We Have Met the Enemy, and it is Not Fat
By Lauren Le Vine, REBDOOK.
It's time to retire the f-word--the "f" here meaning "fat." A study of 2,000 women commissioned by clothing site Littlewoods.com found that 74 percent of participants who wear a size 16 are happy with their appearance and most comfortable in their own skin. Only 42 percent of size six respondents said the same. The survey also found that women who wear sizes 14 to 18 have "a more positive frame of mind when it comes to their appearance."
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Besides the empowering body-confidence findings, what we really like about this survey is how it demonstrates a shift in attitude towards what it means to be healthy. Curvy celebs like Adele have said they feel no pressure to slim down, and fitness guru Tracey Anderson recently told us that contrary to popular belief, she doesn't want everyone to be small and go on extreme elimination diets. "The key is understanding how certain foods affect you personally and then really listening to the information that you have."
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And that information now includes the fact that fat--specifically saturated fat--is not the enemy. "When saturated fat got mixed up with the high sugar added to processed food in the second half of the 20th century, it got a bad name," UC San Francisco pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig tells The LA Times. Fat isn't the bad guy here, but rather the lack of proper information about which foods people should really be eating for whole-body wellness. Whether you're a size six or a size 16, the key to feeling great and loving your body is giving it exactly what it needs to stay healthy. And yeah, sometimes that means the f-word--but that's not a bad thing.
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