shopping
 

Have you tried the misses selections at different stores? This is the stinker-
If you are a larger size (OR TALL!!!) you end up paying a LOT more for your clothes if you want to be "stylish".

It's pretty hard when you aren't a popular size, but there are ways around it. You have to get creative. If you go one size up and make some of your own tucks or plunges, you get the look of a more expensive outfit. Also, a tailored look is much more becoming than frills. Determine what is the worst and what is the best. I have noticed tummies or arms can ruin "the look". The stretch tops draw attention to the wrong parts. There are so many wonderful examples in movies or award shows where writers/directors/actresses/actors of all sizes appear and look fantastic. Study them and see how they have taken a fad and adjusted it to them.

I was watching Princess Diaries last night. Julie Andrews no longer has the body of her youth, but boy was she elegant
in every scene. Now put that against Cher...I'd rather look like Julie Andrews any old day. Please, I know it FEELS like this helps,
but don't repeat the message to yourself. Instead of saying
I look horrible or something negative, look at your eyes and say
"DAMN, my eyes make me sexy." Or "My legs are wonderfully curvy". I deeply, repeat, DEEPLY believe if we let a negative thought enter our mind, like a magnet, that is what we draw to us.
For one week, choose to state every single thought in a positive light...then PM me. PLEASE?

Sorry to offend you with my ball comment. I was just making it clear that I know my limits to what I can and can't do before my appearance starts to alter. I work very hard to look the way I do, and I will not be ashamed by it. I understand that overweight people work out and eat healthy also. But people also need to understand that everyone will think and say what they want, so you can either be offended by it or continue to live your life as you were. I could give two craps about what people think about me or say about me. I know how I feel about myself, and I know what I think looks good. Everyone in this world is different, and that is how we were made to be.

I am not trying to offend anyone by what I said. Generally, I am the person sticking up for the overweight person getting made fun of. It's not cool to be made fun of for any type of reason. Everyone have a good day and stop worrying what others think.

Amen to that! :D

Oh AngelPhiSig, I know how you feel.

I feel that way everyday, and as a big girl, (you can see...I've posted my picture on the yahoo group) I struggle everyday with body weight, body image, an eating disorder and depression. I know how exactly how it feels but I don't want to be on here saying skinny people, you don't know how it is...because you don't, but that's not what this is about. We're just trying to vent some anger, sadness, frustration, whatever, and here is a good place to do it.
I having been reading this thread since this morning and all I did was cry.
However, I don't want to talk about my weight and my issues because all it will do is upset me. Instead I have a poem I would like to post.


If you can't be a highway, just be a trail;
If you can't be the sun, be a star
For it isn't by size that you win or you fail-
Be the best of whatever you are.
--Douglas Mallock


I hope it will make some of us feel better.

Pi Phi Love and Mine,

Emily

Most people don't know how hurtful it is to have people ask if you have anorexia or something wrong with you.
When I was a senior in high school my guidance counselor called my parents to make sure everything was OK because some girls thought I was too skinny. It was nice that they cared about me, but it was very hurtful. It made me very self conscious about things I wore cause I didn't want to look to skinny.

Thanks Steeltrap:) I was thinking the same thing myself. I am the same size as Angelphisig and although I try to watch my diet and work out regularly, I am very happy with myself. I think that body perception is a cultural difference. As a matter of fact, I think that I don't have bump in my trunk and I wouldn't mind having more hips.

okay, just want to say that this was great. I have been heavy since i was very young, and I love this poem. Here is something one of my sisters has, I thought it would be nice to share something along the same wavelength.... I'm sure MANY of you have seen it before though:

"When I look in the mirror and the only one there is me
Every freckle on my face is where it’s suppose to be
And I know my creator didn’t make no mistakes on me
My feet, my thighs, my Lips, my eyes, I’m loving what I see"

It always makes me smile :)

You are so right on that one, most people DON'T know how much that hurts. For the longest time, my own parents were convinced I was anorexic and threatened to take me to a rehab center! :eek: It sucks when people think there's something seriously wrong with you, when there isn't.

Seriously y'all, if you have never anything close to fat, you cannot compare the two. If you have never been fat, you have no idea what it's like. I've been called fat as a joke, I've been called too skinny in all seriousness, and being called fat hurts five hundred times more even when I know it's a joke. Already we've had one girl admitting to this thread making her cry because it made her feel self-conscious about how much she weighed . . . how many of you complaining about being too skinny can say the same?

