This is what 14 very brave collegiate and alumnae women did at Tri Delta’s 54th Biennial Convention in Orlando, FL. After months of planning, conference calls, emails and favors, it was finally time to sit back and enjoy the show.

Let me back up for a moment. Last year, during Fat Talk Free Week 2009, Tri Delta had the opportunity to work closely with the women from Colorado State University in planning a fashion show that focused on real women rather than on the clothes they were wearing. Models were chosen based on who they were on the campus rather than the size clothes that they wore. Models ranged in size, ethnicity, age and backgrounds, and instantly the show was a hit.

Soon after, chapters and members showed their support and interest in the show and began asking how they too could host one.  Just like that it was determined that with the success of the program, the success of Fat Talk Free Week, and the success of the Colorado State Show, that maybe there was an opportunity for more women to participate in a similar opportunity.

A couple of months later, fourteen models of all shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities were on board with the program…and so was Macy’s!!!!

Macy’s, established in 1858, is the Great American Department Store and they found our program to be one that they were intrigued by!  Macy’s provided clothes for our models from their signature lines, agreed to work with us throughout the entire process and every step of the way.

So, there I sat, backstage, with Rob the tech guy, several television monitors, laptops and buttons that he made very clear I wasn’t allowed to push.

Stacy Nadeau, one of the original models who posed in her underwear in Dove’s headline making Campaign For Real Beauty kicked off the event by sharing her journey with the audience. I was in awe as she told her story and I watched as people cry and smile and laugh at every word she said from the tiny monitors behind the stage.

And then the music started.
Loud…fun…fast…and engaging.

Stacy introduced our models, not for the clothes that they are wearing on the runway but for who they are, why they love Tri Delta, providing us a piece of their story and making every person in the audience realize…”She’s just like me.” One by one they danced down the runway, waved, blew kisses and the crowd clapped and cheered for the liberating message that the show made them feel.

Halfway through the show I noticed I was standing, clapping and dancing. I felt great.

I was so proud, not because the show was going so well but because people loved it. There was a feeling of confidence in the air.

I turned to see our phenomenal representation from Macy’s, Terry, who just a few of hours earlier was steaming clothes and teaching the women how to change outfits without getting makeup on anything.

I saw the tremendous smile on her face. She looked back at me as she was now also dancing to the beat and said, “This is just so fun.”

And it was. It was just so fun.

The models visited the stage one last time.

They joined hands and paraded the runway one last time in their Fat Talk Free Week shirts, infectious smiles and sassy attitudes.

Just as quickly as it began the show was over, but there was something about the way it ended that you could see that the way people would continue to spread the message was just beginning.

Some of my friends, family and colleagues are tired of hearing me say “Friends Don’t Let Friends Fat Talk.” Sometimes when I blurt this out, others look at me with a puzzled look, and I am convinced they are probably thinking…..”What is she talking about?”

I want to remind them of the power and success of the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” slogan. This campaign revolutionized societal attitudes and actions related to drinking and driving.

My hope is that the Reflections Fat Talk Free Week campaign will have the same culture-changing effect. The concept is so simple and well-intentioned, but often meets with resistance.

I was recently dress shopping with a friend who had been actively trying to get in shape for her son’s wedding. She had lost twenty pounds. My friend is 65-years-old and is extremely active and productive; she is an exceptional friend, mother, wife and grandmother. She is a talented seamstress, a fabulous cook and a fiercely competitive tennis player. While trying on clothes, she complained to me about the size of her hips and thighs and asked me if I knew a procedure that could fix them. I answered her with a discussion about how healthy, beautiful and active she is and that we all have to learn to accept our genetic gifts.

She then pointed to a picture of a model in the store and said, “See they all have long thin legs!” I replied to her that most media images are computer-generated and not real. She gave me a blank stare and I stopped talking.

I have another friend who shared with me that she couldn’t meet me for dinner because she wasn’t allowing herself to eat out at restaurants until she lost 10 pounds. My initial thought was, “what a waste of time and friendship.” This is another talented, intelligent, beautiful and productive woman.
Most days I feel like I’m alone on this issue. I won’t give up though.

