One of my scattershot snaps of my brain..

[annwfyn]

• I appear to be suffering from hay fever this summer. This happens sporadically, and inconsistently, and only started when I was in my twenties. In fact, I can remember the day it started. I was living on Causewayside in Edinburgh, and was walking home from university. There was this huge bank of flowers by the side of the road, and as I walked past it, I could feel my eyes just prickling up.
  
  I'd never had hay fever before, and never thought of myself as the kind of person who did. I don't think I've ever quite adjusted. Even now, I find myself muttering darkly about how I've got this lousy cold that just won't shift, even as the pollen hangs heavy in the air. It's taken me about a week and a half this time to work out that there might be something seasonal about these sore eyes, throat, and slightly snuffly feeling.



• I'm feeling crazy anxious about university at the moment. It's the lack of feedback. I genuinely don't know how I've been doing. I think I'm OK, but I'm not sure, and an increasingly insistent voice (which may be paranoia) is hissing 'you know you're going to fail'.
  
  I hate this feeling. I just want this term to be over with.



• molez leant myself and pierot the first half of Season 2 Supernatural on DVD, which we watched over the weekend with great determination. I have come to the possible contraversial opinion that I actually prefer Supernatural to Heroes. The world seems a little darker, the characters slightly grittier, and I love the way it juxtaposes the crappiness of the lives they live in the eyes of most (credit card fraud, drifting from motel to motel) with the incredible importance of what they are doing.
  
  I did have a slight ARGH! ANOREXIC ACTRESS moment in a couple of episodes - the girl who plays Jo looks too thin for her face, and that bothers me.



• On another note, I am discovering that my rant about the emaciated frames of women in the media is becoming a reoccuring one, but it is something that bothers me. I don't like people who look too thin for their frame. I don't think it looks nice.
  
  I also intensely dislike the fact that the media is increasingly pushing an ideal of beauty which is actually unhealthy. Keira Knightly is taller than me, and weighs 7 and a half stone. There is no way she can do that while eating healthily. I lived with my li'l sis when she was rowing at competition level. She is about half an inch taller than me - she's 5'8". She had to keep her weight down to 9 stone - that's 126 ib, I think. She did this by exercising for about 30 hours per week, and then not eating a lot. No chocolate. No dessert. She watched what she ate constantly, and basically ate as little as she could eat while keeping herself fit enough to function as a serious athlete.
  
  This was to keep her nearly 2 stone - 28 ibs - heavier than Keira Knightly.
  
  It's not reasonable that the ideal of beauty presented on screen and in photos constantly is one which requires starvation (and all the requisite lethargy, inability to concentrate on anything, depression and other neurosis which come with that). It's not reasonable that girls are constantly told that they aren't pretty unless they start starving themselves.
  
  I swear to god, in my mind, Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane is a symbol in my mind of all that is wrong with the world. We're glamourising something we should be pitying.

Comments

[lawrencegillies.livejournal.com]

I must watch more Supernatural, I keep being out when its shown at the moment.

[wildrogue.livejournal.com]

Completely agree. It really struck home for me with supernatural when I realised that the teeny stick insect woman playing a vampire was none other than Tara from Buffy - you know, the one who looked huge compared to the rest of the cast.

There was going to be more here but it turned into a whole post so has been shifted to my own journal. Mind if I reference you?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

That is completely fine. I'm happy with this debate spreading whence it will.

And you are right about Amber Benson. I have some friends who actually met her in her Buffy days - when she was generally known as the heavier girl on Buffy - and were quite shocked by how tiny she was in real life. It's very very scary imagining what Sarah Michelle Gellar actually looks like.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

I saw an article about Kiera Knightly recently, apparently she was distraught to be used as a role model for anorexics and pleaded that she was naturally thin. She said that she would want to be bigger but her doctors said that she couldn't be without eating junk and stopping exercise. I don't know how genuine it is but she always comes across as a really nice girl and not one of the starve yourself types. There are those about and I don't think that thin should be equated with beautiful but I'm not sure that her being that small is her own fault (my cousin is 5 foot 8 eats what she likes and weighs about 8 stone, if that, some people just do). I think that unhealthily thin and unhealthily overweight should be heralded as just that, unhealthy. I think that healthy should be equated with beauty rather than unhealthy but if someone is naturally skinny then it's not their fault if people find them attractive.

