Friday, April 11, 2008

Body Image - Are you as fat (or thin) as you think?

I saw an interesting body image test on a makeover show (What Not to Wear) on TV today. They had a woman draw an outline of what she thought her body looked like, trying to make it the size she thought she was. Then the host had her stand against her drawing while he drew around her body with a different color marker on top of what she had drawn. When she stepped out and looked back at the two superimposed drawings, it became obvious to her that her mental picture of how she looked was larger than the reality.

I decided to try this myself, and, based on my results, I recommend it. First, I taped a large piece of paper on the wall. I happened to have an old roll of kid's craft paper that I used, but a roll of wrapping paper that is blank on the back would probably work, too.

I stood against the paper on the wall and marked where the top of my head came to so I'd know where to start, then drew a simple outline of what I thought my body looks like size- and shape-wise. Then I stood against the paper and drew an outline around the actual edges of my body. (It would be easier to have a friend help, if you are brave enough.)

My results? Like the woman on TV, I apparently have a mental picture of myself that is larger than the reality. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't *that* far off, but the real outline of my torso was about four inches less that what I had guessed.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it is nice to know that I'm not quite as enormous as I often feel. On the other hand, what does a distorted body image say about me? What do I do about it? How can I change it, or do I want to?
I have to admit that being thinner than I guessed is a bit of a confidence builder. (Or is it just an ego stroke?) But maybe thinking I am larger than I really am is a good weight loss motivator. If that's the case, maybe it's better to go on thinking I'm bigger. But what if the price for that extra motivation is lower self-esteem?

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Celebrity Sizes





I don't know if it's entirely healthy to compare yourself to celebrities, size wise. But I know that I do it, and so do lots of other people, especially those of us who are trying to lose weight. There's a natural curiosity about those who are held up as "ideal" examples of beauty and body shape.

It's usually pretty difficult to know what clothing sizes celebrities wear (and dang nigh impossible to know how much they weigh). You can't necessarily trust what you read in the magazines and gossip websites. But one place to find out what size some celebrities are (or were at the time they wore a certain garment, at least) is www.clothesoffourbacks.org. It’s an auction site where clothes once wore by celebs are auctioned off for worthy causes.

I'm sure there's still variation in what the sizes mean, as I talked about in the last post, but it's still pretty interesting to "contrast and compare." For example, the one-shouldered red gown that Katherine Heigl wore to the Academy Awards ceremony in 2008 is listed on the auction site as a size "Custom 4," which sounds about right to me.

On the other hand, I was surprised to see that the emerald green gown Keira Knightley wore in the great film "Atonement" was a size 2. I would have guessed smaller, maybe a 0 or even a 00. She just seems a lot skinnier than a 2 to me and seems more than one size smaller than Katherine Heigl.

By the way, Keira's "Atonement" dress went for a whopping $46,000(!) while Katherine's Oscar dress garnered a high bid of $5,000, all for a good cause.

Good to Know

According to Nordstrom, the Designer Apparel sizes for the U.S. are:
Size 0: 31-23-33.5
Size 2: 32-24-34.5
Size 4: 33-25-35.5
Size 6: 34-26-36.5
Size 8: 35-27-37.5
Size 10: 36-28-38.5

Now, clothes at Wal-Mart, Old Navy, and the like definitely do not follow that guideline. It's a crap shoot what size you wear there. I have clothing in my closet ranging from size 6 to 10 that all fits.

What really irks me though, is the way clothing sizes have changed over my lifetime (at least in the U.S.). What used to be a 10 twenty or thirty years ago is a *LOT* smaller than what passes for those sizes now. I have some pants that I saved from high school that were a 10 back then and today I can't get in them at all, even though I can wear a 6 in some (OK, a few) new pants.

The marketing departments figured out that women like to fit into smaller sizes and that they'd get more sales and good word of mouth if they "relaxed" the sizing. (Relaxed = lied about.) It's another symptom of the fattening of America.