Here's why the two can't be compared:

People associate anorexia with extreme self-control and willpower. Many, many teenage girls ADMIRE those who are anorexic. (How many of us have heard someone say, "I wish I could be anorexic just for a couple weeks, just so I could lose like ten or fifteen pounds"? Or "I wish I had the willpower to be anorexic"? And even if you haven't . . . I have, from many many girls.) If you don't believe me, just put the term "pro-anorexia" into the google search box and see what you come up with. And most people are willing to accept the fact that anorexia is a disease, not a habit that people do because they WANT to.

Overweight people, on the other hand, are regarded as lazy slobs -- regardless of the the fact that they may exercise more and eat better than many slim people. Plus, the majority of people out there believe that fat people are fat because they are too lazy to do anything but sit around watching TV and eating fried chicken -- that if they were really trying, they could lose the weight. This is definitely not true for a lot of people. And almost nobody, except those who are very familiar with eating disorders, considers compulsive overeating a disease, despite the fact that most compulsive eaters have about as much control over their disease as anorexics do.

So, for those of you that are offended by it when people call you anorexic, why? It's not an attack on your character, the way calling somebody a "fat a**" is, because the connotations with each word are completely different.

And if being skinny is such a terrible thing, why are SO many women going to such drastic lengths (anorexia, bulimia, diet pills, compulsive overexercise, you name it) to be thin, despite knowing the risks to their health? Why are almost NO women, aside from a small subsection of the population (bodybuilders and fat fetishists), trying to get significantly bigger despite risks to their health?

And I don't think any of you skinny girls mentioned that you had ever actively tried to gain weight. Sure, you might have tried overeating for a couple days, or even weeks. But you would have to overeat your usual amount of calories by at least 500 calories a day for three months straight just to gain twelve pounds. Have any of you bothered to do that, or to follow any sort of significant weight training program to gain weight -- I'm not talking about occasional bicep curls with the ten pound weights in the gym, I'm talking about real weight training? Until then, I don't think y'all have much space to be complaining. No more right to complain, in fact, than those who legitimately DO fulfill the "fat" stereotype, sitting around eating all day eating, and then complaining about how people treat them differently because they're fat and how they hate being fat.

Not to mention the fact that someone conveniently made you guys your own thread, so you can discuss the trials of being thin in there. ;)

Wow. I can't beleive how indignant all the skinny women in this thread have gotten.

There is one main difference between the experiences of overweight people and the experiences of very thin people.

If a friend or family member asks you if you're anorexic, it's out of genuine concern for your health and is not intended to hurt you.

When some jerk frat guy walking by me in the Student Union mutters "fat ass" under his breath to amuse himself and all of his brothers, there is no concern there for my health. It's out of complete malice and with the intent to hurt me.

For the record, I knew that jerk and his companions were frat guys because they were all wearing shirts with their letters on them.

I'm by no means trivializing the experience and frustration of having people assume you're anorexic when you're not. I'm sure that is very hard.

But that doesn't mean you can identify with the experience of an overweight person at all.

In fact, I'd take the experience of someone expressing genuine concern for my health over genuine insults any day.

So there's nothing wrong with being fat. Just like there's nothing wrong with being short or tall, or black or brown. These are facts of identity that cannot and should not be changed. They are birthright. They're beyond aesthetics. They provide the diversity we need to survive.

Fat people are not, by definition, lazy or stupid. People who believe in such stereotypes, however, are.

Because fat or thin, straight or gay, male or female, we have all at some point wasted our precious moments on the planet worrying about how we look.

Screw that!

I don't think this needed to turn into some huge debate. Even though we all have different points of view, I think we can ALL agree that that was not the point of this thread.

One of the most intelligent posts so far :)

(I was never "indignant" by the way ;) )

I hope this can shed some light on understanding racism. Since this is kinda parallel.

My boyfriend and I were discussing this issue a couple days ago, and I actually compared it to race relations. I basically said that skinny people can complain about how they can relate to fat people's problems because they get "discriminated" against too, but it's not the same thing at all . . . much like some white people like to pretend that "reverse discrimination" is as painful as the discrimination that minorities face. :rolleyes:

An interesting analogy.