A confluence of blogs

First thing you should know about me is that I'm a Gemini (birthday's in May, start thinking about gifts now) so I have two very distinct sides to my personality. Each of them is represented by my blogs: my author blog which is this one if you couldn't tell and my dancer blog, which is www.fitballet.blogspot.com, where I talk about dance and training and post videos to help beginners.

Never have the two blogs met until now. This morning, I was reading a review of a dance movie called "A Beautiful Tragedy" on the blog, Dance Advantage. The movie is about an anorexic dancer in Russia named Oksana. The reviewer wrote about the documentary's unflinching look at ballet in Russia, where dance is taken very seriously. The dance world is notoriously stringent about weight and size yet it's accepted as a given while anorexia in the modeling world is condemned.Which brings me to this sad article from CNN.com about the death of model Isabella Caro. She was on an anti-anorexia billboard in France and even wrote a memoir called, "The Little Girl Who Did Not Want to Get Fat" about her battle with the disease from a young age.

Then, back in my writer world, I got a Google alert about an ALL ABOUT VEE mention. Here it's part of an article titled, "YA Fatphobia" in the upcoming issue of The Horn Book, which is a literary resource for teachers and librarians across the country. My novel is very positively mentioned and included among a handful of YA novels that portray plus-size characters in a positive and healthy way (thank you, writer and reviewer Kathryn Nolfi!).

And one more article from CNN.com, an interview with actress Ginnifer Goodwin ("Big Love"). She's beautiful, isn't she? She has gorgeous skin and a great career and yet, she seems to have an unhealthy attitude toward food and dieting. I know this interview is supposed to show how healthy she is but honestly, she's in the same world as my character, Veronica May. Except where my gal accepts her weight and lives beautifully, Ms. Goodwin seems to see weight as a constant battle in her life, not so very different from Ms. Caro or the Russian ballerina, Oksana. And yet, she's being portrayed as someone with a balanced life. Sorry, Ms. Goodwin, but you're just as anxious and obsessed about weight as every other actress in Hollywood.

All of these articles in one morning! And this was on top of reading the sobering statistic that 2 out of every 3 Americans is overweight or obese. No wonder! We have the worst attitudes toward food and disease and we label people and food "good" or "bad." None of these people need to make weight-loss resolutions: they need to make acceptance resolutions.

One final thought on body image week...

I had to chuckle when I read Liviania's comment below about how she was sad for me that I didn't get any compliments on my looks. Until the notion of Body Image Week arose at My Favorite Author, it never occurred to me to be aware of what people said about my appearance. More noticeable to me - and more important - are comments about my dancing.

So yesterday, when I was taking class, a lovely young dancer came up to me and asked me what company I used to dance with (when you're my age, it's a pretty safe bet that you "used" to dance somewhere, as opposed to currently being a member of a company). When I told her I didn't, she was astonished - like, her face registered surprise and everything. She wouldn't believe that I was not a retired professional. We did the whole mutual admiration thing ("I love your arms," "No, I love your arms") and moved on.

I get comments like this from people fairly regularly, usually from newish dancers, and I am always appreciative, but when an experienced dancer or current pro says it, I am truly flattered. It made me feel very good, very competent for much of the class, I must admit, so later, when I happened to be standing next to the young woman again, I asked her about herself, where she was from and so on. She's new to LA, only been here for 2 months. I smiled and walked away and immediately my ego deflated.

Ah, I figured, she didn't really think I was good, she just wants to make friends.

Pretty sick way to think, huh?

Body Image Week Follow-up

Body image is a term which may refer to a person's perception of their own physical appearance, or the internal sense of having a body which is interpreted by the brain. Essentially a person's body image is how they perceive their appearance to be to others, which in many cases may be dramatically different from how they actually appear to them. (From Wikipedia)

I told you I'd remind you!

Many people remarked on my post last Friday and I thank you all for your support. I also want to thank all of the wonderful authors who posted about their own body issues at My Favorite Author and on the book blogger sites, Presenting Lenore, In Bed with Books and The Story Siren. They were all inspiring posts to read - and of course, I love to read the comments! Sometimes those can be just as insightful and thought-provoking.

Now, how did I do? Well, I was very good about the whole weighing-every-day thing - I limited myself to just once (yowsa that was hard!) and I allowed myself to eat all the fruits and veggies I wanted (believe me, this is a tough thing to do when you fight the urge to be hungry and constantly deny yourself what your body wants). So that was a good thing.

