Not only do I not know what to believe, but my food choices are limited due to ongoing illness, and it is hard to eat the "right" things. On top of that, my relationship with food is completely warped by not being able to eat for months, and then having compulsive eating as a med side effect for a year.
So what do I do? I have made the decision to work hard, and try to get back to my pre-illness size and shape. I regularly lift weights, I work out, and insofar as is possible, I try to eat sanely (though not during the blogathon, because some things are just too hard -- I can't think clearly enough to change my clothes, let alone my food choices, at this point). And I am finally at a point where I am doing it for me, not for society, for a doctor, for a partner or friend. And society, frankly, can go and get fucked.
This approach will get me so far, you know, and it is something I can live with. But, dammit, I am scared. One day I want to have kids, and how in the hell I am going to give them sane body image messages, I don't know. I hope by then society is ready to help me out, some organisations at least seem to be starting now.
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Rant: Body image, society, and disease (part 2)
In this twisted situation where it seems every woman on the planet is either too fat or too thin, women are rebelling in different ways. The pro-ana movement is girls trying to take control of their body image by taking control of their weight, the fat rant tells society where to get off (and yet is done by a woman who, to me at least, looks healthy rather than fat).
The body image issue is of great personal significance, because with the illness I have, I have been both very thin, and very fat. While I was thin, I was very ill, and while I was fat, I was very affected by side effects, but much healthier. I was told by society that I looked much better ill than healthy. To this day, five years after the fact, I still do not like the way I look, and I am still aggressively working to change it -- and I don't even know what I am "supposed" to look like.
Recently this topic came up among people with the same illness I suffer from, and responses ranged from "you look great, what are you worrying about" to "be grateful you can eat". At my present weight I have been told by a medical professional that I would ideally be 10-20lbs lighter than I am. My perception of my own body has been so warped by rapid changes and society's images that I now no longer know who to believe.
continued in next post
The body image issue is of great personal significance, because with the illness I have, I have been both very thin, and very fat. While I was thin, I was very ill, and while I was fat, I was very affected by side effects, but much healthier. I was told by society that I looked much better ill than healthy. To this day, five years after the fact, I still do not like the way I look, and I am still aggressively working to change it -- and I don't even know what I am "supposed" to look like.
Recently this topic came up among people with the same illness I suffer from, and responses ranged from "you look great, what are you worrying about" to "be grateful you can eat". At my present weight I have been told by a medical professional that I would ideally be 10-20lbs lighter than I am. My perception of my own body has been so warped by rapid changes and society's images that I now no longer know who to believe.
continued in next post
Rant: Body image, society, and disease
We live in strange times. There is an obesity epidemic, and eating disorders are more prevalent than ever before. Women, in particular, bear the brunt of increasingly unrealistic social expectations about their bodies, where they must be thin and strong, and the average model is increasingly small compared to the average woman.
Models are suppsoed to be thin because "clothes hang better" on very thin women, but their thinness has a negative impact on the health and well being of women who see them, and average sized models don't, and yet average sized (or heaven forfend even plus sized) models are treated as a curiosity, and it is considered news when runway shows ban models that are too thin.
continued in next post
Models are suppsoed to be thin because "clothes hang better" on very thin women, but their thinness has a negative impact on the health and well being of women who see them, and average sized models don't, and yet average sized (or heaven forfend even plus sized) models are treated as a curiosity, and it is considered news when runway shows ban models that are too thin.
continued in next post
Rant: New Zealand gave women the vote, and then did nothing else (part 3)
Not only is birth control expensive in NZ, you have to see a doctor twice a year to get it (for anything other than condoms), and they are expensive too. Tubal ligations are fully funded, but there is a waiting list and they are more dangerous, more invasive, and more permanent than vasectomies (which are not funded, unless there are exceptional circumstances).
On the flip side of the coin, fertility treatment is easier to get if you smoke, if you or your partner has been voluntarily sterilised and changed your mind, or if you prefer not to have sex with a man. A couple that has no specific, diagnosed infertility has to wait five years before they can get help, making pregnancy and birth riskier, and the parents five years older.
So, in New Zealand, abortion is actually cheaper to acquire than any other form of birth control. There is no safe, reliable birth control for any woman who eventually wants children, but has anything wrong with her intestines at all (or indeed for teenagers who routinely drink too much, shag someone random, and throw up their pill). On the other hand if you want to get pregnant, you should make some poor choices there, too.
