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By S.D. Craig

Size matters. That’s what they tell me. Only a lot of the time, they’re simply not referring to a man’s pride and joy.

As I once again tuned in to my taped version of a Dr. Phil episode, I hear the man himself introduce a slender, pretty young woman who despises fat people. I shake my head, my husband shakes his. And we sit and listen to her opinion on why fat people are fat, stay fat and infringe on her space.

Next, Dr. Phil has her wear a 300 lb. suit for the day and they put fake implants put in her cheeks (yes, both sets). Just for the day, I said. Just to see how the other half feels and what they continually go through on a daily basis. Funny, but it isn’t that funny to me. You see, in order to understand how being fat really is, you must live it.

This young woman just didn’t get it.

In her eyes, her mind, those of us that are heavy can change our lives if we want to. Some people cannot. There are a myriad of reasons for overweight statistics in America. Some are guilty of overeating, not exercising, indulging themselves in their passion (mine is chocolate). Others have health problems, family heredity, or issues, as Dr. Phil calls them.

She abhors people larger than her taking up room in her movie theatre seat, her airplane seat, her bus seat. She thinks they’re disgusting, arrogant and selfish.

You know what I think? I think, no, I know, that she’s never even taken the time to get to know a person whom she’d call fat. Underneath everyone’s size, color of skin, or disabilities happens to be a real person. Someone special she’s just missed knowing because she can’t see past her own nose in the air.

Now, to me, a curvy woman myself, that’s what arrogance really is.

Size does matter. It’s all about heart.

SD Craig is a freelance writer and editor of LovingYourCurves.com and was given the nickname “Chatterbox” by fellow writers. At age fifty, Craigs Southern flair and sense of humor give her plenty to write about with a rapier wit and a wacky outlook. Her articles on body image (her biggest passion), marriage/divorce and relationships, family, friends, career issues, computers, the Internet, horses, baseball, movie reviews and writing tips remind one of Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry. A freelance writer who once juggled five columns then got real, Craig welcomes your e-mails and feedback on her articles. Drop her a hello at sdcraig922@yahoo.com or stop by www.lovingyourcurves.com.

By S.D. Craig

How many times have you thought something bad about someone who is heavier than you?  Or said it out loud?  And do you realize that this is discrimination, that it hurts, that it isn’t helpful or supportive?  No, probably you haven’t thought about those things until it was too late.  Or maybe, you just didn’t think.  Period.  Ouch.

So many times in my life, someone has hurt my feelings and though I admit I’m a ‘sensitive plant,’ (my husband says so), it doesn’t take much to have someone prick you in an area that they feel you need improvement in.  The key word here is “they.”  It seems that either they are insensitive louts or they’re busybodies.  All in the name of love, most times.  Whether you wanted the advice or opinion matters not.

They are floating with the flock, as it were.

The flock is society and the media, magazines and advertisements, flaunting that the only way to be popular, to be lovely, is to weigh no more than a girl of thirteen.  The damage this is doing to our young children, not to mention ourselves, is horrendous.  And floating with the flock sickens me.

People need to stop this behavior.  I would no sooner think to inform someone they needed to gain weight or lose weight than I would think to murder them in cold blood.  It just never occurs to me to advise where it’s not wanted.  I learned my lesson long ago to be tactful and keep my nose in my own business.  Most days.

If I thought someone was in grave danger, I might change my mind.  But for the most part, I try to be helpful in a myriad of other ways and, if someone needs me, to be there for them and be supportive.

Society will never learn if we keep pointing out fat people (is there a nice reason to do this?) or saying to a friend, “Doesn’t she need to lose twenty pounds before she wears that outfit again?”  It’s human decency, it’s consideration of feelings.

Floating with the flock will eventually mean you’re one of them.  The non-people.

Stay down to earth and love your neighbors, whether they’re big, little, old or young, rich or poor.  Wouldn’t that be a feather in your cap?

