Have You Cried After Trying on Clothes?

Survey stolen from Pissed off Female.

1. Current Height:
5’0

2. Current Weight:
about 75kg, which is 165 pounds or 375000 carats (if I were a diamond, I’d be worth more than all the wealth on the planet).

3. Current BMI:
And here’s where I illustrate that BMI doesn’t work. They give it a nice three-letter-acronym and act like it’s science and everyone just swallows it. But really, it’s those old height:weight charts in another, more impressive looking form. And what they don’t take into account is that everyone’s bodies are completely different. My current BMI is *32.2*!!! Which puts me at quite seriously obese (a BMI of 25-29.9 is considered overweight, 30+ is considered obese). Never mind that no one looking at me would call me particularly fat, let alone obese (curvy, yes. Perhaps even a little chunky if they were feeling uncharitable. But I wouldn’t get called fat). Never mind, also, that I’m extremely fit and healthy. I can run around a soccer field for two hours, I can spend days tramping over mountains, and I can throw 6’+ bear-like men at aikido. I don’t get sick, I don’t get over-tired. My body, disregarding one or two non-weight related things, is in pretty good condition.
When I was 17, I weighed 54kg, or 119lb. Which gave me a BMI of 23.3, which was on the higher end of the “healthy weight range” of BMI (18.5-24.9). At 54kg, I was very very sick. I got to that weight entirely because I basically stopped eating and began to do an unhealthy amount of exercise. I was constantly unwell, I couldn’t concentrate at school and I was extremely unhappy. 54kg was absolutely not a healthy weight for me to be.
At 42.5kg/94lb, the BMI calculator finally concedes that I’d be underweight (but only just, with a BMI of 18.4). I would HATE to imagine me at that weight. I’d be all bones. Definitely no luscious bosom, no broad hips and I imagine no muscle either. I don’t think I’d be alive, quite honestly.
My body is *supposed* to be curvy. Despite what modern sceince says, it’s healthy for me to be this way.

4. Lowest weight at current height:
54kg (119lb), when I was 17.

5. Highest weight at current height:
95kg (209lb), when I was 21.

6. Pant size:
Size 16 in NZ sizing, but I think that it might be different from US sizing (yeah, according to this site I just found, I’d be a US 12. Which seems deeply unlikely to me, but there we go).

7. Top size:
16

8. Have you ever been diagnosed with an eating disorder?
Nope, thankfully.

9. How often do you weigh yourself?
Almost never.

10. Have you cried after weighing yourself/trying on clothes?
Once, when I made two mistakes at once: shortly after putting on inordinate amounts of weight after going on the pill, I thought I might still be able to wear a bikini. Then I took my pig-boyfriend Jericho with me to try on swimsuits. It all ended in tears, not so much cos I didn’t look good in the bikini (though it’s true that I didn’t, but I could live with that), but more because Jericho made me feel so fucking bad about it.

11. If you could have any body type, what would you choose?
Hummm, I’d like my body type, thanks very much. I wouldn’t feel like me in anyone else’s body.

12. What type do you have:
Excessively curvy. Breasts and hips and thighs everywhere.

13. How happy would you say you are with your body as it is right at this moment?
Pretty damned happy, thanks for asking. I always quite liked it, but since I started pushing myself physically and testing a few of my body’s limits, I feel even more at home in it.

14. Have you been made fun of because of your weight?
Yeah at primary school, oddly enough cos I wasn’t a particularly chubby kid. I guess I was waaay too smart to be teased for being dumb, and they had to tease me about something.

15. Did it contribute to how you feel about yourself now?
Nah. They were just dumb primary school kids. Actually, I have this fantastically ironic memory of this really roly, chubby kid chanting “big blobs of blubber, running down the street” as I was “it” in tag. Aside from being excellent alliteration, it was just really funny, since he was twice the size of me.

16. Does it take you a long time to find something that looks halfway decent on you?
If I go to nasty chain stores, yes it does! I hate nasty chain stores, I think they’re designed to make women feel bad about themselves. Instead, I go vintage clothes shopping (from times when they made clothes in proper sizes, designed for women with actual bodies, not some bizarre ideal. Cos you just know that chain store clothes designers design with that perfect stick-like body in mind, and then add a few inches to make bigger sizes, and that doesn’t actually work), or if I’m feeling wealthy I head to little independent design boutiques, cos they often make proper sized clothes.

17. If you could snap your fingers and make yourself any weight, what number would you choose?
The number I’ve got.

18. What celebrity, in your opinion, has the perfect body?
I don’t believe in the perfect body. I think all bodies are perfect.

19. Other than physical appearance, how do you feel about yourself?
Pretty good, thanks.

20. Do you think you’d be happier about yourself if you were comfortable with your weight?
I am comfortable with my weight (I love the way this survey assumes thay we won’t be), and I’m pretty happy. I’m sure the two at least partially go hand in hand.

Thanks for listening to my sermonising. Please come again.