Dress for the body you have: revisiting the moob-and-miniskirt debate

Recently I wrote a post about the fact that I think most men should keep their shirts on even when the weather becomes unbearably hot.

I have to say that when I admitted this on Facebook, a few people gave me grief about it and hinted that I was being hypocritical.

It's possible that making a joke about shirtless men on Facebook (by asking them to put away their "man boobs," which one friend called "moobs") was hypocritical in the sense that it sends the message it's okay to make fun of people's bodies. Yes, that's true, and I'm sorry if I sent that message.

Though I also think it's possible to take ourselves TOO seriously.

But I don't think that my attitude about men needing to keep their shirts on is hypocritical at all, and I'd like to explain why.

This blog is designed to help people understand two things: 1) why dieting is unhealthy and has caused many people to gain weight over the long haul, and 2) how important it is for people to accept themselves the way they are. As I've said before, I don't think sustained weight loss or healthy living is possible without understanding these ideas.

Part of accepting ourselves requires us to see what it is that makes each of us beautiful and then showing off that beauty by highlighting our best features.

This first part is pretty straightforward (after you do the hard work of seeing what makes you beautiful): if you have great legs, you can show them off by wearing more skirts. If you have a defined waist, buy more clothes that feature your middle. If you have gorgeous green eyes, wear more red to make them stand out. (I often wear orange or blue because my eyes are blue.) That kind of thing.

These ideas are not revolutionary, but they really can improve your self-esteem and, therefore, positively affect your life. Half the time I wear blue someone comes up to me and says, "Wow, your eyes look amazing!" That's the kind of thing that makes me feel like I'm on top of the world. There is no substitute for a good compliment, and I'll take them any way I can get them.

(Incidentally that is also why I ALWAYS tell other women when I like something about their appearance—whether it be their shoes, their hair, or whatever. I think it's important that we hand out compliments as much as we can—about our appearance or anything else.)

The second part of accepting ourselves the way we are requires us to dress for the bodies we have, and that can be a lot trickier.

The hardest part is figuring out what body you have. I'm still never sure if I have a pear-shaped body or an apple-shaped body or simply fall under the "plus-size" umbrella. (Glamour magazine has a great monthly column about picking a certain piece of clothing for your body shape and size—last month it was bathing suits—and I never know which shape I am, so I usually look at more than one.)

Equally difficult is following the rules for your body. Sometimes this is hard because our bodies change, and we don't know it right away. In fact, it can take Y E A R S to figure this out.

For instance, I've always had a defined waist, so I've never worried about wearing unstructured clothing on top. I love a lightweight slouchy t-shirt in the summer almost as much as I love hot dogs and watermelon at a picnic, but lately I've noticed that when I wear flimsy t-shirts to a party where someone is taking pictures, the photos come back with me looking like I have a little roll around my belly even though that part of my body is pretty fit. Part of the problem is my posture. I have never learned to stand up straight, so when I'm sitting, my shoulders roll forward and cause my stomach to look bigger than it is. The other problem is that even though my stomach is relatively small, it's not as small as it was when I was younger. No matter the cause, the pictures are always awful, and so I've vowed to stop wearing those kinds of unstructured tops when I might be photographed.

I had the same problem with short skirts when I was younger.

I was always a fan of the miniskirt and, until I was in my late-twenties, could pull it off. But after I gained weight from an accident, I didn't realize that the look was no longer flattering until I saw some pictures from a bridal shower where I wore a panty-skimming dress (what was I thinking???) and started watching What Not to Wear, a show that pushes the "no miniskirts after thirty-five" rule. Now I swear by this rule too because—I don't care how thin you are—after a certain age, a knee-length skirt is much sexier than a mid-thigh one.

The picture above of one of the thinnest woman alive, Nicole Kidman, proves my point.

(I wish Heidi Klum would follow Nic's lead and give up minis.)

Nicole looks sexy as hell in this photo, but if she had gone four inches shorter, she would have looked like she was trying too hard to hold onto her youth. In fact, the longer skirt actually makes her look younger. Some people call this aging gracefully, but that can make people feel old—better to simply think of it as looking your best.

This is the same place where my negative attitude about shirtless men comes in.

I think men over the age of twenty-five take their shirts off when they working out for two reasons: 1) because they're hot (which bothers me because women don't have the same option), but more importantly, 2) because they started doing so when they were teenagers and haven't stopped and looked in the mirror long enough to realize how much their bodies have changed. And if they did, I imagine they would think twice about baring their chests to the world.

The reason I think they shouldn't bare said chests if they're not in great shape is because doing so is NOT dressing for the body you have. It's dressing for the body you used to have. To me, an out-of-shape man taking his shirt off in public is no different than a forty-something woman walking out the door in a micro-mini: it should just be avoided. Even if technically she or he can still pull it off.

The same could be said about muffin tops.

If your jeans are so tight that a layer of fat spills out of the top, it's time to get a new pair. One really important lesson I've learned is that it is ALWAYS worth it to buy new clothes rather than stuffing yourself into the old ones. You will immediately feel better in a new pair of jeans but feel lousy for a long time if you have to lie down on your bed to zip your old ones.

I don't mean to send the message that we all need to cover ourselves up. On the contrary I'm all about showing it off. I hate sack dresses and muumuus and polygamist-type clothes more than almost anything. I believe in showing off our assets—in skirts that skim the knee and shirts that show off a great set of arms. (I also understand that sometimes we just want to blow off the rules, which is fine too.)

But I think showing off our liabilities is just plain silly.

