Tonight I heard some pretty devastating news. Someone I know died due to complications of gastric bypass surgery. A perfectly beautiful woman with an incredibly Godly spirit. It did not have to happen. She was my age -- maybe even a few years younger.
I write this because society is obsessed with thin. Not just our society, either. Popular culture equates beauty with seeing ones' collarbones protrude from a shirt or hip bones hanging out of a bikini. I know this because that is what I used to equate with beautiful. The thinner, the better. That is how I was raised; that is what I believed. I grew up in the 1960's. Twiggy was the marker for beauty. Straight hair and skinny. Then came Christie Brinkley and the supermodels of the 1970's -- more straight hair and again, skinny. By the time the 1980's rolled around, I'd had two decades of straight hair and skinny. Imagine being a curly headed, slightly zaftig, 20-something -- a "poster child" for Janis Ian's song, "At Seventeen".
Fast forward some thirty years. My views began to change ever so slightly. It began last fall. My youngest daughter had given birth a couple of months prior to my visit. Although she was heavier than pre-pregnancy, I thought she looked beautiful. I thought back to my post-pregnancy days and how unhappy I was...I felt fat. I didn't see my body as beautiful, but rather as something that needed to get back into shape as soon as possible. Her lack of concern was a stark contrast to my post-pregnancy obsession. I didn't understand it -- and yet, I admired it. And it got me thinking. Tonight, I'm thinking again --there must be a happy medium between anorexia and morbid obesity! So what is that happy medium? And how can one find it?
I still struggle with weight issues. It doesn't matter what my scale says -- it is never enough. When I lost 40 pounds last year, I could not push past it. It didn't matter how little I ate, my scale stayed at the same spot. Is it possible our bodies are designed to be a certain weight within our DNA -- something that is not possible to push past without even more extreme exercise or diet? I lost the 40 pounds by eating between 700 and 1000 calories a day. It was a no-win situation. Yet, I didn't care at the time. In my heart, I knew I would gain back the weight and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I haven't figured out the magic number on the scale, the formula for weight loss for my body or keeping it off. Menopause has only served to fuel that fire and my insecurities. I have a very supportive friend who just says, you are who you are. Exercise and eat right. Perhaps he has the right idea. Maybe in a few years, there'll be a famine and my extra pounds will serve me well?
As I mull this over, I pray for the family of this beautiful woman. Although I don't know them, I am certain they are feeling the loss. Yet, I am confident she is enjoying the beauty of heaven. The size of her body no longer matters -- she is at peace. She is with God.
"But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7
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