices. But why aren’t people talking about everyone else? What about the poor eating habits at any size, models who say they are just “naturally thin” so they don’t work out, or hell, why don’t we start taking a poll of who has gotten their mammogram and pap smear every year? Oh wait, because you can’t *see* those things about someone, so it is a lot harder to critique them.
Sure, fat people need education to make the best choices for them, but they aren’t the only ones, they just have the visible “symptoms” that other people don’t. I’ll be glad when this “omg, fat fashion is so unhealthy!”- trend goes away.
I’ve seen a few of their blogs, and they are never talking about eating to excess or avoiding healthy activities. Why? Because it is about fashion and not about fitness. I don’t know if they have a healthy lifestyle or not. Those fat fashionistas are adults who know the risks of being overweight. I think it seems a little condescending to worry about them as if they don’t know any better.
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Ashley, I’m so glad I stumbled upon your post. I’m really passionate about this issue, but I find it is a really difficult subject to broach because it is an extremely sensitive subject. I don’t find anything wrong with larger women being fashionable. I don’t think that anyone should be unhappy because of their weight, but on the other hand, being overweight creates a lot of serious health risk. I used to work at a health care organization, and I know firsthand, overweight individuals are at increased risk for developing chronic diseases and other conditions that can be life-threatening. Being a healthy weight is an essential part of being healthy.
Furthermore, as much as this is important for the individual, it is also a national epidemic. According to the Center for Disease Control, the United States spends an estimated $117 billion dollars on obesity related health care costs per year. That is a ton of money being spent to subsidize unhealthy habits. People who are truly overweight need to realize that their weight is affecting their quality of life and putting their health at jeopardy (if not now, then in the future), and that it is a burden on people other than themselves as well.
Thank you for this post! Also, here is an interesting clip from ABC about the obesity debate: http://www.hulu.com/watch/130074/abc-nightline-tue-feb-23-2010.
I think everyone deserves to feel beautiful and confident no matter what their size and shape. When they don’t, it feeds into the whole “I’ll wear nice clothes when I weight less” mentality. I just wish that more designers made clothes that were fashionable for plus-sized ladies. One of my friends has a terrible time finding nice clothes that fit her shape. Designers are missing out on making money in this market.
Thanks to zenlizzie, who I think said it really well. It certainly is not everyone’s experience that once they start “eating well and exercising” that the weight “melts away.” I have eaten well and exercised well my entire life, and this sure didn’t stop me from getting fat. And when I lose weight, I have to WORK at it, something I have not always had the time or resources to do in my life. It is a mistake to assume that your experience with being fat reflects everyone’s experience. Bottom line is, there isn’t really any need for you to judge someone else’s health when you couldn’t possibly understand what they do or don’t need to be healthy. This isn’t about health, it’s about fashion: stick to the point.