If I can convince one college student each semester to stop fat talking, then I have been successful. Getting students to talk about the issue and acknowledge there is a problem is the first step. My goal is to educate them that pursing a “thin ideal body weight” is paralyzing, expensive, self-sacrificing, unhealthy and degrading. The majority of the students I talk to have grown up in diet-obsessed households or in families where physical appearance is often judged or criticized. Some students have reported hurtful comments made by family members about their body size and shape, frequently reminding them not to eat this or that.

Let’s start a revolution with the following strategies:

• Compliment your friends, co-workers and family members on qualities they possess that are not based on physical attributes.
• Think about the qualities that you admire in a real life role model. Chances are those qualities will not be based on physical attributes.
• Model “fat talk free” behaviors for everyone in your life. Be conscious of your actions, comments and behaviors.
• Don’t purchase magazines or products whose advertising you find offensive. Check out about_face.org to find out how to become a media activist. About-Face equips women and girls with tools to understand and resist harmful media messages that affect their self-esteem and body image.
• Never reinforce someone’s weight loss by saying, “You look great, have you lost weight?”
• Don’t judge people based on size and appearance. Size discrimination is real and harmful.
• Appreciate all that your body does for you. Take extra special care of it!

Here are some more resources to improve body image and combat fat talk:

• Read and contribute to a body image and wellness blog created by a University of New Hampshire student Anne Mathe:
• http://www.unh.edu/health-services/ohep/anniesblog.html
• Sign No Weigh! A Declaration of Independence from a Weight-Obsessed World http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/nedaDir/files/documents/handouts/NoWeigh.pdf
• Post a copy in a visible place of Ten “Will-Powers” for Improving Body Image: http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/nedaDir/files/documents/handouts/10WillBI.pdf
• For more resources check out the University of New Hampshire Health Service’s website section on Body Image: http://www.unh.edu/health-services/ohep/body_image.html

“Let me listen to me and not to them” Gertrude Stein

I’m not going to lie. I’ve been feeling horrible lately. It’s not a physical illness, but stress. It’s that feeling where you have 50-pound weights on your shoulders, you can’t sleep well, and you cry at anything that doesn’t go the way you thought it would. I feel like all I’ve done the past weeks is go to class, do homework, miss my yoga classes, happy hour and my friends, and sleep. Oh, and I’ve eaten. That is important.

As a blogger, your life can get pretty transparent depending on how much you share. As an advocate for body image and at times, eating disorders, not only is your life or story transparent, but some people can get caught up in trying to be the “perfect” advocate which can do more harm than good. You think that because you’re healthy and strong again, you have to be healthy and strong all the time. But that can’t be true all the time because let’s face it, we all have bad days.

I’ll even tell you a secret here too. I may be a blogger and I may be an advocate, but I’m far from perfect. Even I have bad days and that’s ok. Tonight was actually one of them. I’m in an Entrepreneurship class and am writing a business plan for a cookie store. I love making all kinds of chocolate chip cookies and since the third class, my professor has actually set up a fund for me to continue to bring cookies. So I do.

Making cookies doesn’t seem like a big deal or a reason to have a bad day, but as I said in the beginning, we’re all stressed out, right? Well assignments this morning and meetings in the afternoon were just taking longer than I thought, my printer was acting up and oh right, I had to make the cookies, which of course with it being my own recipe, I’m very perfectionistic over it.

Luckily since I know the recipe by heart, it didn’t take long, but what happened next made me realize 1. how far I’ve come, 2. bad days happen and 3. respecting yourself does your body a whole lot of good in a bad situation. When I was sick and I’d make cookies, I’d usually make extra and either binge on the dough itself or the freshly baked cookies and then purge. Was it smart? Of course not, but at the time, it helped to soothe me. Well between the stress and the extra dough, you might have guessed what happened next.

I made the cookies, wrapped them up and took them to class. End of story.

Something that’s hard to realize is your true need, especially when emotions, or stress levels, are high. I realized something while I was making those cookies- I didn’t want them and I didn’t need them. What I needed was to go to my class, eat a snack when I got home and go to bed. I was tired and needed sleep so that’s what I gave my body. I needed to take care of MYSELF.

