Filed under: Health and Fitness, Motherhood, Parenting, Rants, Social Commentary, women's issues
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/state-has-epidemic-of-pregnant-smokers/20071023091809990001
This article and the associated “comments” resonated with me intensely, because I live in West Virginia and I have seen this “epidemic” firsthand.
Of the 36 employees at my firm, 28 of them are women. Of those women, five have been pregnant at some point during my tenure here. Of those five, three of them smoke – and smoked throughout their pregnancies.
When asked why, they said, “I just can’t quit” and “It makes the baby smaller, so it’s easier to deliver.”
These are not stupid, backwoods, uneducated rednecks. These are otherwise intelligent, responsible people. Evidently somewhat selfish and misinformed, but otherwise not bad people. It is hard for me to believe that they could make such a bad decision, but they did.
Walk down any West Virginia street, any day of the year, and you will see about two of every five people brandishing a lit cigarette. It’s not just pregnant women, folks – smoking in general is epidemic in this state. These are people who started smoking in middle school, if not even earlier, and who are very likely never going to kick the habit, not even for their unborn children. You can teach them all you want, in middle school and high school, about the dangers of tobacco use – which some of the asshole commentators on the above article seem to think are bogus! – but you will never break them of a habit that is not only endorsed but shared by their friends, family members, and role models.
It is sad and scary, because it is becoming worse, not better. And those who will ultimately pay the price are the children, who will suffer from various health problems, and the taxpayers, who will inevitably pay for the medical care these children will need in the majority of cases. And those same children will enter the same social environment that promoted smoking in their parents – and will probably take up the habit themselves at a young age.
It is all too easy for people to sit at home feeling comfortably intelligent, educated, cultured and superior, and sneer at the “stupid rednecks” who would do something like this. That is behavior typical of the majority of those who like to think of themselves as being of the “upper classes”, but it isn’t solving any problems. Meanwhile, the epidemic is growing to the point that smoking in movies and television shows – once, at the height of the anti-smoking frenzy, unthinkable – is once again common and unremarkable.
So…those of you who are sneering at the “stupid rednecks” – please remember that epidemics spread. Today, it is Martha Jean from Williamson, West Virginia, who is getting hooked at the ripe old age of ten. But as smoking once again becomes not only non-vilified but “cool”, it may well, in the future, be your child or grandchild. I hope to God it’s not mine, and instead of passing judgment and feeling safely “above all that”, I intend to do everything I can to make sure that the children in my daughter’s elementary school are learning why it’s not safe, and how they can avoid the temptation.
This should be a wake-up call, though sadly, it probably won’t be – because it’s West Virginia, and most people feel safe in condemning it as a state full of ignorant rednecks, though those passing such judgment have never been here and know only what they have heard or read. So it will be easily dismissed and ignored, and by the time it’s this prevalent in other states, it will no longer be uncommon enough to draw comment.
Sad, but true.
Filed under: Health and Fitness, Rants, Social Commentary, Womanhood, weight loss, women's issues
Okay, NOW I’m pissed.
First, let me state that the outfit Britney was wearing for this performance was a poor choice for anyone, at any time. It is unattractive and tasteless and would make just about anyone look bad.
Having said that, I am beyond incensed at the plethora of “fat” comments engendered by this! I heard the comments before I saw the performance, and looked it up fully expecting to see the visual evidence of a year-long binge. Let’s face it, the girl has been on a bit of a roll lately. I expected that to be reflected in sagging arms, a bulging belly, jiggling cellulite – in short, all of the things advertised in the Web flames.
Frankly, I see none of this. I see a body that is a hell of a lot better than 99% of the women on the planet, and one that most teenage girls wouldn’t be ashamed to claim. I see a shape a little curvier than the one she had pre-babies, but I do not see rolls and bulges and flab. I see arms that are more rounded and less toned than the average Hollywood star’s, but they are not fat, flabby, or unattractive. I see legs that are a little thicker than most of the same Hollywood stars’, but again not flabby or revolting.
Britney does not look the way she once did. She also doesn’t look like a woman who has given birth twice. Frankly, considering the two kids and the lifestyle she has been pursuing, she looks damn good.