It's still hard to look in the mirror and lord do I wish this challenge came during a week I did NOT have my period! All I could see was bloat! But again, I tried to see the bigger picture and actually look at myself and say, hey, those legs aren't so bad! To be totally truthful, I couldn't get any higher than my legs - and just barely to my thighs! There was no way I was going to look at my butt or stomach...maybe next time around. :)

And lastly, the compliments...I LOVE giving compliments - I pretty much do it all the time. Part of that is being a teacher and wanting my dancers to feel good about certain things they are doing so they know I am not always picking on them but also, I learned that habit from my mother who is always good at complimenting strangers.

Taking compliments? LOL! I didn't get any! I got a couple for my dancing which I usually do and I am always gracious and thankful for that but no one said anything to me about anything else. So...oh well. Again, maybe next time around!

Now how about YOU. (You look great in that color, btw, and I love how you've styled your hair.) How did your week go? Did you fight the urge to turn your head from the mirror when you got out of the shower? Did you admire the way your toes curl gently beneath your flip-flops? Did you offer or accept a compliment from a stranger?

Go on back to My Favorite Author and see how others did then enter to win some terrific books from some of today's popular YA authors!

Cheers~

Random or not....a personal tale of body image

By far, one of the most frequent questions I get from readers is "Why did you write ALL ABOUT VEE?" The answer I tell them is my standard how-I-got-the-idea anecdote: Not long after moving to LA, I saw a heavy young woman waiting to cross the street in Beverly Hills near all the talent and literary agencies and it occurred to me that she could be an actor on her way to an appointment and that made me wonder what it would be like to be larger in a city that values skinny above skill. And since I'm all about fish-out-of-water stories, I took that character and moved her from Arizona to LA just to freak her out and see what she'd do.

Kind of like me.

In truth, Veronica - or Vee - is nothing like me. I have none of the confidence or self-esteem that she has regarding her weight or her talent. She has a very deep well of support from her friends and family that she can go to when she needs a boost. None of that is present in my life nor has it ever been.

One of the reasons I wrote that book is that I have always had a problem with my weight. I have always thought of myself as a Fat Girl. In Connecticut. In Boston. In New York City. And especially in LA. It doesn't matter what the mirror reflects or what the numbers on the scale add up to. The number is never small enough. The size on my jeans is never small enough. I am never small enough.

On the internet, I troll the Fatosphere, a collection of blogs by men and women who espouse Fat Acceptance (FA) and Health at Every Size (HAES). I love these blogs! They're insightful and truthful and I find myself nodding in agreement whenever I read them. I heartily endorse the practices they proscribe. For others, though, not for me.

Why? Am I being hypocritical thinking like this?

Well...here's a bigger light to shine on the inner workings of Leigh's mind: I also regularly visit a blog called Every Woman Has an Eating Disorder, run by Dr. Stacey, a clinical psychologist in New York City. I don't lurk there - I post. Often. Because I am a woman with an ED. Anorexia if you haven't figured it out. And btw, thanks for not mentioning it. :)

FA - what Rebecca Rabinowitz and other experts promote - is Fat Acceptance. Rebecca read ALL ABOUT VEE recently and blogged about it. (See this link for the very interesting blog thread which answered many of my questions.) While VEE had a lot of great things going for it, FA was not one of them. This boggled my mind: I had a character who was big and who loved herself for being big and had friends and a boyfriend and was popular and talented and wasn't that promoting FA?

Well, no. Because Vee lost weight - not much but enough to negate the theme that it's okay to be large. I thought that's what I was saying in the book. By not having her diet or smoke or get lap band surgery, I assumed I was promoting FA and HAES. But Vee does lose weight when she takes up yoga.

In an earlier draft of the book, Vee's friend Ginny and Vee's love interest Malcolm react very negatively to her losing weight. Ginny thinks she's rejecting her and Malcolm just wants her to be exactly as she was forever and ever. Alas, those scenes were "trimmed" (hah!) from the book so the voices of readers who might have wondered if Vee losing weight was a cop-out were silenced. Perhaps if those characters and scenes had stayed, Rebecca Rabinowitz might have given me higher marks!

I will probably always be this way about myself and my weight. It's deeply ingrained in me, it's who I am and always have been. It infects all that I do and say and write about. But I won't stop trying to get better. And in the meantime, at least my characters have the courage I don't.

