The NY Times just can’t decide today—on the one hand, they are singing the virtues of embracing the chunk, on the other, they’re all over a new men’s “shapewear” line (aka girdles for men — MIRDLES!) that’s selling like hotcakes at Saks Fifth Avenue. Pick one and get behind it, Times editors! Are we fat and loving it or do we need another newfangled contraption to suck in our gut? Or… maybe it’s not that easy? Personally, I’m not sure I’ll ever be genuinely happy with my body. I’m not saying that because I’m a perfectionist and aspire to become a size 4 for the remainder of my life. Quite the opposite. But I’m also not genuinely unhappy with it, either—and by now I know I can’t inherently (structurally?) change what I’ve been given. That’s where I see this whole “live and love it” attitude the weight-acceptance folks are preaching making sense. But, then again, feeling OK with the unchangeable doesn’t mean I won’t try to make some surface tweaks here and there—and that’s why I don’t completely follow the dogma from the fat-is-OK bloggers (mostly because numerous studies have shown that being overweight isn’t what does a body good). See, I’m of the same mindset of those men hiking it to Saks for their “shapewear”—I’d like to think that eating better and exercising (not to mention sucking it in for vanity’s sake), may make me feel hotter. So, what to say of all this back and forth on fat? Well, yeah, it is confusing. [NY Times here and here]
