'You can only stalk your friends on Facebook for so long but Pinterest goes on forever."

Aw hey y'all.

So this post has been bubbling beneath the surface for the past week. And don't be hatin' but I'm taking on Pinterest in this one. Now I am fully aware the the awe and fulfillment I initially felt from Pinterest was maybe a little idealistic (I did just use the word 'fulfillment') and I do still find it endlessly entertaining and disturbingly addictive. It is a repository for the creative, the inspiring and definitely worthy of exclaim. But just like the rest of the interest, it is also a repository for the vain, the self-involved and the insecure. For those of you unfamiliar with Pinterest, it is a public 'pinboard' where you can pin photos and links from all over the internet onto 'boards' that you create under a profile. "Pinners" as addicts of the site are known, can repin from the site onto their boards and follow other 'pinners' and with categories like 'travel', 'humour' and 'photography' it makes for an instantaneous (if maybe unproductive) hobby. I was introduced to the site by my lovely friend BJ (who I will forever be indebted to -Pinterest has introduced me to some amazing sites, blogs, and general aesthetics).

One category, however, on the site is 'fitness'. And the fitness boards leave me…in a bit of a state when I leave the site. There is much that is affirming. There are posts and boards that advocate for exercise, strength, and health. But there is one pin in particular that I see and it makes me borderline apoplectic. It reads 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'. Peeps, this pin is EVERYWHERE. And it may seem innocuous to some of you but to me it lights a fire on a very hefty and sensitive issue. From someone coming from a background of eating disorders and from someone who still very much struggles with the mental and emotional repercussions of a struggle like that, I read something like that and I feel that people not only have their priorities so fucked up but also that our culture has harboured an environment where this is something to be viewed as integrity. Some of these fitness boards link to pro-ana-mia websites and very much discuss that mindset with advocacy. This is what I take issue with. That is a SICKNESS. The mindset that propagates an opinion that 'food is the enemy', 'if you eat you have failed', ET CETERA, suffer from a distorted view of their bodies, what true health looks like but also what true VALUE looks like. The whole 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' totally removes the 'real life' from the body living it. It's fakery.

I have been everything from 130 lbs, where I was bitching about a body that worked like a charm, to 90 lbs where I starved myself, shook constantly, ran until I passed out, and generally never enjoyed my life. Let me tell you, ANYTHING tastes better than skinny feels. SmartWater tastes better. What I am saying is nothing that hasn't been said before but the (predominantly) women that are pursuing this 'dream' of who they should be, who 'everyone else is wishing them to be', as whom they could 'be their best them' are chasing after a sad, shrivelled conception of what makes them valuable, what makes them desirable as company for the public at large. When you aren't eating, NOBODY WANTS TO BE AROUND YOU. All you do is weigh your barf and complain about how cold you are. Your blood sugar is low and so you are ornery all the time (and that takes years to fix). YOu want a great body? Get a life. Soon you will love your big thighs because you can run faster than you could last week. You will love your broad shoulders because they power you up a ROCK FACE. Take a dance class; You'll laugh. This is not me dogging eating healthy, trying to watch your weight. We have two converse obsessions occurring right now: obesity and the obsession with thin. Know yourself and take care of yourself.

This has been in no way articulate or well thought out but I broke today. Pinterest totally ruined my break at work. But then it showed a picture of a little boy playing with cows and that seemed playful enough that I forgot.

Pinterest