The Skinny on Me

I realize I could get in big trouble by posting on this topic, but I’m going to dip my toe in the water anyway. I’m what they call a skinny girl. I looked like I had rickets until I was about 17 years old. I’m a little thicker now, but I’m not going to win any curvy contests. Hold on! I’m not bragging. A good dose of steroids could pack fifteen pounds on these hips by Labor Day. And after you hit forty, your metabolism goes on strike. You let down your guard, turn your back and bam! Ten pounds have hitched a ride on your thighs while you weren’t looking. I’ve learned to never say never when it comes to weight, because it can change with the wind. I’m just bringing up the subject because of all the emotions it generates. Weight makes us grumpy, sad, anxious and downright crazy. Weight seems to control women’s emotions almost as much or more than anything else. We obsess about it. We spend money on it. We talk about it. We worry about it. We even cry over it. We curse the scales and rant about our genetics. I am amazed at how much of our emotional energy is spent on this topic.

I am also surprised at how mean people can be when they talk about others’ weight. I have witnessed many a fat girl joke, and I can’t imagine how hurtful that must be to the target of those jokes. When you’re thin people don’t even make cracks behind your back. They do it right to your face. About three times a week someone makes some kind of skinny remark to me that is cloaked in humor but full of animosity. Here’s where I wade into this cesspool a little deeper because I realize I sound like a whiner, and I don’t mean to. It sounds shallow to say don’t hate me because I’m thin. I’m just sharing this to show how emotional we are about the size of our midriff. I’m telling you, it makes some people downright mean. So does dieting. Hungry people are cranky.

The weight thing also plays with our minds. We seem to make a lot of bad assumptions about people based on their weight, like fat people are lazy. Apparently, it works the other way, too. Thanks to Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton, some folks think skinny white girls don’t eat. I recently discovered that an acquaintance of mine thinks I have an eating disorder. Ha! I had two desserts in my hand when she said this to me. I almost snorted coconut cream pie onto her plate. Let me be clear on this one. I eat. I love to eat. I love everything about food. I like to cook it. I like to taste it, and I like to smell it. I even like looking at it. I am a bonified member of the “clean your plate club” and have no desire to join the “toothbrush down my throat club”. I just try not to go overboard with the really bad stuff, and I exercise a lot. I would rather run lots of miles than give up cake and pie. I am also blessed with the genes of my dad’s family. All of his folks are thin, probably because they grew up poor. He and his seven brothers and sisters look really hungry in those old black and white photos.

There are some drawbacks to being thin, like bony elbows and knees. I could put out an eye with my elbows. If I were to fall on my tailbone right now my spine would rattle from my crack to my neck. Skinny chicks tend to be mammary challenged, too. When I was in high school, I wanted two things: boobs and nice fat calves to fill out my slinky vinyl boots I wore for the dance team. No such luck. No one would have noticed if I had skipped the bra, and my legs swam in those boots like straws in a Big Gulp. In fact, they still swim in my boots. We all want what we don’t have, and we are all insecure about our bodies in one way or another. I just wish we measured the size of someone’s heart before we checked out the size of their butt.