It was yet another boring Saturday when I decided to browse through antique stores to try and find some old records I would like. I was in search of anything from Alice Cooper to ZZ Top.
I found my way to the record section, and found Abbey Road and the White Album by the Beatles for only $15 each, which made me ecstatic. However, I wanted to look around a bit.
| If (Marilyn) Monroe were alive today, and still acting, society would call her overweight. |
I walked through aisles with old board games, clothes from eras I’ve never lived through, furniture that I would buy if I had a home of my own and just about all things one would find in an antique store.
Toward the back of the store, something of a turquoise blue color caught my eye. Curiously walking toward it, I realized it was an old scale, the kind one would find in a shopping mall. You know, you put a quarter in it, and it tells you how much you weigh.
I want to guess the scale was from the late ’40s or early ’50s. There was a table on it for height and healthy weight for men and women. This caught my eye, especially since we now live in a society obsessed with being thin and looking a certain way.
I am 5 feet 8 inches tall, so I looked to see what would have been considered my healthy weight 40 or 50 years ago. I almost dropped Paul, George, John and Ringo on the floor. One hundred and fifty-four pounds was considered average and healthy?
When I got home, I immediately went to my computer to see what the average healthy weight was for a woman my height today. The answer didn’t shock me. The healthy weight for a person my size is 126 to 138 pounds. That is almost a 30-pound difference.
How did we get to the point where thinner is better? When did it become cool for celebrities to be on the cabbage soup diet and look like sticks with no curves?
My favorite actress of all time is Marilyn Monroe. She appeared in movies such as “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “Some Like it Hot” and, more notably, “The Seven Year Itch,” where her white skirt flies up in the air.
Her height was 5 feet 2 inches and she weighed 140 pounds. Do you know what size she was? She was a 10 or 12, depending on the designer of clothes.
This was during the 1950s. This was during the time when women had voluptuous curves and weren’t afraid of showing them off. This was during a time when “diets” weren’t the “in thing.” This was during a time when “abs of steel” wasn’t even in the English language. There weren’t any hip hugger pants around either. Yet, men considered her to be the sexiest woman on this planet.
She didn’t have to lose weight to obtain a certain role. She ate what she wanted to eat. She didn’t have people hounding her day and night yelling at her for having too many servings of potatoes. It saddens me to realize that if Monroe were alive today, and still acting, society would call her overweight.
How did this society become so obsessed with being thin? It’s everywhere you go. I even see Doritos claiming they have no trans fats.
People are going on diets more than ever. There is Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and Anna Nicole Smith claiming she lost all her weight with Trim Spa. The new fad is the low carbohydrate diets including the Atkins Diet, the Zone and the South Beach Diet.
In the South Beach Diet, carrots are shunned upon. I have never seen any fat rabbits running around.
Granted you do lose weight with these so-called diets, but how could we restrict ourselves to such extremes?
The best thing for society to do is shy away from diets and focus on moderation and exercise. If you want pasta for dinner, have pasta, but don’t have two servings. Maybe afterwards instead of going on the computer or watching TV, go for a nice walk or a bike ride. They’re enjoyable and excuses to get some fresh air.
Exercising at least hree or four times a week also helps. It’s the little things you do that really matter. When you vacuum or rake the leaves, that counts. Even laughing is a way to eliminate some of those unwanted calories.
Regardless of what weight we are, we should be proud of our bodies and our shape that accompanies them. We should let Hollywood know that seeing hip bones sticking out really isn’t that attractive.
Blatz is a freshman print journalism major and a columnist for The Spectator.
