Early Morning Do

I went to sleep ridiculously early last night, so I woke up just as ridiculously early this morning.

And I woke up with the same thing nagging at my mind that I went to sleep with last night. Twice this week, a comment was passed to me about my daughter. Now if I were to write that the comments were something along the lines of "wow, she's getting heavy" or "she's fat, huh?" people would be outraged right there with me.

But in this case, the comments were: "You better start feeding her, she's too thin" and "Is she ok, she's too skinny." She heard both those comments, by the way.

I want to set a few things straight here. My daughter apparently takes after Daddy, genetically speaking. When I was her age, I went from a short chubby kid to a long tall "drink of water" as it was put, inside of a year and a half. My daughter is extremely active, one of those "never sits still" type of kids. She rides her bike everywhere, she takes her dog out all the time to run like silly maniacs. She swims a lot, she plays "Manhunt" with the other kids on the street till all hours. And she's going through her genetically-inherited growth spurt.

But for all the psychoanalyst wanna-be's, she is not in the grips of an eating disorder. She is not unhealthy, as her complexion, her energy, her hair, teeth and whatever will attest to. She has regular checkups with her MD as well as her gynocologist. And trust me, the child eats. She takes three squares a day, and while she snacks regularly, her choice of snacks are things like grapes, apples, Wheat Thins and granola. In my house we have both unhealthy and healthy snacks (cause Daddy tends to indulge in the not-so-good for you goodies here and there). But mostly, she never stops moving. She drinks water bottles by the dozen, she likes cranberry juice too, but Pepsi finds its way into her diet a little more than I'd like.

In my eyes, if she were heavy it would be very disparaging to her to make negative comments about that. She has the metabolism of a shrew, and if I allowed it, would probably consume her body weight in food every day. So why is it any less disparaging to make comments about her being "too skinny?"

Three of my best friends in the world are women who are thin, active and in shape. Why would anyone think that because they have flat bellies that they are anything less than healthy? Or attractive, for that matter. Trust me, they are beautiful, radiant women. And they are every bit as "real" as their curvier counterparts.

Women are beautiful in all shapes and sizes. Curvy can be beautiful, but not "better" than thin. And vice-versa. I recognize it, appreciate that. We can't criticize a woman for being heavy, and I believe we don't have the right to criticize a woman for not being heavy.I understand that. I think more people ought to.