Western Morning News (Saturday)
Fat thighs? Get a life and some real perspective
IKNOW I’m capable of writing drivel. But I think I’d go some to match a recent article featured on the fashion pages of The Times recently. It really took the biscuit, and had Hubs harrumphing, appalled that the editor had accepted such a mindless lot of claptrap, and worse, printed it.
Hubs, you may now be aware, isn’t exactly the greatest fashion expert in the world. Only recently he was complaining about the bulk of his Fair Isle oiled wool sweater which he was wearing in a sweltering 22 degrees when everyone else wore tee-shirts. I have a picture of him on the beach in Greece wearing a woollen shirt, swim shorts and grey socks. A Baywatch icon he will never be, but I love him to distraction and know he’s thinking about far loftier things than the clothes on his back.
So, for Hubs to harrumph over a fashion article made me peer over his shoulder to see what had raised his ire. The writer was complaining about her thigh gaps. As an orthopaedic surgeon, Hubs probably knows more about thigh gaps than anyone else, so I read on, wondering if it was a medical complaint.
The silly writer was bewailing the fact that she didn’t have one – a thigh gap that is. “My lack of one has always provided the proof I’ve sought that my body is wrong, too big. It’s the bit of me that I think about the most, the first part of myself that I look at in a full-length mirror,” she wrote.
The article went on in the same drivel, and how, at last, the writer managed to pluck up courage to wear shorts despite her “monumental failure”. I’m not quoting any more because I’m sure by now you’ve all turned to Martin Hesp to read something more sensible.
“This woman needs to spend a few weeks working with refugees,” growled Hubs. And he’s right.
How utterly pathetic that this is all that occupies the writer’s bird brain. And what’s even worse, that she puts it out in writing to share with The Times readership. It’s remarkably sad that someone can spend their time writing about something so vacuous, oblivious of those who would, perhaps, love to have legs that worked, and wouldn’t give a toss about gaps.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the writer complains about men not taking her seriously, or feeling patronised by them. She does womankind no good at all by being so trivial and I wonder what sort of world she must live in to be so self-interested.
Maybe I should feel sorry for her. Perhaps she’s got psychological problems. Body dysmorphia is a recognised condition and it isn’t new. Maybe the columnist is suffering from it. It’s when people hate their bodies or an aspect of them. They can spend hours a day obsessing over real or imagined flaws and can take excessive and sometimes drastic measures to hide their perceived issues from others.
Plastic surgeons no doubt see a stream of people who have psychological problems who hope that surgery will change their self-love.
Michael Jackson was dysmorphic. He had over 30 operations to
How sad someone can spend their time writing about something so vacuous, oblivious of those who would love to have legs that worked
“improve” his looks and claimed his brutal childhood, when he was constantly told he was ugly, made him unhappy with his appearance. It’s reckoned that about 10% of patients who have plastic surgery have a psychological reason for requesting it.
“Selfie Dysmorphia” is common, when people take their photos and doctor them on their phone. Online dating often produces some interesting results. A friend linked up with someone, and when she arrived at the rendezvous found a man sitting at the bar who was 20 years older than his photo.
The trouble is, some personalities appear on Instagram, Snapchat or other social media outlets and have doctored their pictures so there isn’t a wrinkle in sight. It influences those who are unhappy with their appearance and they’ll often present to surgeons asking to be made to look like the personality.
Kate Winslet insisted that there should be no air-brushing of scenes when she appeared in bed in her latest series Mare of Easttown. So you see the wrinkles and love handles. Actress Helen Mirren modelled for L’Oreal and insisted that they didn’t airbrush her pictures, showing her true self and not someone else’s false ideal. Sensible women with their heads screwed on, unlike women who complain that their world is unfair because they haven’t got a gap at the top of their thighs.
I think the journalist needs to go off somewhere and work with, say, BLESMA, spend her time usefully writing about the fantastic people who work for, and or benefit from, the armed forces non-profit charity supporting limbless veterans in the UK for the duration of their lives.
They’d give her a few thoughts on gappy thighs...