Having fond memories of your formative years? One of the channels here has started airing episodes of The Facts of Life and I love being reminded of my childhood. But something has been bothering me. In the show Blair states she is a 'perfect size 10'. Hmmm. Really? Wow! It seems so brave for a female character to say something like that. In this day and age, when being anything larger than a 'perfect size 2' is considered obese, it is almost shocking to think there was a time when size 10 was the ideal. Remember when we all wanted to be Blair? She was the standard back in ohhh 1980 or so!
Let's be realistic here and acknowledge that even with all of the images of teensie tiny women being fed to us everywhere we turn, most of us are not even close to looking like them. I read recently the average woman in North America is size 12 and even with a lovely little thing called Vanity Sizing most of us don't have a hope in hell of looking anything like the models in the magazines we choose our clothes from. I know two bloggers who model clothes for all of us on a daily basis who are both about size 2 - and the clothes look great on them! What disturbs me is the pictures in the catalogues - the models look like they are half the size of the real life women who blog about the clothes every day! I cant even fantasize I could ever be a size 2...let alone smaller!
How has this happened? I know we didn't consider Blair Warner to be fat when we were kids but when I watch The Facts of Life now I know she would be raked over the coals by every gossip columnist with a laptop. Remember when Jessica Simpson gained 3lbs and was plastered all over the internet because she 'got fat'? Poor Blair wouldn't stand a chance!
What does this do to the little girls who are growing up with these images today? When I was a child Blair's perfect size 10 looked great to me! Why is it not a respectable size now? Before I got pregnant I was a size 8 and I didn't look or feel huge and let's face it...I left Blair's perfect size 10 in the dust! Should society be teaching girls that being size 10 is anything less than beautiful?
I cant imagine as a mother what it would be like to have to battle images like this and keep a daughter healthy and happy:
This is Milley Cyrus' little sister. Where are this child's parents?! I don't think this was a Halloween costume either! I think the word 'prostitot' stems from this sort of thing.
I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant, just a sad observation.
And in case you are wondering what The Facts of Life is....
It is the show that introduced us to this man...
Who became this man *swoon*...
Have a fabulous day!
