Then there is the fact that somehow along the way I realized I'm raising a stunningly gorgeous daughter who, if trends continue, is going to be a curvy Ugandan woman way too soon.
But perhaps most importantly is the fact that in the last three years I've gone from an easy size four {don't hate} to a tight 8/10. I think about this fact while I'm running on the treadmill, facing a magazine rack full of images from US Magazine, Women's Health, Vogue, Glamour, People, and all of the rest of them. ALL of them {even the purported health magazines} featuring women who are size zero, or air brushed to be so. Here's a scary fact: "According to a study from the University of Central Florida, nearly 50% of girls aged three to six were already concerned about their weight."
Three to six year olds??? Ugh. Our society's focus . . . OUR focus . . . on our bodies -- rather than on HEALTH -- is frightening. Indeed, here in my "new" body size, I find myself healthier than I've been in decades. I run five days a week . . . I even lift weights now. And yet the scale says something new and something I don't really like, if I'm honest. {Random thoughts on honesty, below}
I recently read an article about these very issues. The article speaks to the fact that our children don't know we are {overweight} {too short} {to tall} {too thin} {too whatever} until we tell them. WE are teaching our children about the societal obsession with body image and WE can go a long way to stopping it. My favorite quote from the article was this:
"Let us honor and respect our bodies for what they do instead of despising them for how they appear. Focus on living healthy and active lives, let our weight fall where it may, and consign our body hatred in the past where it belongs. When I looked at that photo of you in the white bathing suit all those years ago, my innocent young eyes saw the truth. I saw unconditional love, beauty, and wisdom. I saw my Mom."
You can read the entire article here.
Let's challenge ourselves, friends and family to raise a generation of children (girls and boys who will marry our girls) who believe their moms are beautiful and who also know that whatever body God gave them, they are gorgeous inside and out. Nothing short of a huge challenge to me . . .
In other news, I'm also weary of the "make yourself appear perfect for the public" thing that permeates social media. For.the.love. NONE of us are perfect, least of all me. I have some seriously gorgeous children {who I did not create} but we have some life-sized issues in our home that are embarrassing, or worse. I'll give you one {embarrassing} example of how God is workin' me over:
I don't always know how to handle my rambunctious, over-exuberant, crazy son Seth. The result of that can be yelling. Lots and lots of yelling. By me. OF COURSE I don't want to be a yeller. I despise yelling. We're working on it. {Read: I am working on it with God} But lest you get the idea that my filtered images on this blog or Instagram or {if I ever return to} Facebook are real life over here, they aren't. We have the hard. The really hard. And much of it begins with ME.
And that's my over-thinking brain today.
