The Belly Project

A few weeks ago, my sister and I were hanging out with our 9 year old cousin Grace, a bright and beautiful girl who I just love to death. We were just joking around when all of a sudden she breaks out with, "Ugh, I am just so fat. I hate my legs." My sister and I were caught off guard as my 4'11'', 70 lb, little string bean of a cousin looked at us expectantly. I could tell from her eyes that she didn't really believe she was fat--rather, she was doing what she knows that all women do. We bond by complaining about our bodies, comparing flaws and cutting ourselves down. This was her attempt to seem mature and bond with the adults (as my sister and I cried later, "Damn you, patriarchy!").

I resisted my knee-jerk instinct: "Grace, you are not fat!" Because that would imply that to be thin is to be more loved, and it would only encourage this kind of body-hating talk in the future. Instead, I said, "As a girl, you are constantly going to be told that you are not good enough. That you are too short, or too tall, or too fat, or too thin. You can't let that get to you. You need to remember that you are wonderful the way you are. Don't tell me you hate your legs. You should thank God for those legs, which let you run and jump and play sports. You are perfect."

I thought of Grace as I started scrolling through The Belly Project, a blog from Dr. Karen Rayne and Christy Tashjian. While I preach a message of loving oneself and ones body, I have often looked in the mirror with an extremely critical pair of eyes. Looking at the bellies on display in The Belly Project, I saw women whose bodies looked like mine, and ones that look nothing like mine. I saw the bodies of older women, their abdomens stretched from pregnancy.

Take a look, it's totally fascinating. I also love that the women list not only their ages and number of pregnancies, but also if those pregnancies were carried to term (the number of miscarriages and abortions one has had is not a statistic I see often). And think of these bellies the next time US Weekly has a cover crowing the achievements of another celebrity who has lost her pregnancy weight in "just 3 weeks!"