And admitting you have liabilities is not inconsistent with the message of this blog or even hypocritical because it's in line with what the blog is about—which is focusing on what makes you beautiful. But you can't do that if you're not honest with yourself about what your less-than-perfect features are too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that body acceptance is not only about appreciating your beauty, it's also about being okay with the fact that none of us are perfect. And I hope more than anything that you will understand that recognizing your imperfection doesn't mean that you have to be ashamed of them, but it also doesn't mean that you need to flaunt them either.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Being able to do so—hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same time—also allows people to understand why I want everyone to accept themselves the way are AND dress for the body they have. And from my point of view, these are not mutually exclusive ideas.

Kudos to Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum

As I've mentioned before, specifically in my "Holy hypocrisy" post, women in Hollywood are held to totally different standards than men. We require female celebrities to look buff and perfect well into their sixties—have you seen that new Boniva commercial with 64-year-old Sally Field lifting weights like a thirty-year-old?—but their male counterparts are allowed to age naturally and still get work, as best demonstrated by the recent resurgence of an undeniably overweight Alec Baldwin.

We can do our best to fight this problem by talking about it and "voting with our dollars," by spending money on movies, books, and music that feature regular-looking women. But, at some point, it's up to the media to change what we demand of women.

And that's why I was so glad to read film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum's recent article about Nicole Kidman's face in Entertainment Weekly.

Yes, I said Nicole Kidman's face.

Because her face is such a source of controversy that Schwarzbaum felt like she had to write an entire article defending it. As Schwarzbaum says, "A constant awareness of Kidman's visage . . . has, after all, become an unavoidable topic of conversation."

Unfortunately, that visage has gotten to be a more important topic than Kidman's skills as an actress. It's impossible for one of her movies to come out and not hear about the lack of emotion in her face. "The cosmetic alterations Kidman seems to have chosen," Schwarzbaum explains, "have for years become uncomfortably entwined with the assessment of her talents."

Thankfully, Schwarzbaum also insists it's time to change the conversation.

"Anyhow, enough, okay?" she insists. "Let's talk about something else."

I couldn't agree more. How does it help the rest of us feel good about ourselves if we are constantly attacking women like Kidman?

Yes, I know that plastic surgery is a BIG part of the problem—after all, how can we ever be happy with the way we look when all of the women in the media are botoxed and stitched to within an inch of their lives?

But I also agree with Schwarzbaum that it isn't doing us any good to constantly criticize Kidman's ageless face. As she asserts, "any woman knows what it feels like to work with or against her own aging process in a culture addicted to exaggerated characteristics of youthful female sexuality."

And isn't that the truth?

Isn't it true that we know exactly what it's like to live in a society that wants us all to have perky breasts, sculpted thighs, and smooth foreheads no matter how old we are?

We certainly do, so it's hard to blame Kidman for giving into a pressure we each understand all too well. As Schwarzbaum admits, "movie stars Have Had Work Done since the dawn of hair dye and nose jobs. . . that includes men as well as women," so it doesn't make much sense to go after Kidman for caving to that pressure.

At the same time, we also need to send the message that we would prefer our female celebrities did NOT cave to that pressure. As Schwarzbaum says, "Show us your flaws, Nic!"

And I couldn't agree more.

Show us your flaws, Nic. Show us the Nicole Kidman we fell in love with back in the eighties—the one with kinky red curls and slightly chubby cheeks, the one who by now should have crow's feet and lines around her mouth. For the love of God, please show us.

Why I love the guys at Project Rungay

196 pounds

I make it a point on this blog NOT to criticize women who I feel are too thin.

As I've mentioned before, I think that would be counter-productive since it won't make curvy women feel any better about their bodies if we make thin women feel bad about theirs. And, let's face it, going off on any woman's body just seems wrong.

But I came across something the other day that I do want to share, something that in some ways falls into the category of discussing—or even dissing—the body of a thin celebrity.

I read this "something" on one of my favorite websites—Project Rungay, a blog run by two amazing and insightful gay men named Tom and Lorenzo, a.k.a. TLo.

Though these comments may seem a little mean at first, there is something really important that's being said underneath the surface cattiness.

In response to Demi Moore's claim (in the cover story pictured above) that she finds it frustrating that most of the roles in Hollywood are for women who are between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, TLo said this:

"You know, we don't deny that there is sexism in the entertainment industry and rarely does the industry have any place for women over 40. But we look at these pictures and think 'You know, you might be up for more roles if you didn't look like, oh, say... a CRAZY STARVING PERSON?' It's the same thing with Nicole Kidman. There's a certain class of Hollywood women who have dieted and surgically altered themselves to the point where they really don't look like people. Not healthy people, anyway. There's a reason that the leading actresses in the over-45 category are women like Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren. Because they smartly realized a long time ago that the ingenue parts were gone forever and there was no use going after something they were never going to get again."

Obviously, it's the second half of their comments that really interests me. I've long been a fan of both Streep and Mirren and am always wowed by their amazing bodies, especially Streep's which is incredibly real.

But it never occurred to me until I read TLo's response to Moore that maybe one of the reasons that these two get so much work in Hollywood is precisely because they do look so real. (The same could be said of Emma Thompson or even America Ferrera.) I said in my post-Oscar post that I don't think women over thirty-five look attractive when they're still super skinner, and Streep's and Mirren's success may just prove that I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Maybe the truth is that we DON'T want to see women on the big screen who look like they're starving. Maybe we really DO want women who look more like us—sure, perfect, beautiful versions of us, but still us.

But if that's the case, then why the hell don't more people in Hollywood and in the media get it??? Why do we still have so many celebrities who look plain old hungry?

I don't know the answer to this question, but I do know this. . . I'm not giving up this fight until the women in the movies look a lot more like me.