[lawrencegillies.livejournal.com]

I know a couple of guys who are incredibly skinny, and yet eat like horses, so it is entirely possible that Keira Knightly is the same - quick metabolism, plus exercise, leading to skinnyness...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Sister is 5'9", less than 9 stone, eats like a horse and takes no exercise. Not only an I profoundly jealous, but the automatic assumtion that someone has to eat nothing and exercise constantly to stay slender is not necessarily true.
It just is in my case.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I've heard those quotes from Keira Knightly. I know that some girls are naturally thin - I've got a friend in Edinburgh who is taller than me, a size 8, and perfectly healthy - but I don't know many, and I sometimes find it a bit suspect that every single Hollywood model/actress out there claims to just be one of those people, especially when later these stories come out about what they actually eat.

I mean, I remember Jordan claiming for a while (when she was trying to flog this exercise DVD she was in) that she didn't diet after her kid was born - she just exercised. Later she admitted she had actually lived on nothing but puree'd fruit for 2 months. It's stuff like that which makes me worry.

I think I'd also be less ratty on this subject if there were more depictions of beauty beyond the single image of size 0. If Keira Knightly is just built that way, then cool. But why then is her quite unusual frame being touted by the media as the way to be pretty? Why aren't there other images being presented as 'attractive' or 'sexy'?

Or is that just what we are humans seem to find attractive on a hardwired level? Maybe we do and I'm just very bitter at being far too large to be pleasant to look at... :p

(above sentence meant tongue in cheek and not as a wail for reassurance)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I wrote a long reply to Jeni on this subject.

I know some people are like this. On the whole, I think they are relatively rare. Most people do seem to have a weight which roughly reflects the amount they eat and the exercise they do, and I kinda worry that the only image of beauty being presented is this terribly slender image which most people can't reach without an unhealthy lifestyle.

I also find myself looking at a lot of actresses with concern as they just seem to shrink away. Christina Ricci, for example, looked beautiful in Sleepy Hollow. I saw a picture of her lately, and she's half the size she used to be. Her skin now looks stretched over her face. I'm sure that can't just be healthy eating and moderate exercise doing that!

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

I found Supernatural season 1 tremendously annoying, but it did have potential. Now both you and Henry Jenkins have recommended it, so I'll give Season 2 a go.

How far into Heroes are you? It starts out odd, but gets better.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Up to the episode where they go to the future.

I need to evilly download more. I like Heroes a lot. I just REALLY like Supernatural. This may, of course, be because I have an epic crush on Dean Winchester, and find him the epitome of all that is attractive. I mean - he won't communicate, he's stubborn, argumentative, occasionally crazily aggressive - what is there not to love?

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

I think when pushed on it quite a few actresses will admit to eating very little and exercising a lot. As to why there may be a few like Keira, well I guess that if that is what the media wants then that is what they will look for, us mere mortals wouldn't get a look it.
I am sure that a lot of them lie, however a few of them are genuinely thin and some are genuine fitness fanatics.

I think the idea pushed on us of beauty is wrong, I feel sorry for Keira that she gets the stick for what is not a decision that she is making. Actresses and models will starve themselves as long as that is what is required from them. It does need to change, beauty comes in all shaps and sizes (including you :)

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

I think it's very sad when very beautiful curvy girls who are healthy and slim feel the need to starve themselves. It is a twisted world which would presurise someone to make themselves like this, into something which most people would find horrible rather than attractive.

[xambrius.livejournal.com]

FWIW...

Most of the women whose figures I like are dismissed as "chubby" (at best) by most of the men I know. Most of the men I know seem to prefer women whose figures look "frail" (at best) to me. I can't speak for other men, but my preference seems to be hardwired. I've disliked the media standard since I was a child and always wondered why anyone would punish themselves to look like that. My "gut reaction" to seeing "frail" women is pity and a desire to feed them. My gut reaction to seeing women that other men dismiss as "chubby" is arousal and a desire to cuddle with them.

--
Tim Harris
The Seeker
Time Lord

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

*nods*

It's also something which is getting worse over time. I've noticed that if you go back, even to the late 1980s/early 1990s, actresses are a bit bigger in a lot of case. It's a definite fad, but not a nice one.

