LIVING THE BEST OF LIFE (PG.8)

In War With Your Dowdy Look? Be Bold, Fight It!

Are you that overweight sister who is so tormented by your alarming weight increase that each time you stare at your reflection in the mirror you frown?                                                                                                                            

I remember Angie, a character played by Roselyn Ngissah in the Ghanaian movie ‘4Play’. Angie was teased by her friends over her weight, no thanks to her husband who would look into her eyes and tell her she was FAT and SHAPELESS and how every inch lucky she was in the marriage because if he hadn’t marry her, no one would, according to him, not all men would stand the pressure of sleeping with a toad-like creature like her. Now even when Angie took up to exercise to shade some weight, her husband wasn’t encouraging either. He scornfully told her not to be so up tight about it because she was not going to loose a pound in five or ten years or maybe never that no matter how she tried, she was shapeless and so she should embrace and accept it.

Angie ran straight to the mirror crying and screaming at her image; ‘I hate you! I’m fat! I’m shapeless!’                                                                                                             

 Now hanging out with fellows who often tease and make jest of your big body size will only worsen matters as you are likely to feel insecure and threaten when ever you come in contact with a slimmer person because you feel you cannot compete with them.

In that movie, Angie was emotionally and psychologically tortured that in the gym, after working so hard on the treadmill along side with her friends, she screamed;

‘I quit! I quit trying to look any prettier. I quit trying to believe that I’m eventually going to loose weight.

I quit hanging up the hope in there that I am going to find a man that will love me for me.

You know why? Because I’m fat! Ugly and so…shape less!’

There are so many big sisters out there who are wearing similar or worse shoes than Angie. Sometimes, it could come as a public embarrassment. So many big sisters out there who board public transports have been refused to be carried by the drivers or sometimes asked to pay for two because the driver feels they will occupy more than one space or cause some discomfort to other passengers.

Being big could be one of the biggest challenges and embarrassing for most people and this could breed a monster. The monster here is SELF HATE; I’m too fat, I hate myself.

No, thanks to the media contributing a great deal in portraying an over weight woman as unattractive. The general perception of many people is that having a great and happy image is being as skinny as those runway models on glossy magazines and T.V. even when these models look so thinly, bony and sicken.

One thing you must know as a plus sized sister is that being big does not make you a lesser human being. Who ever told you that you cannot laugh, have fun and even look smashing?  All qualities come from within you. Like we all know, a typical African woman tends to be on a fleshy side, and most African men prefers them that way, big, bold, beautiful and totally in charge of her body rather than what they call ‘bonga fish’ looking runway models on the cover of fashion magazines, no offence to the skinny sisters.

In case you are wondering what this is all about, this is not to encourage obesity or make you eat and grow fatter...