About the writer:

SD Craig is a freelance writer and editor of LovingYourCurves.com and was given the nickname “Chatterbox” by fellow writers. At age fifty, Craigs Southern flair and sense of humor give her plenty to write about with a rapier wit and a wacky outlook. Her articles on body image (her biggest passion), marriage/divorce and relationships, family, friends, career issues, computers, the Internet, horses, baseball, movie reviews and writing tips remind one of Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry. A freelance writer who once juggled five columns then got real, Craig welcomes your e-mails and feedback on her articles. Drop her a hello at sdcraig922@yahoo.com or stop by www.lovingyourcurves.com.

By S.D.Craig

Oh, the wonders of society, when they came up with the word “cellulite” for us women of thighs. We now had a name for that cottage cheese dimpling our legs, God help us. It’s kind of like PMS, isn’t it? Now that they’ve actually given a name out loud for it, we’ve all got it. There are meds for it, there are prescriptions written by the oodles for it, we must have it then. I wouldn’t doubt there are clothes for it by now.

The thighs have long since been one of the seven wonders of the world. Okay, maybe the ninth. They have been lean, tanned, muscular and toned. They have been wobbly, sickly, white and pasty in Winter, and downright jiggly. They have stood us up for years, and yet, we hate them. We want to trade with someone with cool thighs. Someone with legs to their armpits.

One of the most annoying things about having heavier legs than normal is that noise. You know the one. The whispering of thighs in certain materials. Pantyhose, silk, satin, that warm-up suit you wear. The noise means your thighs are too big. It means, oh dear, that you cannot see through them.

For a big woman, I have always had this dream that one day a man could stand behind me, yes, and really see through my thighs. Not THROUGH them, but between them. Yes, air. Those legs like Ally McBeal has, when she stands there, you can see through her thighs. It’s disgusting, isn’t it? I mean, Ally needs some fat. Good Lord, in a breeze, the girl will fall over, I’m sure of it.

But I hang around, continue to walk, swim, do a bit of Tai Boxing here and there. All this in hopes that not only will my health be better, maybe I’ll drop some weight, but it’s the swooshing of the thighs thing.

You might think I’m odd, but I’d like to hear other things, as I move about. Like a conversation, music, the tinkling of wind chimes, the bird singing overheard, the sky thundering, cars honking. Maybe my Walkman. Can I hear it? With all the swooshing going on, I want one thing.

I want silence when I walk.

SD Craig is a freelance writer and editor of LovingYourCurves.com and was given the nickname “Chatterbox” by fellow writers. At age fifty, Craigs Southern flair and sense of humor give her plenty to write about with a rapier wit and a wacky outlook. Her articles on body image (her biggest passion), marriage/divorce and relationships, family, friends, career issues, computers, the Internet, horses, baseball, movie reviews and writing tips remind one of Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry. A freelance writer who once juggled five columns then got real, Craig welcomes your e-mails and feedback on her articles. Drop her a hello at sdcraig922@yahoo.com or stop by www.lovingyourcurves.com.

By S.D. Craig

Okay, so they got to her.  Kate Winslett, our Titanic dame of curvaceous beauty.  The one who wasn’t afraid to show it all and flaunt her voluptuous ins and outs.  They’ve done it.

Hollywood has put the fear of slim in her.  If you ask me, it’s a crying shame.  Funny thing is, I know men love her.  They have flocked to her movies.  Those winsome white-skinned curves have cast their spell upon many males since Titanic splashed us.

Rose had a baby.

Well, then.  We all know that when a woman has a baby, she usually gains some extra weight.  It takes about nine to twelve months to lose these unwanted pounds, according to my gynecologist of record back then.  Apparently, Hollywood doesn’t want to hire a motherly Kate.  Oh dear, dear me.  And waiting isn’t an option for them.

Being a woman of curves, one that has fought diets and pounds for decades now, I resent that.  I resent it big.  The men of the universe appreciate a woman like Kate on the screen, one who just might not be crushed in a manly embrace.  One who could stand up to nursing her babies, holding one in each strong arm, and look sexy as hell doing so.

