Fat or skinny - irrelevant if you're veins are full of stale chip fat

I came across this fab article by Mrs R, author of the Woman of Experience blog, and just had to comment on it. Mrs R does not pull her punches. And quite rightly so.

The gist of this blog relates to Beth Ditto’s recent cover shoot on Conde Naste’s new fashion mag Love (which, for the record, I can’t wait to get my mits on), and it raises the issue about the terminology of the female figure in fashion.


In particular, since when did ‘curvy’ become a euphemism for obese? Morbidly so, in Beth Ditto’s case.

Beth Ditto is very overweight. She looks great, she’s very happy in herself, but she is way beyond ‘curvy’.

The fashion world does tend to polarize towards extremes – from skeletal chic Size Zero to “curvy” overweight indie popsters. So where is the middle ground? (Answer – there is none. Take Jessica Simpson’s recent outing as a FAT SIZE 12. That was just mean. She looks great.

Now, as the former managing editor of the cardiology website InCirculation.net I learned a thing or two about heart disease, the Body Mass Index (BMI), diabetes, and what constitutes “healthy” with regards to body mass.

Take hypertension (high blood pressure), which is one of the major precursors to cardiovascular disease, heart failure and stroke. Anyone can get it, but you’re more likely to have it if you’re fat. That’s fat, not “big”, there is a difference…

Of course people of all body shapes and sizes can have high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels (Ms Katona, take note. You may want to think twice about chowing down on your cheese-pie-burgers-and-ice-cream...).

I have met the skinniest of people who suffer from atherosclerosis (fatty plaques and deposits that build up on the inside of your poor, tired blood vessels), and I have also met some very healthy women who have a high BMI, but are physically fit.

You see, BMI doesn’t take into consideration muscle mass, which is denser than fatty tissue. And it doesn’t measure your LDL levels either.

But, make no bones about it, a morbidly obese person with a BMI of over 30, a la Beth Ditto, is a walking cholesterol-laden timebomb and they need to lose weight for the sake of their health. Not for the sake of approval, or for the sake of looking nice in clothes. But, quite literally, for the sake of their lives.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Beth Ditto and have a lot of respect for her. She’s progressive, she’s stylish and has successfully turned herself into a fashion icon by challenging the norms, charming the media and gathering a huge following based on style and wit. But just like the painfully thin Size Zero Brigade the girl ain't the picture of health. She's merely on the other end of the scale.

Yet I don’t think she would be half as famous at half her size, and clearly her success is a positive message to all women out there.

Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and this should be celebrated. But ultra skinny and ultra fat gives the wrong message health-wise.

I just wish that being healthy and happy was something to aspire to, rather than being able to count your ribs/rolls (delete as appropriate) in the mirror.

I shall step down from my soap box now…