18 — Wednesday, March 3, 1999 — North Shore News north shore news S¢ PARENTAL GUIDANCE Diet flash: No one likes a skinny It’s a well-known fact that most women are unhappy with the way they look. You hear them complain- ing constantly about their weight but, especially now that there are signs of spring, will soon be wearing skimpier clothing. However, there are mixed messages out there, and we poor fat fighters are a little contiised. You see, no one likes being fat. But admitting that you don't like being fat is not good form these days. ~ Apparently it is more aceept- able to like yourself when you are plump than it is to admit that you don’t. Certainly other women like you more when you are plump, they'll tell you to your face. They even try to thwart your efforts to cat less. “Why do you want to lose weight, Shannon, you look great?” a friend asked when I joined weight watch- ers last spring. I showed her my upper arms, which quickly shut her up. But then she brought out the freshly baked chaco- fate cookies and practically forced me to eat them. (OK, so I didn’t kick up rhat much ofa fuss.) She is a friend, but she prefers me chubby. Women like other women to be chubby. It’s a fact. Today I bumped into a friend of mine, one I hada’t seen in quite a while. We sat down for coffee and she told me about her recent separa- tion from her husband. She had lost a ton of weight. I called my best friend Danna as soon as I got home and told her I had seen Angie. “How did she look?” was the first question she asked me about her. “Skinny”, I told her. “Proesn’t look like she’s had a good feed of cookie dough for a while.” “Lucky girl. Must be unhappy,” she speculated. “That and hungry,” I agreed. I mean, how can a skinny woman possibly be happy? As far as I can determine, in order for a woman to be skinny, she must not be eat- ing much. That means she’s hungry, right? Either that or she’s exhausted from werk- ing out all the time to burn off the calories she cats. Its a losing situation. Be skinny and feel awful, or chubby and feel good. No wonder most of us are chubby. T sat down with a group of women last week to talk about this. We determined that in order for a woman to be skinny she must be total- ly neurotic about her weight. And that there really are only a handful of socially acceptable excuses for a woman to be skinny: Young Skinny: When you're young there are so many more interesting things to do with vour time than cating. Like chasing boys, and driving fast, and plaving until vour drop. Young women are allowed to be skinny. In Love Skinny: These are the bone-racks that are so sick with love that they cannot cat. If you're falling in love you are allowed ta be skinny. Post Natal Skinny: These are the women who are so repulsed by the sight of their postpartum figures that they go overboard to shed them. [ was one of these. After Ehad my first baby I was so horrified at the folds of baby fat chat hung from my torso, at the dim- ples in my thighs the size of quarters that I really worked at losing weight. 1 worked out like crazy. f refused to eat fattening foods. I rook care of myself. I was miser- able. Marriage Breakup Skinny: These are the women whose husbands have left them for younger, skinnier women. They are either so devastated that they cannot eat, or they are re-entering the dating scene and feel they have to lose weight to be attractive to men. Both ways, its very sad. broad Sick Skinny: Acceptable with a doctor's note. The worst kind of skinny women are the ones who complain about being fac. This summer [ was at the beach for a picnic with a group of women and a bunch of kids. One particu- larly slim triend (1 try not to have many} pinched her scrawny waist during a lull in the conversation and said: “Tve gained so much weight this summer, look at all this.” There might have been an inch of excess skin that barely covered her ribs, bur there wasn’t a dimple to be seen. OF course the same woman took an hour and a half co cat one potate chip while I devoured the entire bag in five minutes. “I don’t know,” I said, licking the potato chip crumbs from my lips and gathering the folds of mv muy muu around my knees, “You look pretty good to me.” The other women looked at each other in disgust. “I'm huge,” the scrawny broad went on. OK, if this ewig is huge, I'm thinking, then what does that make me? Massive? Elephantine? A huge, honkin’, hefty, mama? When she went off to swim the rest of us pledged to stop hanging around with her at the beach, or any- where else for that matter. You see? No once likes a skinny broad. I say, bag dicting. Go ubby. 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