Random reflections

Father, I'd like to move forward with a new, healthy body image. Help me stop comparing myself to others. Show me what to focus on rather than appearance...perhaps people's inherent worth and dignity as beings created in God's image, or a particular quality about them that is beautiful or striking. Please carve new habits into my body, mind, and spirit.

Often I long for the days when etiquette was considered important...when people treated each other with dignity. C.S. Lewis is from that time, and I am craving a good C.S. Lewis book now. He is one of the writers I most admire, who reminds me of how I ought to live.

So, I realized that longing to be thin relates to longing to be innocent. In fiction, innocent female characters tend to have a boyish shape rather than voluptuous curves -- not that I am voluptuous, ha! Naturally, I'm somewhere in between.

Anyway, a woman with a childlike, whimsical, cheerful personality would look ridiculous behaving that way if she had a mature, womanly shape; we tend to think of women with a body type like Jessica Rabbit or Lara Croft to be more serious and sultry than innocent.

Imagine this woman acting like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Audrey Hepburn often played the type of character I am describing. We assume she was naturally petite, but then I found out that perhaps her figure wasn't so natural; several sources describe her as having an eating disorder of some sort. Remarkably thin women are usually trying to look that way on purpose.

Audrey Hepburn: This looks a bit painful.

Audrey's natural figure was probably more like this.

Is being thin really that desirable, though? A healthy weight is much more attractive...even for Audrey Hepburn. Women's bodies simply aren't designed to be skinny.