In what universe is this fat? I truly want to know. Because I don’t think I want to live in that universe. That is a universe of carrot sticks, water and lettuce, and very little else. A universe of girls learning to hate themselves at an earlier age all the time; of young women starving themselves and abusing their bodies in the name of “beauty” because if they don’t, they are reviled; of the average woman looking at herself with nothing short of disgust and revulsion, no matter how healthy she may be, because she can’t possibly live up to the not only ridiculous but downright dangerous standard that is being held up for her review!
I have a 16-year-old daughter. She is frankly gorgeous, if I do say so myself (and I do). She is 5′4″, with long light-brown hair and greenish-brown eyes, lovely fair skin with a delicate smattering of freckles across her nose, a sweetly curved mouth that smiles a lot, and a knockout figure. If she were a little older, she would be called sexy as hell; as it is, my friends see her and say, “She’s got such a cute figure! She’s on birth control, right?”
She wears a size 6. She probably weighs more than Britney. (The boys who text her constantly don’t seem to mind much, though.)
To the idiots criticizing Britney’s appearance, this beautiful girl would be considered a “tubby chick” and ridiculed for her size. Which, frankly, is utter bullshit. I despair because she thinks she’s fat; I wonder how to make her see that her size is normal, healthy and gorgeous, (and a size I would have killed for at that age!) and that protruding bones do not equal beauty. I agonize over what it does to her self-esteem that she is not a twig. And then I read articles like this one, and I want to throttle somebody.
It is no wonder that young girls everywhere are growing up to be women with enormous self-esteem issues and a complete lack of reason when it comes to their body image. It’s not just the fact that bone-thin women with a silhouette similar to that of a drought-surviving Ethiopian are paraded before us and called “beautiful”. It is the fact that women with an ounce of flesh – whether it’s fat or muscle – are called “tubby”, “chunky”, “fleshy”, and outright “fat”.
I am no fan of Britney Spears. I never have been. The girl needs turned over someone’s knee and taught some manners, some class, and some self-respect. But this is ridiculous, and I am deeply angered on behalf of every female on the planet. It is time that this insanity stopped.
Filed under: Health and Fitness, Rants, Self-Respect, Social Commentary, Womanhood, weight loss, women's issues
Forgive me…I will warn in advance that this is angry and opinionated and…hostile.
But I mean, honestly. Sometimes people make me so angry I could cry. Here is this father, who is a fashion designer, talking about the sobering discovery that his daughter has an eating disorder, and lamenting the unrealistic standards of the fashion industry that help to create situations like this.
And several comments down, here’s this troll commenting that a size 10 to 12 is only average because Americans are all fat, and we shouldn’t pretend that’s acceptable. And meanwhile, she is a size zero and perfectly healthy. (She’s responding to a somewhat angry comment that the father’s promotion of a size 4 to 6 is not any better than the fashion industry standard of 0 to 2. I thought that comment was a bit overheated too, though I agreed.)
I only commented (mine is about number 41 or so) because I couldn’t reach “J”, to knock her the f&*k out. And it is so good that I couldn’t because I don’t think I’d have stopped kicking her when she lost consciousness…
Am I the only person who is sick to utter death at these women who help perpetuate the myth that we all need to be a particular size? Please don’t misunderstand me…I am on a journey here, striving for the utter limit of good health and wellness and fitness, and I don’t intend to stop ever because, well, you can’t. You don’t get there and then go on vacation. It’s for life. But…
I also accept that “healthy” for me is not the same as “healthy” for someone else. At a size 16/18, I was horribly unhealthy. I was heading for an early grave. At a size 8, I’m in pretty darned good shape. But I know women who, at a size 16/18, are in great shape. They’re strong, they have excellent medical test results, they are athletic, they are happy. For them, health is not about a number or a measurement or a BMI or anything else. I also know women who are a size 2, who can’t carry a damned 24-pack of bottled water and couldn’t finish a 5K if their lives depended on it. It’s not about a number on the scale or the tape measure.
Why do we do this to our daughters? Our sisters, our mothers, our nieces and friends? Ourselves? I am so, so sad. Because it’s bad, it’s really bad, when the faceless media does it to us. It’s unforgiveable when we do it to each other.
Madelaine Albright said, “There’s a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.” I believe that. And as far as I’m concerned, “J” has a one-way ticket. If that’s overly hostile…okay. I can live with that.