Women and Weight: Why Are We Constantly Judged?...

As a blogger, if your Twitter following is anything like mine, then your feed with have been inundated with fellow bloggers and women alike ridiculously pissed (for want of a better word) with Daily Mail columnist Samantha Brick. The basis of her column is that any self respecting woman wants to be thin, and overweight is just not attractive.She entitled her piece

"Any woman who wants to stay beautiful (like me!) needs to diet every day of her life"

Well I certainly have a few things to say about this. As a young 20 year old woman, like many others I'm sure, body weight is quite a big issue in today's society. The media are constantly scrutinizing women's weight, along with their fashion choices, beauty looks, and even their choice in men. Everywhere you look people seem to think they have the right to judge others for the way that they look and the choices that they make, and as far as I am concerned it has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else.

Personally I do have an issue with weight. I was quite overweight as a child and was picked on a lot through primary school and early on in secondary school. In year 9 I decided I'd had enough of the boys' taunts and the fact I couldn't wear the same clothes as my peers and I just stopped eating. Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me. Isn't that what you were always told as children? Not that simple for a teenage girl, especially. For a good few months. Now I think I've blocked a lot of this out of my mind as I had a lot going on at the time and I think forgetting was a coping mechanism so I don't remember the ins and outs, but I was down to a mere 7 stone at 5ft5, and it took my Mum ages of weaning me back onto food with plain jacket potatoes. Which happen to be one of my favourite meals now - strange.

Now I'm not trying to say that the boys who teased and taunted me at school were the reason I picked up an eating disorder - but it was definitely a contribution, which is why I find it so hard when I see the constant comments in the media about women's weight. Particularly the current Kim Kardashian and Daily Mail relationship. She is pregnant - of course she is going to be putting on weight, how on earth can you have the audacity to call her fat! Really winds me up. 

I'm always going to have an issue with my own weight. If I get to a certain weight I tend to go on crash diets, or go mad on exercise to get me back to how I want to be. I'm a pretty healthy 8 stone the majority of the time and I do my best to keep it that way, but that is a personal battle. I see some of my friends, one of my housemates in particular who are more curvy than me and have crazy incredible figures. 

Skinny isn't necessarily beautiful. I think you need to be healthy, and be happy in your own skin - there is nothing more attractive than a woman who is content with how she looks. Everyone has their own little body hang ups, it's inevitable, but something you don't like, others will love. Health is the most important aspect when it comes to an individual's body. Being anorexic isn't healthy, no matter how much you may enjoy being skinny, I know this, and being obese isn't healthy. There's got to be a balance, and it isn't a tiny size 6 for all.

Every woman's body is different, on my petite frame a size 6 looks healthy, but on someone of say 6ft it would look completely different. Society don't have the right to judge, but they always will,  it's just the way the world is working at the moment which is extremely unfortunate. As long as you are happy and healthy then that is all that matters. No one has the right to judge you but you. Simple as that.