Frankly, I agree with the handwringing politicians, that New Zealand does need a unified approach to reproduction, including a review of the old laws, but since these things cost money (and NZ doesn't like to spend money on women's health), and they might get the government voted out, I'm not holding my breath.
On the flip side of the coin, fertility treatment is easier to get if you smoke, if you or your partner has been voluntarily sterilised and changed your mind, or if you prefer not to have sex with a man. A couple that has no specific, diagnosed infertility has to wait five years before they can get help, making pregnancy and birth riskier, and the parents five years older.
So, in New Zealand, abortion is actually cheaper to acquire than any other form of birth control. There is no safe, reliable birth control for any woman who eventually wants children, but has anything wrong with her intestines at all (or indeed for teenagers who routinely drink too much, shag someone random, and throw up their pill). On the other hand if you want to get pregnant, you should make some poor choices there, too.
Frankly, I agree with the handwringing politicians, that New Zealand does need a unified approach to reproduction, including a review of the old laws, but since these things cost money (and NZ doesn't like to spend money on women's health), and they might get the government voted out, I'm not holding my breath.
Rant: New Zealand gave women the vote, and then did nothing else (part 2)
My rant on reproductive choice in New Zealand was spawned by an article I read on the state of NZ's abortion laws. Under the law, New Zealand women are not supposed to have abortion-on-demand, even in the very early stages of pregnancy, and so most women who get an abortion in New Zealand most women who have an abortion do so because to have the baby would 'severely adversely affect their mental health', which is patently bollocks. This law also means women have to jump through a number of hoops to get an abortion. The article quotes male experts acknowledging that the law doesn't work, but notes that the government doesn't want to touch abortion law because it pisses people off. This is a law that has not been reviewed since 1977.
New Zealand has a high abortion rate, and a high teen pregnancy rate, and the lawmakers in that article are wringing their hands and claiming that to really solve the abortion problem, we need a unified reproductive strategy. Having been a victim of NZ's present reproductive strategy (I was offered an IUD as my "best option" despite never having had children, wanting them, having a bleeding tendency and having an autoimmune disorder), this made me fume: In New Zealand, birth control options are the pill, the mini-pill, depo-provera (which is seen as being unsafe in many countries) condoms, copper IUD, hormonal IUD (if you pay yourself), and sterilisation. Even if you pay yourself, you cannot get the patch, the implant, the nuvaring, or any of the lower-estrogen pills, and if the pill that works best for you is not one of the ones the government thinks is okay you are going to pay a fortune for it.
continued in the next post
New Zealand has a high abortion rate, and a high teen pregnancy rate, and the lawmakers in that article are wringing their hands and claiming that to really solve the abortion problem, we need a unified reproductive strategy. Having been a victim of NZ's present reproductive strategy (I was offered an IUD as my "best option" despite never having had children, wanting them, having a bleeding tendency and having an autoimmune disorder), this made me fume: In New Zealand, birth control options are the pill, the mini-pill, depo-provera (which is seen as being unsafe in many countries) condoms, copper IUD, hormonal IUD (if you pay yourself), and sterilisation. Even if you pay yourself, you cannot get the patch, the implant, the nuvaring, or any of the lower-estrogen pills, and if the pill that works best for you is not one of the ones the government thinks is okay you are going to pay a fortune for it.
continued in the next post
Rant: New Zealand gave women the vote, and then did nothing else
New Zealand, despite being the first country in the world to give women the vote, has a really crap record when it comes to womens issues. Some of the lowlights include:
continued in next post
- Well after the Helsinki convention was signed, doctors were performing cervical cancer experiments on women and girls without their knowledge or consent.
- In a completely separate incident, readings of screenings were botched for years in one region of NZ -- as a result of this NZ women now do not have adequate privacy protection for their smears or their medical records, as they are all part of a research programme to improve cervical screening.
- Despite NZ's purported interest in preventing cervical cancer, anyone who wants the vaccine there has to pay for it themselves.
- Herceptin, a breast cancer drug, inadequately funded in NZ
- Haemophilia patients (mostly male) have access to a wide range of treatments and uncapped funding, while rheumatoid arthritis (mostly female) patients have only recently gained access to world class care under strict funding guidelines.
continued in next post
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