It's not so much that thin actresses exist that bothers me, as them being the monopoly. And not even just slim - really really skinny. I think I'd be quite happy if there were more Amber Benson types, or Kate Winslet types playing the glamour girl parts.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Some people are ridiculously thin. Keira knightley (I might hazard a guess) could actually be one of these people. There are some women out there who look unhealthily thin, I'm not sure if she's one of them.

Supernatural is rather funky. Due to Jo's illness we've been watching season 1. I liked the first episode the most and it hasn't quite kept up its innovative response to the supernatural... but it's still pretty good (though not as good as Heroes).

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

I hope the trend reverses. I'm pretty sure that the super models of the 80s were a size 8/10, go back to the sirens of black and white hollywood and you are into 10/12/14 territory (although the typical shape would be different to the typical one now, much more tapered at the waist - waist sizes on average have gone up although not overall size). This trend for size 0 (Uk size 6) and 00 (uk size 4) is going beyond reasonable bounds. I'm pretty sure that natural size 6s are few and far between, I'm not even sure if a natural size 4 is possible (although I may be wrong). By and large I imagine that healthy weight ranges from girls go from size 8 to 14. A toned 14 can look better than an untoned 10 and shape is important. In my opinion a curvy, toned, healthy size 14 would be more attractive body wise than a less shapely less toned smaller size.

I think it may start turning though, I don't think it will ever go to the other extreme of 'big' girls but I don't think we should be aiming for that. Overweight and obese is as unhealthy as being too thin. There have been a lot of things in the media recently condemning the size 0 look and I think that madrid refusing to use girls under a certain weight in their fashion shows is a step in the right direction.

I would hope for toned and healthy to be aimed for in terms of the body beautiful, different shapes have different pros and cons so I would hope that the toned and healthy bit would take precendence over how hippy or busty a lass was.

Weight

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

hon, I think you're right. I'm the same height as your sister. I run three times a week, walk 3 miles a day for work and on top of that walk the dog for half an hour every evening. I'm a vegetarian and eat a reasonable diet although this includes chips and chocolate as a weekly treat. However, I am still a few stones heavier than your sis was when rowing at competition level and also was before my pregnancy! In my head I feel I look about 20 stone but I'm not fretting too much about it today because I just had a midwife tell me I look really slim and I guess she's a medical professional and wouldn't lie. But every time I read those celeb magazines and they quote someone my height and 3 stones lighter than me as 'ideal' I get depressed even though my BMI, medically speaking, is sound. Mariah Carey who is my height and weight approximately was described by one mag as 'tipping the scales' and was very heavy indeed Yeah, thanks then! I only calmed down when Robin pointed out that Mariah dances for her job and is also likely to have a whole load of heavy muscle.

I think a lot of women have poor body image. Robin takes photos of me every time I moan about being fat just as a way of showng me that I'm slimmer than I think I am. Until I met Robin there were times I would walk around feeling 20 stone for extended periods of time.

Re: Weight

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

And dear gods, you don't look fat to me! You look really quite nice whenever I've seen you.

It just bothers me that healthy women - size 10, size 12, etc - are feeling overweight because they don't have the time to dedicate their lives to reaching this crazy kind of beauty ideal!

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

I may also have something of a crush on the Wincesters.

*coughs*

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Which one tho? Are you a Sam or a Dean kind of girl?

I'm currently going positively giddy every time Dean gets all loyal and gritty.

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

Mainly Dean. Occassionally Sam.

R thinks this is OK since he and Dean share a similiar(ish) body type, same haor colour, and his middle name is Dean.

We love denial ;).

Plus it's better than my previous crush on Leonardo di Caprio in 'The Departed' (in Titanic I was voting for the iceberg).

I must have a think for dodgy broken good/dubious guys :)

Re: Weight

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

Thanks honey you are sweet and you are right. I don't think that they should be portraying healthy weights as fat. I don't get taken in by skinny celebs but do get upset when people I relate to get slated. Another one they criticised as heavy in the mags was that lady who took over Challenge Anneka, the tennis player, Annabel someone. She wasn't fat! She was sporty!

[melsner.livejournal.com]

You know, i know a lot of women who think that the hottest Winchester was actually their dad.

this is partly because of a character he played in another series, Grey's Anatomy.

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

Ewwww. Just ewwww.

[melsner.livejournal.com]

are you insane? Girls love his charm and rugged, bear-like masculinity. He's frickin' cool.