The body race
05 March 2009
With the book about to be published, it’s fascinating to see quite how much time and space is still devoted each week to the grading of womens’ bodies in the press. If you’ve been tuning into the chat, you’ll know that Michelle Obama’s upper arms are a subject of intense discourse (“the new arms race” says the Daily Mail). Elsewhere, the utterly, endlessly beautiful Yasmin Lebon claims to be “one-and-a-half stone overweight” – surely a truth only if she’s starting from a size-zero base line. What’s clear is that we remain deeply interested in sizing each other up. Size matters. And it’s only a brave and ballsy woman who can negotiate this territory without being affected by the picky demands of a society devoted to thin. So here’s the thing: you can be slim, you can be happy, you don’t need to diet. If the body race matters to you, there are a hundred (and one) ways to win. Just do it with a little love, not a lot of self-hate. As Yasmin Lebon herself says, "Life is for living, enjoy it while you can. It's miserable watching what you eat all the time."
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