Skinny
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 03:50PM “I want to be skinny like you.”
I may be lean, fit, trim, healthy, maybe even thin, but I am NOT skinny. In my brain, skinny is a negative word. It’s a word used to describe skin-and-bones models, the kind who suffer from eating disorders. Fashion magazines are laden with images of their protruding collar bones and knobby elbows.
In my brain, skinny is a word associated with illness. My grandfather dying from cancer was skinny, his body devouring lean muscle tissue. Skinny means malnourished. Skinny is what you become after several rounds of chemotherapy, when your body can’t keep food down.
In my brain, skinny is the images of starving children in third world countries or from German concentration camps. It’s not having the nutrition needed for growing healthy bodies, for proper brain function, for energy to swat the flies away from your face.
I am healthy. I feed my body with quality nutrition-packed foods. I limit foods that are full of empty calories (calories with little to no nutritional value) like refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup, but I don’t starve my body of the calories and nutrients it needs to function properly. I exercise to increase my energy and strengthen my muscles, not to lose more weight.
I don’t understand why so many women long to be skinny. Skinny isn’t healthy. It isn’t chic. It isn’t stylish. It isn't attractive. It’s destructive. If you want to be skinny, are you willing to abuse your body to get there, starving yourself of what your body needs to function properly and making yourself susceptible to disease? I hope not.
Instead of wanting to be skinny, desire to have a healthier body. Desire energy and vitality. Strive for fitness. Strive for a body you are comfortable riding around in, not one that’s afraid to even nibble a cookie.
Reader Comments (4)
Amen!
Skinny is just a word. You have assigned a meaning to it that maybe someone else hasn't. Maybe to someone else it means the same thing as trim, fit, slender, etc.
CM,
You're right that skinny is just a word, but I'm not sure that most people think of the word as meaning "fit". The word really does lend itself to meaning "skin and bones" which is just not healthy at all. Of course, it's just my opinion. I'd just prefer not to be called "skinny".
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