It’s taken me almost 2 solid years of no bad behaviors, but taking care of myself actually gets easier everyday and with the help of programs like Reflections, you have the support of your sisters to do it too. I’ve started listening to what my body wants and respecting it. I can describe my emotions with words and not hurt myself in return.

Oh, and I’m also a friend to myself which is so very important. We live in a culture and society where women either tear others down to make themselves feel better or treat themselves horribly which they’d never do to a friend. I was the latter. I’d be mean to myself, destroy myself all because I wanted control, but nothing I ever said or do to myself would be something I’d want a friend to do to herself. Double standard? I think so!

Be the sister you are to others to yourself. Love yourself. Love your body and if you take care of it, it’ll take care of you!

In the meantime, here are some healthy stress reliving tips:

1. Talk to someone. If you’re stressed out or have a lot going on in your life, talk to someone else about it. Tell them what’s going on and how you feel about all of it. Even if you can’t put your emotions into words, sounds (think “grrrr”), screaming and kicking can be very therapeutic too which leads me to…

2. Don’t be afraid to cry and ask for help . I used to think that crying in front of sometime or asking sometime to help me meant I was a weak person. Instead I’d internalize everything and at the end of the day, hurt myself. When I started to actually feel my emotions again, I cried all the time and actually realized that showing people how I felt and asking for their help meant they respected me more and also gave me the support I needed.

3. Do something special for yourself. Do you like manicures? What about that new movie in the theater? Or does curling up with a book under a tree appealing? Whatever small thing makes you happy, block out a time for it during a week of stress. Now you’re probably about to tell me that you don’t have time for it, but that block doesn’t have to be long- an hour will do- and it will give you a time to relax and be treated well so you feel refreshed afterward and ready to seize that next thing on your to-do list.

4. At the same time, fuel yourself well. Sometimes food can be an enemy during stressful times or hunger even disappears or gets exhilarated, but no matter what happens, you must still eat properly. Nutrition is important not only for your body physically, but for your body mentally. A well-nourished brain is a happy one and also a productive one.

5. Know that you CAN do it. More times than not the only reason we can’t do something is because we tell ourselves we can’t. Fear or self-loathing is the only thing holding us back, so before that monster says you can’t do something, reverse it and just tell yourself you can. You will fight through the stress and you’ll actually do it simply because you said you could!

Jacquie blogs regularly about body image at http://sweetestthingdc.wordpress.com/.

Ever notice how you might ‘feel fat’ on some days more than others? Chances are your body doesn’t change, but your mood does. Fat feelings are a scapegoat for real feelings. It is just hard to see past them to what is really going on.

I know it feels very real. I know you ‘feel’ very fat when you are doing this internal and external fat talk. The thing is, there is no great measure of what objectively qualifies as fat. BMI charts are deeply flawed–I recently read an article stating these charts would show Brad Pitt to be overweight, and George Clooney to be obese.

Weight charts were developed in the early 1900’s by The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Since they were trying to determine mortality risk associated with weight, these charts were based on weighing dead people. Does not seem like a valid tool at all.

I know what you really use to determine your fatness, though. Your eyes, or the way your clothes feel, etc. What you need to understand is people from 82 lbs. to 302 lbs. have these fat feelings. The feeling you are fat has nothing to do with your weight. It has only to do with your head.

There are also people on a broad weight spectrum who feel good in their bodies. Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce do not apologize for their curves–they own them. Marilyn Monroe certainly seemed comfortable in her skin.

There are two problems with fat talk:

1. It keeps you from figuring out what is really bothering you.

2. It makes you more likely to do weird things with food (restrict, binge, etc.)

You think that if you are mean enough to yourself, it will help you eat less and lose weight. Once the weight is off, you would be happy all of the time. That is not what happens, though. You just feel really bad. Which makes you more likely to emotionally eat. You might restrict first, but ultimately you will likely overeat in response to this negative self talk.

