Tuesday, October 25, 2011

This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?

French model Tara Lynn
I check Facebook once in a blue moon, but this time, I came across something worth sharing. This was posted by Delphine Fieberg.

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?"

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

"Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness.
They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia.

They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires.

Mermaids do not exist.

But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish?

They would have no sex life and could not bear children. Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad. And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side?

Without a doubt, I'd rather be a whale.

At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.

We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn't enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies.

We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated.

Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: "How amazing am I ?! "

4 comments:

  1. Joe,
    I showed this to my daughter and am sharing it with my colleagues. My daughter showed me this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I
    Powerful!

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  2. The reality is that both the the thin ( anorexic) and fat person both have unhealthy life styles. Maybe thinner people maybe more stressed out and fat people appear to be happy - ( happy from the chocolate and less happy about themselves.

    one lady commented ' I was one of those ladies because the 'big and beautiful' line I was using was just another excuse to be lazy and not take care of myself. I have to wonder as society becomes more accepting of the obese, are we just giving people more excuses to give up on themselves & their health?'

    I also don't like the message of fat models to kids - if you are fat , you better have a beautiful face in order to get by.

    I don't think the beauty industry is the only one to blame . It is our culture - sexual activity taking place in early teens + , and on the other end , late marriages - the framework within which sexual relationships are more meaningful.

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  3. I saw this on Facebook as well - it got tons of "shares" all over the world. To be truly honest with you, I did not like its message -- and I am a woman. I am curious to know how many women are happy with themselves being overweight?... I know I am not!

    I felt miserable when I was overweight and used excuses like those mentioned above to maintain a very unhealthy lifestyle. Excess weight does not come with good, healthy choices and the right lifestyle and attitude about yourself. Excess weight comes plain laziness (I am not excluding here some medical reasons for loosing control over your weight, such as problems with your thyroid, but that is not what the article is talking about) - How do I know it's indulgence and plain laziness? Because I've been there and walked that path.

    I feel that messages like the one you reposted here are just as dangerous to young girls as the ones pushing for extreme dieting. Both lifestyles are just as unhealthy and they are both unacceptable choices. This type of messages would only give teens and women who already struggle with weight, extra reasons to sit back and accept the way they look, without making the effort (and man, it's hard!) to get off their butt and do something about it. Take control of yourself! Exercise! Put down that ice-cream and eat an apple!

    I have three kids and I stopped giving myself excuses to be overweight. I don't want to be a miserable "overweight" mom of three kids... my kids are no excuse for my laziness. I am MUCH happier now, tens of pounds thinner (not runway thin, but healthy and fit) and the self-discipline I gained during my personal "get back in shape" revolution, boosted my self esteem much more then some "get used to the new you and feel good about the extra pounds, you are just a mom" article. Just my two cents...

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  4. "We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated."

    This girl needs to have a look at the dictionary. Here we go:

    (1)(of a person or animal) having a large amount of excess flesh.
    (2) large in bulk or circumference: a fat cigarette

    The model has a large amount of excess flesh hence she's fat.

    Society needs to stop sugar-coating obesity with fancy terms.

    ReplyDelete