5:17 p.m. - 2003-09-05
Size Matters
When my Dad was reminiscing at lunch the other day, he noted that before puberty I needed signs taped on me for "back" and "front". I was so skinny and tall that people used to accuse my Mom of starving me. Not. She was the supreme cookie baker of the community. I suspect half of my and my sisters'friends liked our house to play at best because of that. Being of Scotch descent, moreover, it wasn't real baking unless there was real butter, cream, eggs, and sugar at the very least in the ingredients. We were never limited in how much we had either. Ingredients were relatively inexpensive and dough was made in large quantities each day for freshness. Dinners were strong on the meat and potatoes, breakfast on the eggs, pancakes, and bacon. Two of my sisters had similar builds to me favoring the small-boned Scotch-English heritage, while my other sister's physical makeup favored our Swedish forebears. They had been "strongly" built, muscular people well suited to the farming lives they lived. My sister was "solid", but all muscle. She was also the most physically active, so lack of exercise didn't explain the difference either. I was the one who hid under my bed with a book and a flashlight so I didn't have to play outside, while my "solid" sister was one mean baseball and soccer player, although I still think I was the ace tree climber. You can hide with a book in the branches you see. Didn't matter that all of us ate and drank the same food - one can't override genetics with respect to body type.
My six sons are split four to two in exhibiting ancestral genetic traits. Four are relatively slim to beanpole thin while two are "solidly built". Again, same nurture for each, but nature has her own way too.
One day, when we first visited a new dentist, he glanced up from the first child's mouth and said "Your family came from Scotland, didn't they?". "Well some", I responded. He said, "Yeah, only the Scots have THOSE bicuspids." Who knew there was scientific study of features like that. I mean, it had always been a standing joke among my sisters and me about another part of the anatomy we all seemed to inherit from our Scots grandmother once we hit puberty. I hated it and did everything I could think of to overcome the "deformity".
You see, when I was small, the ideal adult female figure type was embodied by the London model "Twiggy" - and yes she was. She now spends a lot of time educating people about the illness of anorexia. Until I hit puberty I mirrored that body type exactly, but secretly wanted to look like my Barbie doll. At puberty the genes kicked in and I got "the McKean backside". Waist to hip measurements - 21/32. Try and get a pair of tie-dye "twiggy" pants over that and then look in the mirror on the effect it had on enhancing that "clearance". Needed one of those "wide-load" signs I did. But it was close to the Barbie proportions - I hadn't understood what that meant. Those measurements stayed through - oh about five babies, then I hit thirty. So now I'm chasing five little boys at home and volunteering most day's in classrooms of thirty to sixty children. Never sat down and rarely ate before the late night news. "Mom, do you really want that piece of ....." "No, sweetie, you can have it." Number six baby widened the width of the pelvis just a bit more. And you know what? That's when I started to gain inches - in proportion but definitely a bit wider. Just when Madonna's Marilyn Monroe image was losing favour in the fashion industry and Elle MacPherson's and Kate Moss'were beginning to take hold.
So why am I talking about this now? Well, remember the editorial piece on obesity I posted two entries ago? When we have all these so-called experts, mostly fashion marketers, telling us that only one very rare body type is acceptable, implying everyone else is fat or obese, why are we buying into the lie. And why, oh why, are we looking past the billions of dollars in profit all the so-called diet and nutrition specialists are sucking into their bloated bank accounts, because none of their "solutions" for our inherited "flawed" genetics/metabolism actually work. Without question, severe overweight is a serious health threat and it does cost our society greatly - in the early deaths of people we dearly love, despite their girth, because they are so much more than that. Eating less, moving more is the most consistently helpful strategy for that. Do we really have to meet someone else's definition of "acceptable" when it comes to our physical build?
For heaven's sake, in the space of a couple of hours, when Cher was here, I heard one male assert that "she's too skinny" and one that "she's become quite chunky" compared to her younger days. The reality, since I didn't see her in person, was probably reflected in a comment from a woman who encountered her while at a fitness facility who noted that most 30 year olds would be thrilled to have a figure like hers. How can anyone rate a person's value or beauty on their physical build. Cher has kept her job of diva for 40 years with the toughest, most fickle employer there is - the public - because of her TALENT and her PERSONALITY. Marilyn Monroe was considered the "ultimate sex goddess" of her time. If a holographic image of her was projected next to Cher when she was on stage - what then? Neither value or beauty are a function of measurements or pounds per square inch - are they? Why are we even listening to these "experts"? Even though I have been the same person throughout my life, does how I appear to someone else change that? Does it really change who you are? Not. As an adult female do you really want to look like a boy? Is that really what men want in their partners?
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