This cycle of self loathing and guilt gets constantly repeated. Ugh! So I ask you this: How is this fat talk working out for you? Can you identify with what I am saying here? If so, you are ready for the definition of insanity…

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

So ask yourself a few questions:

1. Do you know absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are fat? (Hint: the tools we use to measure this are faulty)

2. What would you feel if you found out the weight you are today would always be your weight–no more, no less, for the rest of your life?

3. Who would you be if you didn’t have the thought “I am fat”? What would life be like if that never entered your mind or your conversations?

There is a tremendous freedom that comes from accepting your body. You have all this time available to think about more important things. You start to pay attention to your life in this present moment. It makes you more normal with food. It makes you better able to honor the physical differences in those around you. It makes you more loving towards yourself–and if you are not going to do it, who is?

Visit Jennifer’s Web site at http://www.healthylifestylebalance.com/.

Oftentimes, it seems as though many turn their head to problems that we as a nation are experiencing with body image and self-esteem. It is said that over 10 million American women and girls currently suffer from self-destructing eating disorders; that’s more than are suffering with breast cancer. I think we can safely conclude that millions more are suffering with poor body image and low self-esteem. However, despite the large number of individuals being affected by these issues, it seems little is being done to combat the epidemic.

As stated previously, more U.S. women and girls are currently suffering from an eating disorder than are suffering from breast cancer. Despite that fact, it is much easier to recall advertising campaigns, events and fundraisers dedicated to raising awareness and funds for breast cancer. Now, I’m not saying there should be less done to benefit breast cancer by any means (my grandmother actually passed away from breast cancer), but I’m just trying to shed light on the reality that exists here in America. We have a serious lifelong issue with body image and it affects men and women all across the nation. It is destroying us and it seems little is being done to change this fact.

Much of this constricted idea of beauty is coming from the media which surrounds us in our everyday lives. As models today become younger, taller and thinner, the narrow idea of what beauty consists of, has become unattainable for all but a very small number of females. With the average model being 5 foot, 11 inches and weighing 117 pounds, this contrasts sharply with the average American woman who stands 5 foot 4 inches and weighs 145 pounds. It is sad to think that those models in the industry that would actually represent the average American woman, are often shunned and instead deemed “plus size models”; if that fact alone doesn’t scream “WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM ON OUR HANDS”, then I don’t know what will.

Although there are occasional glimmers of hope that the media and its images may change, until then, this issue requires pro-activity by the very people reading this blog. We can do something. We can change the way we view beauty in today’s society. We can demand that a broader idea of beauty be depicted in our media. And we can begin to recognize the fact that beauty comes in all sizes, shapes, ages and ethnicities, but most importantly lies within our hearts.

That’s right, real beauty radiates from the inside out. It is seldom if ever, that the media would focus on the importance of inner beauty and well, the importance of being a good person. However, in all reality, who you are on the inside matters much more than what you look like on the outside. Sure, good looks might grab you a few more glances as you walk down the street or a cut in line at a popular bar, but the reality is that looks will fade away, but the essences of who we are as an individuals has a much more lasting impact.

It all begins with you, and learning to love and accept yourself for who you are. We are all beautifully unique in our own way, and if we cannot recognize this fact, how do we expect others to do so? Building up your self-esteem and self-confidence is essential in order to live a happy, healthy life.

When you learn to love yourself, you are naturally taking control of your life. With healthy self esteem you become the ruler of your life and the dictator of your daily success. So begin each day by saying something positive about who you are. Write these things down in a journal or on post-its and refer back to them when you need a pick-me-up. Dedicate yourself to trashing the Fat Talk and only saying nice things about yourself and your body. Over time, these things will make a world of difference. It all begins with you and the power of positive thinking. Together, we can change the way the world sees beauty.

To learn more about building your self-esteem and becoming a critical viewer of the media, visit Tiffany’s website at www.Beautifully-Unique.webs.com .

My mother came from a long line of pretty—and skinny—women. My glamorous grandmother, Ruth, was a swimmer and “aqua-dancer” who made her living wearing a bathing suit on film in old movies. My mom modeled bikinis when she was in her early 20s, living in Hawaii. In my mom’s family, it was very important to be pretty; and being pretty meant being thin.

