Wednesday, July 18, 2012

To be or not to be?

Erin shared a post on her FB titled "Fat or Fit" from the bbc website few weeks ago. I was going to blog it on the same day but it took me a while to figure out how to write this piece!

The article talks about how top female athletics are concern about their physical appearances as a result of the hard work which they've put into their career. 


That further proves that image issues is seriously affecting the female population. Frankly speaking, it is so damn difficult to be a woman if you don't have a right mindset. We are "educate" to have to do so many things to live up to the standard of "being a women". It is no longer a biological concern. There is very little tolerance of what is enough and what's not. What's the correct doze of femininity that make a woman feminine? What's the exact size of muscle a woman is allow to have in order not to be criticize as "butch"? The tone of voice, the way we dress, the way we act, the things we do, the things we talked about...every single day we are judged (by ourselves) of how should we should fit in to our "role" (I say ourselves for the reason why most things originate inside that mysterious brain of ours, WE felt, WE see, WE act, WE taste - it all comes from within, it's all our perception of things)


Another friend send me this website from bbc  - Where are you on the global fat scale. You input your height, age, gender, weight and home country and they'll automatically calculate your BMI and compare you with the rest of the data in their database and generate a result of where you stand on a "global" scale.


My BMI is 20, I am 76% lighter than the rest on a national scale and 75% lighter than the rest on the "global" scale (I air-quoted it while you never know how "global" their database is). So accordingly to bbc experts, i'm below average - Here comes the question - Why am i still feeling fat on a daily basis? (I have a nasty habit of squeezing my tummy every now and then, after meal, before meal as a constant reminder than  I have fat-content on my body which should not be there)


I feel fat when i can't fit into my 27 low waist skinny jeans i bought in Prague 5 years ago.
I feel fat when i have to wear shorts because it's too damn hot to wear anything else.
I feel fat when I've eaten "unhealthy" junks  like instant noodles/crisps/icecream/lemon tea etc etc


But in fact, the rational side of my head tells me that I am not "fat" at all. "Fat" has became an ill-used term. We ill-used the term "fat" because often or not, its actual & cultural meaning was use interchangeably. And consequently, "fat" became the 21st century scariest word (for a lot of woman i know especially). 


Expert says "fat" is when your BMI is over a certain figure. Exercise Guru says that BMI is definitely not the best way to determine whether you're fat or overweightor not while there are a lot of elements that have not been factored in. So, this is a typical "he says, she says" situation. Who should we listen to?


In fact, no other people is more powerful that yourself. I've come to realised that most of the time, no matter what experts say or doctor says or colleagues say or friends say - i choose to listen what my mind thinks subconsciously or unconsciously (I am not expert of the human mind but that's my guess) . Remember times where your friend complements you which you don't think you deserve? you'd instantly say "no way, you're just being flattering".
 Remember times where you think you're fat and when someone else mentioned it, you instantly agreed and from that point on, you categorized yourself as a lazy big fat pig. 


Well, i've moaned enough. To be honest, I am one of those pathetic women i've just described. My mind is not powerful enough to decipher the key to liberation and i dont intend to. In fact, this has become my everyday life, I cannot imagine living without it, what am i gonna do with all my time? LOL

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