“Ten reasons why being curvy is awesome!” I’m sure everyone has seen such articles blasted from every magazine on every shelf on a weekly basis, not to mention newspapers, radio and television, too. ‘Curvy’ has become a vogue word, where young women aspire to be bigger girls, because it’s healthy and sexy. And that’s brilliant. But most of these articles make the same mistake: skinny-bashing.
Though the authors may not realise it, the way they put across their message is wrong and sometimes hurtful. In modern ‘curvy culture’, skinny girls are getting a lot of grief. ‘Who wants to be a scrawny girl? They’ve got no shape and look like boys! They need to eat more!’ So while the lovely larger ladies among us may feel good about themselves, petite girls are starting to feel somehow inadequate.
Is it really fair to say a young lady is not a ‘real woman’ because she is naturally small-built; because she’s petite; because – as she is sure to know herself – she’s flat-chested? The reality is, she’s probably born that way, just like you curvy ladies are born with your gorgeous hips and curvaceous legs.
And as for men… ‘Guys hate skinny girls – they want proper curves!’ I’m sure many of them do. But there are just as many chaps out there who love their slender ladies. Just like there are some girls who love skinny fellas, some who like muscles, some who like their guys larger and cuddly, there are guys who like all kinds of shapes and sizes, too. In fact, believe it or not, quite a good proportion of lads look for a bubbly, bright personality over a certain waist measurement.
The focus should not be on curvy or skinny, but what is natural and healthy. If you’re naturally shapely, then that’s wonderful. If you’re naturally very skinny, then that’s fine too. Not all girls who are a size six eat lettuce for tea every night. More importantly, they have feelings too, and implying they’re not beautiful and should be curvier can be a real blow to self-esteem.
So here is a salute to the size sixes out there, to the size twenty-sixes, and every shape and size of girl in between. Fat, thin, muscular, tall, short, big thighs, no boobs, no waist… So long as you are healthy and happy then you’ve got it going on!
Curvy girls: you are stunning.
Skinny girls: you are stunning.
Girls smack-bang in the middle: you, too, are stunning.
And next time you are about to scoff at a slender girl for being a ‘stick-insect’, think again. Maybe it’s time to start judging people for who they are, and not the little number on the tags of their clothes.
Good article.
I would like to point out, though, that it’s not so much the individual that gets slated as the social conditioning and media hype that has led to so many people literally starving themselves to death. (I’m not criticising them here, but as someone with a history of serious anorexia I can tell you it’s an easy trap to fall in to, especially when all the magazines are telling you that if you’re above a size 8 you’re not pretty enough to be photographed.) Now the tables have been reversed a little… but it’sexactly the same problem. When the new fashion season rolls in there’ll be another body type getting slandered, just so that the experts can advise us on how to ‘change’ it, how to ‘slim down’ and ‘catch a man’, and how we can become ‘a new you!”
And, naturally, every time they change it all the papers are in uproar.