So imagine her surprise when she had me, a big, healthy baby who had rolls on her toes, legs, arms, belly and bottom. A baby who liked—no, loved—to eat. My mom didn’t understand my appetite, or that the “extra” chub on my body was normal. She’d started worrying about my weight before I could even walk. She didn’t want me to grow up to be fat—not just because “fat” meant “not pretty” in her family, but because she didn’t want me to feel the pain of struggling with weight and my body.

But the thing is, her concern and her encouragements to eat less pushed me directly toward the future she had worried about: As a teenager, I started secretly bingeing on things like butter, chips and ice cream, foods that she considered bad. I turned to eating out of rebellion—and for comfort—and started putting on weight. I gained just a little at first, and then a lot, until I weighed over 200 pounds at 21 years old. Was it my mom’s fault that I ended up with binge eating disorder (BED) and a body I loathed? No. But did her fears, her body image and her own ideas about food shape my own? Absolutely.

Have your mother’s opinions, beliefs and her own weight and body struggles shaped your ideas about food and your body? No doubt they have. But you know what? They don’t have to keep shaping what you believe. I learned that early on in my recovery from BED—and it has been key to getting sane about food and learning to love my body. My mother, your mother, everybody’s mothers, are all simply women, just like us. They all had to deal with their own picky or perfectionist parents; they all had to deal with a feature on their faces or bodies that they didn’t like; they all felt inferior once in a while; they all envied a prettier girl’s figure or hair; they’ve all been on diets; and some of them have even had eating disorders. And that means that they’re just human, fallible, and that none of us has to accept the body lessons we learned from them as gospel truth.

Part of growing up and becoming a woman is taking responsibility for your body and what you think of it. Eating a cookie might have been a sin in the house you grew up in, but it can just mean “dessert” in your home. A thin body may have been the thing your mom valued above anything else, but a strong, healthy body can be what you strive for. You’re body is not your mother’s—and neither is your mind.

Sunny’s bio:
Sunny is a recovered binge eater and the health editor at Glamour magazine and is currently writing a self-help book for girls who overeat to be published in Spring 2011 by Berkley Books. If you’re looking for a place to talk and learn about emotional eating and weight obsession, visit her web site at www.HealthyGirl.org. If you binge eat and are between the ages of 16 and 25 and would like to be interviewed for her book, send an email to her at healthygirladmin@gmail.com

It’s my body. If I am overweight by societal standards or some height/weight chart, my body does not need to be starved in order to fit in. My body will be the size it is supposed to be if I am taking care of myself. I will not fight it.

It’s my body. If I go out on a date and a guy buys me dinner, I do not owe him a kiss or anything else. A simple, “thank you,” does the job just fine. Despite what society might say, my body is not my currency.

It’s my body. If I overeat at a party today, because the food is just so good, I do not need to restrict or over-exercise tomorrow. My body needs to be nourished, everyday, and never deserves to be punished.

It’s my body. If I have been abused, my body does not deserve to be hated. My body is not disgusting because of what someone else did to me. My body is not something to feel ashamed of or to hide. I cherish my body.

It’s my body. If I am sick, I need to give my body rest and do whatever it takes to get well. My body is not invincible. It is fragile. I must not abuse it with food, alcohol, drugs, or anything else. I must take care of it.

It’s my body. Today my organs are nourished and can function properly. I get enough sleep. I am strong. I do things that feel enjoyable like hiking, swimming, getting a massage, yoga, or even kissing my date — when I choose to do so.

It’s my body. I do not look like you or anyone else. You might be taller or thinner than me. By societal standards, you might be prettier than me. But you are not me. And I am not you.

It’s your body. Respect it. Nourish it. Love it.

Jenni Schaefer Bio
Appointed to the Ambassador Council of the National Eating Disorders Association, Jenni Schaefer is a singer/songwriter, speaker, and the author of Life Without Ed and Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life (McGraw-Hill, September 2009). She is also a big fan of Fat Talk Free Week and is traveling across the country this week to help spread the word! For more information, visit www.jennischaefer.com.

