I know that I am much heavier than I was before the lowercase was born. The scale regularly tells me that I am 35 lbs above my normal weight. None of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit me. I get that I'm heavier.
What I don't get is how the new jeans I bought last week can be a size 6 and yet I still have a BMI that is considered "overweight." According to the lovely BMI chart at Weight Watchers, I need to lose 10 more pounds just to hit the top end of the healthy range.
Mind you, these are pounds I want to lose. Hell, I want to lose all 35 of the pounds I've put on since I got pregnant nearly 3 years ago!
My problem is that a body wearing a size 6 shouldn't be overweight. Growing up, a size 6 was THIN. I distinctly remember envying the girls who were a natural size 5 or 6 all through high school.*
Has vanity sizing really gotten so bad? What gives? And if it isn't in the sizing of the clothes, is the concept of body mass index the culprit? Because something is seriously wrong with this picture.
*I was a size 10 in 8th grade. And then came the disordered eating leading to a weight range of 82 to 98 lbs. It continued through college -- I weighed 88 lbs the day I met my husband 10 years ago. I finally got healthy, stayed around 110-115 and wore a size 4 instead of the size 2 jeans that were too big for me on that day in 1998. Obviously, I have a lot of issues with body image, weight and clothing sizes...hell...numbers in general as they relate to my body.
