Sometimes I find fatshion blogs to be fun and inspirational.
And sometimes, well, not.
I often recommend that clients look at more body positive blogs, especially ones with images of fat people. It’s a way to recalibrate your brain so that fatter bodies seem more like what they are – normal.
(I’m not a big fan of the idea of normal, but often realizing that your body is normal rather than gross, weird, and abnormal is an important step in your body love journey.)
After practicing serious, radical body love for about 7 years now, I rarely see an image that makes me feel bad about my body. But loving your body is often like peeling an onion, and though I’ve peeled away nearly all of the layers of body hate, I noticed that there’s a little, annoying part of the onion left. Maybe it’s only 1% or less of that onion, but it’s there.
I realized that I have a weird issue with my body shape, and that fatshion blogs seem to exacerbate it every once in a while.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a sort of “upside down” triangle shaped body. My hips and waist are essentially the same size. This makes it really hard to keep my pants from falling down (seriously, this is no fun). When I wear tights or leggings, I have to tuck them under my bra in order to keep them on. When I try on pants, if the waist fits, there is literally a foot or more of material in the hips and thighs. The size that would make sense for my thighs is about 6 sizes smaller than the size I wear in tops. Most dresses that fit my top half have feet of extra material in the bottom half. I’ve tried getting my clothes tailored, but the cost ends up being exorbitant because I want to tailor pretty much everything.
My body has been like this forever, so I don’t think about it much and I’m used to working around it. But every once in a while it really gets to me.
I even tried to start my own fatshion blog, Fatshionable Apples, but I haven’t done much with it.
Fatshion blogs sometimes exacerbate my annoyance, because although the wonderful folks who run these blogs look way more like me than magazine models, they still don’t seem to have the challenges I have with clothes.
I don’t know what the answer to this is, but I thought I’d share it because I can’t be the only one!
Plus, I think it’s good to be transparent with you all. I love my body, don’t denigrate it, don’t hate it (anymore) but I still run into these little, uncomfortable parts of the onion (there’s that metaphor!) now and again.
Do you have similar body shape issues or issues with fatshion blogs? If so, let’s chat about it in the comments section below!
Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. To learn more about Golda and her work, click here.
I’m just discovering some practical dressing solutions after struggling with this issue for ages. Pants and tights waistbands not only are always too small if they fit me in the thighs and legs but they also hurt my belly. I tried tucking legging waists in my bra, but they fall out. One solution that has worked well of late is to cut the elastic waist of leggings and tights so they’re so wide they fall down. Then I wear a pair of bikini undies on the outside and a long, clingy spaghetti-strap top pulled down over the waist. Together these hold on to the waist of the leggings so they stay up without constricting.
Wow! I’m so glad you found a solution to this! Does it feel really hot in the summer though?
I feel the same way because the plus size clothes tend to be designed for pear shaped women and my body type which is changing to more of a larger stomach the closer I get to menopause. I also work around it but feel at times short changed!
Aaaaaugh this is so true. In a lot of ways fatshion has made me excited, inspired, and just glad to see more large bodies, but on the other hand I have a huge problem with my apron belly. It hangs almost to my knees and like you, i have no hips, so pants either go over the belly (which basically no pants are made to accommodate) or they don’t really happen. I switched to dresses/skirts only in my wardrobe a few years ago because my belly started popping out under the bottoms of all my shirts, even the long ones, and it’s so embarrassing to me. I don’t think a pair of jeans for my body exists in this world, at all. It makes me feel so sad and constricted sometimes, no matter how adamant I am about loving the body I’m in!
I have some body envy when I see how fab those girls look in lingerie or swimsuits. The girls with the big beautiful breasts spilling over the top of the bra, accentuated waist and firm round tush. Meanwhile, I am shaped like a barrel. No, not apple….barrel. It’s like an apple only elongated. However I am available to model apple/barrel clothing for you. I don’t have big boobs either, so…nothing too low cut.
You really hit the nail on the head about the lack of body diversity. I’m 5’2″ and carry my weight in my lower half. My most recent “bottoms” size is a 14 but my bra size is 38B. I’m never going to be va-va-voom voluptuous. Regarding pants, I buy jeans at Old Navy because they’ll go on sale for $15 or $20, and it makes the inevitable $25-40 of tailoring easier to swallow.
Confession: I Still Have Occasional Body Image Issues That Are Exacerbated By Fatshion Blogs http://t.co/asV8RagO5R via @@bodylovewellnes
Confession: I Still Have Occasional Body Image Issues That Are Exacerbated By Fatshion Blogs http://t.co/wLj40V0bgg via @@bodylovewellnes
I think, even the bloggers who look so confident and gorgeous have their issues. I have those wide hips and this huge belly. I wish I had only the hips. So, when I look at some bloggers and their outfits, I think “Yeah, if I had this flat belly, I would look as gorgeous as they do”.
And with this, there comes those issues with buying clothes, especially jeans. I need more material at my huge thighs and my hips, but this means, that the waistband is too wide. But with a narrow waistband I don’t get the jeans over my huge but. ^^
Every shape is different. But I think that the bigger a woman is, that the different between the shapes is more visible. And with this the fact, that most clothes are made for a special bodytype.
Oh … btw … sometimes there is this little devil on my shoulder who whispers “Yeah, you can be fat, but you should have an hourglas shape”.
My conclusion: We need more clothes in biggers sizes. But we need also more clothes for different shapes. Not only more lenghts for pant legs. Waist sizes, but sizes … and so on. But who will this realize … :(
I feel the same way because the plus size clothes tend to be designed for pear shaped women and my body type which is changing to more of a larger stomach the closer I get to menopause. I also work around it but feel at times short changed!
I feel the same way because the plus size clothes tend to be designed for pear shaped women and my body type which is changing to more of a larger stomach the closer I get to menopause. I also work around it but feel at times short changed!