Am I fat? Do you see these rolls? Can you believe how fat my butt looks in these jeans? My goodness; where do we get this stuff? Fat Talk has become so prevalent that it has become more normal to have a conversation about bumps, bulges, and unsightly cellulite to well, not.

I guess this must be our quest for perfect, isn’t it? The perfect zero. I can’t believe I’m even saying that. It used to be a bad thing to be thought of as a zero, now it’s reached godly status. And the more the better. If 0 wasn’t small enough someone invented the double zero. The triple zero. What’s next? Do we need to start using sizes like 0 to the power of 10? It’s enough to drive a person crazy.

And remember when a 10 was the magic number? Now, that little straight line in front of that zero is scoffed at—berated—and coupled with rolled eyes and an inner body slam—ouch!– on how we could let ourselves go.

A zero—perfectly round and yet demanding of only straight lines. Yes. The quintessential shape for a woman…is the non-shape.

Now I don’t want to sound like being a zero is bad. It’s not. But I would like to put back on the table that it is only 1 little number. It is neither inherently bad or good—it just is. And the other numbers we agonize over? They’re fine too.

But it is quite obvious that we play math games with ourselves while in the privacy of our own head or publically hanging with other women. We subtract points off our self worth as our size and weight go up. We add them back in as those numbers go down. Somehow, all the work we do—all the people we touch in our lives—all of our achievements, our successes, our triumphs are trumped by any extra pound, inch, or rising size. Sadly, our self worth becomes the casualty.

And you know what? The only ones that can stop the power of zero is us. Yes, there are men telling women that nobody wants to see curvy women on the catwalk and that Barbie needs lipo on her supposed cankles — but at the end of the day, it is us, girls, women, and yes, those who love them that have to stand up and say “enough!”

Yes. Enough.

I have heard enough.

I have seen enough.

I am enough.

It is Thursday of Fat Talk Free Week. If you have been successful at stifling the inner critic in your head or the body basher in your life—congratulations—keep going. Not just this week but every week. This is a life long commitment to body esteem.

And to those of you who haven’t gotten there yet—can I just say it now? You are enough. You are powerful. You are amazing—straight and tall to bodaciously curvy. It’s time for you to say it. Say it out loud. To your friends. To your family. To the girls and women who study with you—work with you- laugh with you. Say it. Say it now.

And then, listen. After all, you need to hear it too.

Dr. Robyn’s Bio

Dr. Robyn Silverman is a child/teen development specialist, body image expert, sought-after speaker and award-winning writer, who is known for her no-nonsense yet positive approach to helping young people and their families thrive. Her ground-breaking research at Tufts University on young women and plus-sized models is the foundation for her forthcoming book, Good Girls Don’t Get Fat due out in October 2010. Dr. Robyn has been featured on The Tyra Show, Fox News, NPR and Dr. Drew Pinsky’s Radio Show and has been quoted in The Washington Post, Parenting Magazine, Prevention Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and The Daily News. A columnist for the award-winning Bay State Parent Magazine, she has also been the body image and girl’s development expert for 10 books, including 113 Things to Do By 13 and 8 middle school trade books and is the expert in appearance discrimination and body esteem development for the Applied Developmental Science Encyclopedia, a handbook for psychologists. She is the creator of Powerful Words, a character education and leadership development program for after-school programs that runs in 10 countries for children ages 4 and up. For more information, visit www.DrRobynSilverman.com and follow her at www.twitter.com/DrRobyn.

This is the Fashionista Generation. Chalk it up to Gossip Girl or Next Top Model or all those banks who handed out credit cards like they were candy — whatever the reasons, designer labels have become a part of our culture. We use them to fit in, to stand out, to create a glow of status and power.

Girls use brands to look more mature and hip; their mothers, to look more youthful and hip. This makes the marketers very, very happy. And it leads to some really creepy crossovers. Christian Louboutin — the French cobbler who only the fashion elite had heard of until Sex and the City but whose red-soled shoes all suburbia now lusts after — recently designed Barbie shoes for women. And women’s shoes for Barbie. The Barbie fantasy (or nightmare, depending on your point of view) is now reality: you and your teen daughters can walk in Barbie’s hot-pink stilettos, and she can walk in yours. At last, the circle is complete! The plastic woman and the living, breathing one are united. Childhood and adulthood have merged.