I beg for the men of the world to unite.  Vote for Kate and her wondrous figure.  We don’t want a tiny Rose, we don’t want a paper-thin model type.  We’ve seen what damage that can do to our society.  What message is Hollywood sending out to the young women, the teenagers, the adolescents?  Have a decent size twelve or fourteen shape and you’re out.  Bye bye.  Statistics have it that the average size in the USA is a size fourteen, in fact.

Our males want a real woman.  Just ask Trisha Yearwood about her song, Real Live Woman.  It’s an anthem that needs to be shared and heard around the world.  Let’s get our paints and paint the words on the streets of Hollywood, on Sunset Strip.  We’ll use fluorescent paint, won’t we?  Make it stick.  Make it permanent.

Let all our cries be heard.  Women are sick of this obsession with thin.  The media, press, magazines and advertisers are hurting our girls.  do away with paranoia, anorexia and bulimia.  Let our children grow without the fear of fat.  The fear of their looks being the most important thing besides making money.

Who said that anyway?  They should be whipped.  I’ve got a hitching post and a crop ready to go, send them my way.  We’re killing our kids, we’re destroying wonderful women’s egos and all for what?  So that bones can show in their cleavage?  So that they dress like boys in the movies?

Oh, bless her heart, wouldn’t Marilyn be mortified?  And Kate, dear Kate.  She once was quoted as saying in 1998, “I’m happy with the way I am.  I’m not like American film stars.”  But damn, double damn.  These Americans have finally gotten to her.  She succumbed to the hype.  She wants to “get her baby weight off.”  Most women do.  But that Hollywood won’t hire Winslett due to that is preposterous.  We’re going to see the acting, aren’t we?  The talent?  Oh, but maybe not.

During her last publicity tour for her recent movie, “Quills,” it was almost painful for me to hear Kate say, “It’s so insane and bloody boring (to diet).  I despise myself for it and feel I’m letting a lot of people down…  I constantly wave the flag of ‘Don’t go on diets because they are rubbish,’ but I’d like to get a bit of the baby weight off or I won’t work.”

What Hollywood now tells us by their default actions is that they want thin, they want toned and fit.  Okay.  Understood.  But not agreed.  For the more fit, toned and thin these actresses become, the less believable and real they are, their films are, and they and we’ve lost a lot in the bargain, along with their pounds.  Haven’t we?  Be honest here.

In a recent article I read, the man complained about this situation with Kate Winslett and Hollywood.  He said that the less real the movies become (by using gaunt actresses), the more trouble it creates for the normal women, and for him.  He can no longer convince a curvy date that she’s lovely, or even make her see that she doesn’t have to have perfection in her man either.  It’s a double-edged loss, I’m afraid.  A sad one.

If we worried about men as much as our diets (and figures), they might not have to go through living with us during the phases of starvation.  It’s not a fun thing to co-exist with.  And, well, our men like to have fun with us.  They don’t like to see the struggles, the hurts, the painful way of getting slender.  A woman becomes so focused on how she wants to look, she forgets to have fun today, as she is now.  Oh so damned sad.

What I worry about almost as much as what it’s doing to society and our children, is that being slim doesn’t mean happiness.  After all we’d go through to get there, are we truly happy?  Can we buy that?  Can we make that?  No.  And in the process, what else did we lose along the way?

Say no, Kate.  We don’t want you without hips, without breasts, without a motherly glow.  Didn’t anyone tell you how sexy that is?

A rose is but a rose…

SD Craig is a freelance writer and editor of LovingYourCurves.com and was given the nickname “Chatterbox” by fellow writers. At age fifty, Craigs Southern flair and sense of humor give her plenty to write about with a rapier wit and a wacky outlook. Her articles on body image (her biggest passion), marriage/divorce and relationships, family, friends, career issues, computers, the Internet, horses, baseball, movie reviews and writing tips remind one of Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry. A freelance writer who once juggled five columns then got real, Craig welcomes your e-mails and feedback on her articles. Drop her a hello at sdcraig922@yahoo.com or stop by www.lovingyourcurves.com.