Body Image, Self Esteem & the Stunning Kate Upton

Body Image, Self Esteem & the Stunning

http://adf.ly/CYfVH  Kate Uptonhttp://adf.ly/CYfVH

http://adf.ly/CYfVH 2012http://adf.ly/CYfVH

This is Kate Upton, adorable in a bikini and laughing, two things she does well.
So…
A thinspiration blog called Skinny Gossip attacked model Kate Upton’s body.  Terms such a well marbled, little piggie, and the lazy, lardy look are coupled with comments like I thought cannibalism was illegal?!? If that’s not a very different species of cow, Kate could be in legal trouble! (captioning a photo of her eating a burger).
Kate. Upton. A woman the New York Times reports  is 5’11″, and her measurements are 36′-25′-34′.  Those are the measurements described as Huge thighs, NO waist, big fat floppy boobs, terrible body definition–she looks like a squishy brick.  A 25″ waist is approximately a US size 4.  On a woman who http://adf.ly/CYfVH is 5’11.http://adf.ly/CYfVH
This kind of reaction worries me– worries me for my 3 nieces, ages 17, 15, and 4.  What kind of body image are they growing up with, when an Amazon is called little piggie?  How can they ever grow up believing that they can be beautiful, strong, and healthy, whatever their size, when people respond like this?
The internet is truly Pandora’s Box; it opens us to world’s we never knew existed, and allows http://adf.ly/CYfVH us create ones we could have never dreamed. http://adf.ly/CYfVH

For women to find other women with similar bodies, insecurities, concerns, goals, and inspirations is wonderful.  If it takes on a title, whether thinspiration, fatshionable, petite power– whatever.
What bothers me and makes me so uncomfortable is for someone to use that community to berate and belittle the bodies of other women.  To shit talk another woman’s body because she’s not your ideal body, is shameful, sad, and disheartening.

I’m reminded of what it was like, growing up in the 90s with the original supermodels as the beauty ideal. The sensuous, strong curves and bodies of Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schieffer, andthe Christy’s (Turlington and Brinkley).  I remember growing up, thinking I would never be so thin; that I would never be beautiful.  I never grew up to be that thin, and arguably never that beautiful (though I like to say I’ve got a beauty that is all my own).
If I grew up feeling that towards women whose bodies are significantly “larger” than the average model today, and probably not unlike Kate Upton in their size and measurements, how do young women today feel?  How are they supposed to cultivate any great sense of worth?
http://adf.ly/CYfVH Jezebel said it far better than I can,http://adf.ly/CYfVH

If Kate fucking Upton’s thighs are not immune from public dissection, then who is?
The truth is, none of us are. As long as we live in a culture that tells women that being admired and desired for the way we look is merely the normal condition of womanhood, something fundamental to our sex, it will be considered acceptable to evaluate women for their decorative value. As long as it’s considered acceptable to pass public judgment on women’s bodies, often negatively — to snark on and condemn and make fun of things that are truly beyond an individual’s control — in public, then it’s open season on all of our bodies. As long as women are in competition with one another to have the “best” body, we all lose. As long as there persists a single, narrow beauty ideal we are all instructed to live up to, none of us will live up to it. This game is rigged. There will always be some critic who can tell us where we are found lacking.

If you’ve been keeping an eye on this, how did it make you feel? Did anyone else have surprising reactions that made them think of their childhood, the beauty ideals they grew up http://adf.ly/CYfVH with? http://adf.ly/CYfVH

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