It’s rather pitiful, really, that in order for poor Barbie to be perfect enough for Monsieur Louboutin, she had to get cosmetic surgery on her “cankles” (a word in my top ten list of loathsome fat-talk terms it’s time we pledge to never use again). Barbie was already dangerously thin, people! If a real woman had her figure she would be classified anorexic and she would be unable to menstruate or have children. I thought we all knew that by now. Apparently the fashion world didn’t, because her grossly cankulous lower limbs needed to be made even more slender to be deserving of the designer’s shoes. On one level, it’s tempting to shrug this off as utterly ridiculous, just some designer who’s totally out of touch with reality behaving silly, but the fact that Mattel — a manufacturer of toys for children — indulged his whims actually makes me furious. Deep down, this is the message it sends to girls and women:

How often has a day of clothes shopping turned toxic for you or your teen daughter? It can be daunting to see the racks filled with sizes that seem suited only, in fact, to a Barbie doll. What do you tell yourself in the changing room mirror? You wouldn’t be alone if you have fallen prey to some pretty self-hating thoughts under the fluorescent department store glare. There are women and girls who buy clothes a size too small for them so they will feel compelled to lose weight. Women and girls who unthinkingly repeat the old chorus “Does my bum look big in this?” as they twist to look at themselves in the mirror. Women and girls who feel ashamed because they aren’t the “right shape” for the latest designer label offering, as though there ever has been, or ever should be, such a thing as the “right” shape.

The tragedy is that too many women and girls diet to fit themselves into “must have” fashions, or they work themselves into an epic neurosis because they can’t achieve the look they see in fashion magazines and on billboards.

That ideal look is achievable for only a tiny number of people (models are thinner than 98% of the population), or it is unachievable at all because it isn’t even real. Ralph Lauren recently Photoshopped model Filippa Hamilton to such an extreme degree that they made her look more like an insect than a woman.

“It’s not a good example when you see this picture; every young woman is going to look at it and think that it is normal to look like that. It’s not . . . It’s not healthy, and it’s not right.”  model Filippa Hamilton

This was one of the final jobs she did for the company. She says that after 8 years of modelling for Ralph Lauren, they decided she was too fat for their clothes and cancelled her contract. Reality check: Filippa Hamilton, too fat for Ralph Lauren, is 178 cm and 54.5 kg, or 5′ 10″ and 120 pounds. I’m sorry, Filippa, but even before this deranged level of Photoshopping, your weight was not normal and healthy; you were already well into the underweight category of the healthy weight range.

Too many women and girls are berating and belittling themselves for being unable to fit into or look good in clothes modelled by skeletal models. I like nice clothes and shoes. I like to feel good when I walk out the door in the morning. And I don’t have a problem with people wanting to be fashionable. What I do have a problem with is clothing companies that make girls and women feel badly about themselves and talk badly about themselves. I have a problem with the fact that in many cases, women’s fashion is designed by male designers who probably know as much about building a rocket ship and flying to the moon as they do about the real lives of real women and girls.

What if we all make a pact not to buy fashion labels that make us feel less than beautiful? What if we say no to marketers who try to make us feel that we will never be good enough? They will have no choice but to change their products and the way they market them.

During Fat Talk Free Week let’s transform the negative self-talk in the changing room into something far more constructive. Instead of punishing ourselves for not fitting into fashion designers’ narrow ideal, let’s demand that fashion designers cater to our needs. And let’s choose to celebrate our differences and our unique qualities — rather than trying to squeeze them all into those designer jeans.

A wise friend once told me that real maturity is realizing that the birthing hips you were born with are here to stay. She was definitely on to something.

I love the concept of “Fat Talk Free Week,” and I applaud Tri Delta for taking it on as a movement. I found out about the program from Melissa Still, star CSU student and president of our campus chapter, when she applied for a grant from the President’s Office to conduct an “all-sizes welcome” fashion show and a series of other programs celebrating the idea of erasing “fat talk.” Thanks to Melissa’s leadership, Tri Delta won the grant and is working to spread the word on campus about healthy body image and lifestyle.

