Buttercup's Frocks

Skinny people aren’t the enemy. Fat, skinny and in-between; it’s all normal. We are all normal. Those with a vested interest in creating and maintaining our insecurities are the enemy. The diet floggers, the cosmetic and bariatric surgeons, the pharmaceutical conglomerates, the food manufacturers, the fashion and beauty publications who shamelessly exclude anyone who doesn’t fit within their narrow parameters of beauty. Those who lionise, demonise and pathologise certain types of bodies at the expense of our physical and mental health; those who persist in conflating appearance with health and health with morality – they are the enemy.

Instead of recognising this and telling them where to stick their pernicious, divisive crap, we allow ourselves to be manipulated into buying it. We become the enemy; the vessel of our own destruction. Riven with self-loathing we expend what little remains of our emotional energy knocking down those we perceive to be nearer the mark than ourselves. We continue to buy the dumb magazine in the supermarket checkout so we can cackle over the infinitesimal speck of cellulite on some hapless celebrity’s backside to make up for the pain of fixating on our own “flaws”. Which is why the average-sized model who manages to make it onto the front of a magazine lashes out at the skinny models … and why the readers’ comments following the accompanying test will be dripping with vitriol about how morally bankrupt she is for daring to “glorify obesity”. Seriously haven’t we got better, more creative things to do?

Me? I’m off to London Plus-Size Fashion Weekend with my fashion illustrator friend, Carol. What are you doing to buck the system, playmates?