Fat Chicks??

I feel asleep with the television on the other night and then I woke up to "international breaking news." I wondered what would cause such hubbaloo on a major morning news show. Turns out that a woman won a beauty pageant in England.

Yep. That was it. She won the local pageant that allows her to compete in the Miss England competition. This is the equivalent of winning the Miss Nutmeg Scholarship pageant in Connecticut.

Why is this national... sorry.... INTERNATIONAL news?

She’s a size 12.
Sometimes a size 14.

Chloe Marshall won the Miss Surrey pageant and turned the world on its ear. Apparently, size 12 women winning pageants is international news. She MAY become Miss England. OMG.

Let’s take a closer look at this: according to the height/weight proportion charts a large boned woman standing 5’10" like Chloe should be between 153 and 173 lbs. At 176 pounds (just over 12 stone in England) she’s most likely 3 pounds overweight and maybe less toned.

We live in a society that alerts the international media when an average sized person is discovered to be beautiful. It’s a world shocker that she possessed the beauty, talent, and interviewing skills to win a pageant??

Most people in this country are obese. Obese can be defined as a person with a BMI over 30 or more than 30% of their mass as fat.

Here are the BMI Categories:

Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

I then plugged in Chloe’s stats into the Calculator:

Height: 5’10"
Weight: 176 lbs
BMI: 25.3
Result: She’s slightly overweight and hardly obese.

Over 60% of this country is either overweight or obese and Chloe’s results reflect that she’s statistically better than more than 99% of that group.

But we have a singular focus. We tie our weight to our self worth and value. We tie our weight to personal success and discipline. We are inundated with images that represent less than 4% of the country and consider ourselves less than perfect if we are less than Angelina Jolie.

We have created this culture:

Because we want to be like her:

  before                                after

And don’t forget fashion models!

Is this sexy? Is this beautiful? Is this what we want?

On Monday on Regina’s Universe we are discussing obesity and food addiction. If you have ever suffered from weight issues due to food addiction, anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, or any other food/weight related issue please call in. Let’s talk about it.