Kelly Clarkson

I wanted to write another post about body image, and apparently my new found love for Kelly Clarkson will come to use.

I think most people know about BMI (the body mass index AKA Quetelet index), which was created in the 1800's by a guy named Adolphe Quetelet. Body mass index is the individual's body weight divided by the square of his or her height. The calculated number is then compared to a standardized values to predict if someone is underweight, normal, overweight or obese.

There are some pretty obvious problems with this method but I think the biggest is that it doesn't consider muscle mass.

There are other methods of determining true fat mass to muscle mass ratio. I'm not going to go into detail about them, but in on of my courses I had some methods completed on me. I am apparently overweight, both according to BMI and according to the actual fat mass recommendations.

Click here to calculate your BMI.

I always sort of new by these classification I would be considered overweight, but I guess I didn't want to accept it. There are a lot of people out there that say being overweight is always bad. But I disagree. I am healthy. I eat pretty well, I exercise pretty regularly (even if it's not always super intense) and I am happy with my body (though I know I could lose some weight and gain some muscle). So I wonder if the people that argue that you have to fit perfectly into the "healthy" range understand that health for some people isn't just about fitting into these standards.

I personally find that when I try to loss weight I become too obsessed with thinking about food and what I'll eat next. I really don't think the extra 10lbs or so that is putting me in the overweight section is worth me fighting my body and my hunger. I also don't think the extra 10 lbs I'm carrying around is going to dramatically change my health. I can still go outside and run for an hour if I want without panting, I can still do all the things I love to do. So why is there such a big stigma attached to carrying some extra weight around?

Kelly Clarkson's been getting some attention because of her weight gain over the last few years.

Before:


After:







I think it's sad that someone who is in the spotlight gets so much negative attention for something like this. She has obviously gained some weight, but I think that is something that typically happened when someone goes from being about 18 (when she got famous) to almost 30. Maybe people shouldn't gain weight as they get older, but I think they typically do. Why is the public so disgusted if it happens to someone who is famous when it so often happens to us "regular people"? I personally think she still looks great. I imagine at some point she will probably end up losing some of the weight too.

This is what she has to say about it:

“I work out when I want to work out; I don’t work out when I don’t want to work out. After a long day and I’m tired, yeah, a cookie helps. It makes me feel good. It’s soul food! There’s a reason why it’s called that. I drop, like, 15 pounds when I’m on tour.” (from Entertainment Weekly)

Just because I don't think being overweight is bad, doesn't mean I don't agree that if you are living an unhealthy lifestyle you shouldn't strive to change it. Just like I don't mean that being very obese should be acceptable, simply because there are many health condition associated with carrying excess weight. But I do think that it is important to feel our best and not to let societies standards, and even scientific standards decide what our best is for us.

Body Image.

How our bodies look is a very important in the culture we live in. The importance of how we look to other leaves a definite marks on our own body image, whether we believe the standards of beauty derived by our culture or not. In North America, and many other places in the world, we are constantly surrounded by images of beautiful people (who have often been edited to look pretty unrealistic). It's safe to say many of us don't really feel like we are beautiful. Maybe it's just corporations creating and then playing on our insecurities to sell some make up or cosmetic surgeries or items we don't need to be healthy and happy.

The most extreme recent example I can think of, and probably you too, is of Heidi Montag's recent transformation into a completely different person. She had already had at least one surgery and then went about having 10 more at once:
I'm not sure why any plastic surgeon would argee to completing so many surgery's at once...but I guess that's another post all together.

Now what are we average looking people suppose to think when someone who looked like this (before ANY surgery):

...decides to have 10+ surgeries because she thinks she isn't beautiful enough! (Well, it makes us all feel like she's insane!!!!) I've talked to different people about her before and after looks. There seems to be mixed ideas about how good she looked before. I think she looked pretty fantastic and definitely like a real person, sometimes little flaws are what make someone look extra cute, it's something a little different...you know? Even though there is conflict over if she was very beautiful to start, everyone I know has agreed that she went waaaayy to far trying to reach her preconceived idea of beauty. She just looks a little strange now.

I wonder if she did all this just for publicity and money...but then I think, "she risked her health and whole life for that?". She is obviously a pretty mentally unstable person to go through all of this. But I do think this is a great example of how much pressure people feel, especially women feel, to be thin and "perfect" (according to our cultures standards).

Here are two more updated photos:

Regarding the last post.

I am about to stop posting for the night. I was tired a long time ago. But now that I have this blog I feel like I need to fill it up with information that interests me so that if someone does decide to read it one day they find something useful.

I was thinking about the Orthorexia video and how horrible it would be. Even as a nutrition major I do not think very much about what I eat. I think, but I don't worry about if it's organic or if it's dying....I take the appoach of not wasting...I don't want to waste this carrot, it's only got a day left or...oh the cheese is a little moldy I will just cut the mold off and eat the rest...(...is that gross?).

I think the society we live in has really taught us to see our bodies in a different way then our relatives were taught in the past. I feel that in the past our grandparents, or at least mine, would appreciate their bodies for the strong, healthy, energetic bodies that they were. Without health they would have no livelihood. There were less convenience foods and unhealthy foods available. I don't think our grandparents had the novelty of stoppping at a gas station and buying a dozen donuts. So obviously their environment was a little different. BUT I still feel we all need to learn to love our bodies for what they give us.

We need to treat them like we treat other things that belong to us: we need to take care of them, to nurture them, and to strengthen them the best we can. The better health we are in now, the healthier we will be if something (illness, disease, accidents) does happen in the future, and the easier it will be to recover.

Don't forget to enjoy life today. Go for a walk. Play in the sun. Use a swing set. Do something to use your body and remember how great it feels to have one that works as well as it does.