Go Tyra!!!

I must say that I find this bru-ha-ha over Tyra Bank's weight to be fascinating. Honestly, she looks like a regular woman to me, so for these tabloids to carry on about how fat she has become is absolutely absurd. A couple of points have become clear for me: (1) the standard of what is fat has become completely skewed so that normal looking people look fat; and (2) it is completely ok in our society to mistreat people on the basis of their weight.

Tyra Banks is 5'10" and 161 pounds. If one looks at the BMI scale, she is not even overweight. Medically, she is the perfect weight. She is not fat. At all. Period. My question becomes, then, why would the press target her as fat? I applaud that she has stood up to the press about her weight and has not internalized the absolute crap about her being overweight. How skinny does a woman have to be to avoid criticism of her weight? Do the people who issue these critiques about fat have ANY idea how difficult it is to maintain lower than normal body weights? I have had a history with anorexia and I exercised SO much and ate SO little to be a size 8. Size 8. The Washington Post ran a story about models auditioning for New York's Spring Fashion Week and many models are so small that a size 4 is too big for them. Size 4 is ridiculously tiny, especially for tall women. How on earth does size 4 become too big?! And this is what women are supposed to be aspiring too? What could we change in our society if we weren't so preoccupied about being under a size 8? What could we change in the world?

Part of the story here is that it is ok to mistreat people for being overweight still. I can't think of a single basis to mistreat somebody. Period. We don't know peoples' stories about their weight and making abusive cracks about their size and just needing to eat fewer donuts is not a model of the connections we should be trying to make with all human beings. People are denied jobs, fired, receive poor work reviews, can't get married, are denied a sexuality because they are fat. OK, think about what your life would be like if you experienced this stuff for some random reason (the color of your eyes). It is not ok.

We need to rethink our society if we cannot treat all people well, no matter their strengths/weaknesses. I don't think that Tyra Banks aspired to defend fat people, but I think she is taking a powerful stand on their behalf.