Body Image Week at My Favorite Author!

Today is Earth Day and what better way to honor Mother Earth than to take pride in all Her creatures - no matter what their size!

A new challenge - and it's a doozy! Kind of book-related, in that the challenge is at a book blogger site and the people posting are writers or readers of YA books, but really, it's about YOU! It's about how YOU feel about YOUR body. It's a challenge to be accepting about your body, to recognize the wonderful strengths it has and some of the odd and funny quirks we all share.

Come on, we're human, after all! We have weird and wonderful bodies, especially us women.

Over at My Favorite Author - which is a YA book blog for adult readers (yes, that's a lot of us who feel a little, um, awkward about hanging out at the teen blogs) - the challenge has been issued. Go over and check it out: a week-long attempt to be more conscious of how we view our bodies, and to question why we do and say things we do about ourselves, why we don't honor our beautiful selves like we should. And a whole slew of great writers willing to talk about it all - including me here later this week. (I joined the party at the last minute so I'm not official.)

Then at the end of the week, check back in (I'll remind you, don't worry!) and see how you and others fared during the week. Did you give yourself a break when you had to try on that swimsuit? Did you say thank you when someone complimented your smile? Did you offer another person a compliment? You'll have a chance to win FREE BOOKS too!

We've got to be good and kind to ourselves: it's the cheapest therapy out there.

Body Image and the Ballerina

A couple of weeks ago I posted about being "fat" in LA, about the media's obsession with perfect bodies and how it makes the rest of us feel. And let's please note that the media's definition of "perfect body" is far from what the average person would say.

In the dance world, particularly ballet, weight is a constant issue. Every ounce of flesh you have on your bones is paraded in front of strangers. Costumes are designed to cling to your figure, to accentuate long limbs and lean torsos. God help you if you happen to have a curve or two. George Balanchine, whom many consider to be the father of ballet in America, encouraged an ideal body type among his dancers: small round heads, narrow hips, impossibly long legs, short waists and nonexistent chests. That ideal is still fairly prevalent among most ballet companies and schools and even if it wasn't, the girls themselves perpetuate it. See below for Balanchine with his muse, Suzanne Farrell, whom all dancers at City Ballet modeled themselves after:

The fact is, you can't get away from your body when you dance. You are constantly aware of every muscle - whether it's in pain or tweaked or needs to rest - and for advanced dancers, each minute detail of their bodies affects how they perform. Add to this the display of one's body every single day during class and rehearsals. Who else spends hours of their days practically naked in front of a room full of mirrors?

And believe me, every dancer in every studio knows exactly where the "fat" and "skinny" mirrors are in the room.

Dancers are just like actors in that both groups are often judged - and hired and fired - based on their looks. I really really wish that wasn't the case. A graceful body is a graceful body, regardless of its size or shape.


And just to prove that to everyone, please take a look at The Big Ballet Company of the UK. Are they gorgeous and graceful or what? Completely non-traditional bodies. I love them!

Fat Girls in LA

The title of this post, as many people know, was the original title of ALL ABOUT VEE.

While I was visiting schools last week – particularly the high schools in Wallingford and Cheshire and my old college in Massachusetts – most of the teens and women expressed surprise that the beautiful young woman on the cover of my book was considered “plus-size” by the modeling world. The comments I got were:

“She’s the same size as me and I am not plus-size.” (She wasn’t.)
“She looks like a regular woman to me.” (To me as well.)
“I don’t care what they say – she’s gorgeous and I love that dress.” (So do I.)

The conversation then moved onto the recent win of the first plus-size model on “America’s Next Top Model.” Whitney is a size 10.

“Size ten? That’s my size! And I am not plus-size.” (She really wasn’t.)

I mention this because it made me so happy to hear those comments from teens I hope to influence with my book. I’m glad to know that there are lots and lots of girls out there who don’t subscribe to the “thinner is better” philosophy like so many people do (and as a dancer, believe me, I see and hear it all – that’s another blog post).

You know, there are so many blogs in what they call the Fatosphere that host fantastic discussions about what it’s like to be heavy in a skinny world and all of the discrimination women face when they don’t look like models (check out some of my faves, like Shapely Prose, The F-Word, Disordered Times, Fat Lot of Good, and many more) and I wouldn’t pretend to try to give an account of that sort of discrimination. I can only talk about weight issues from my point of view – that of someone who has ALWAYS considered herself to be overweight.

So I will.

Stay tuned…