Living “Fat Talk Free” isn’t about watching your tongue or denying reality. It’s about shifting your mindset. This is a shift I understand because I’ve been working on it much of my adult life. This is a picture of me in college that a friend posted recently on Facebook, taken at the CSU Ramskeller when I was about 19 or 20.

At the time, I considered myself fat. I was 5’5” and less than 120 pounds, and I considered myself fat. Today, at age 45, I am—by any doctor’s definition as well as my own—overweight. I have rolls where I wish I didn’t, and I shop in the plus-sizes. And yet I feel happier, stronger and more confident in myself than at any time in my life. So confident, in fact, that I let myself be persuaded into doing something that is about the last thing I’d ever include on my “bucket list”… walking a runway in the Tri Delt fashion show.

So, what’s the difference between then and now, besides the pounds I’ve added over a couple of decades? Somewhere along the line, I decided to live in the body I had. I got tired of pretending I would someday, if I just tried harder, grow 5 inches taller and develop more prominent cheekbones. I got tired of waiting to lose 5 pounds before I could allow myself to go in the swimming pool, or buy a new outfit, or exercise in public.

In my younger, slimmer years, I was a closet weight-bigot. I would never say anything hurtful out loud, but in my own head, I equated thinness with intelligence and strength. Fat was weakness and incompetence. Being overweight was a character flaw, a mark of laziness and too many Twinkies. Thin was powerful—a sign that you were living right.

But the funny thing is, even though I was thin at the time, I didn’t feel powerful. I felt scared. Scared about the future, scared of what other girls were saying about me, scared of whether my boyfriend would leave me, scared of failing, scared of not having enough money to pay tuition and rent, scared that I wasn’t as smart as people said I was, scared of growing up and never being good enough.

Obsessing about weight is a way of attempting to seize control over a world that is really out of our control. Living in the body you have is recognizing that you don’t need to control the world to fully own your own life and choices. We don’t know what the future holds or what challenges lie ahead; we can’t rewind the clock and change the hurts we’ve suffered in the past. We can only learn as we go and live in the moment, cellulite and all. Life’s too short to spend in wait.

So I quit waiting. Living in the body I have has taken me to amazing places and through astonishing moments. I’ve gone scuba diving along magnificent coral reefs and sucked in the reedy air at 14,000 feet. I stood by my dad’s side as he left this world and by my sister’s side as she brought her daughter into it. When my husband’s body was weakened and shrunken from cancer treatments, I had the strength in these arms to comfort him. And now I’m going to be a runway model. Who knew?

It’s not always easy. Age does surprising and annoying things to even the healthiest bodies. You find wrinkles and sags in parts you never knew you had. Your knees can’t handle what they used to. The idea of staying out until 2 in the morning seems like torture, no matter how fun the company. But this is all natural stuff that goes along with living fully in your body over the long term, and it gets at my next point: maintenance. For years, I’ve given much more care and attention to maintaining my car, which I will eventually trade in, than to my body, which I’m driving until it drops. So while I’m happily living in the body I have, I’m also trying to adopt a healthier, more consistent approach to maintaining it with fresh, healthy foods, more regular exercise, and the yearly mammogram. No fad diets, no debilitating fat talk. Just the basics.

The most recent issue of Glamour Magazine has a great series of articles about body image and how much our self-concept is shaped by the unattainable, air-brushed standards of the fashion industry (http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/about/body-image) The issue also contains a great quote from actress Scarlett Johannson about how even the most beautiful women in the world wind up with body image issues: “If you open up a magazine and there’s a photograph of you with a giant red circle around your thigh, like, look at this cellulite, any person—I don’t care what you do—would be mortified. It’s no wonder people get crazy about it.”

We do this to ourselves. Fat Talk Free Week is a time to stop, take a deep breath, and love the bodies we have and all they do for us…”birthing hips” and all. Thanks to Delta Delta Delta for leading the charge!