Amanda posted about an article in Details magazine — an article in which (according to Amanda) some curvier actresses both past and present were called “fat.” I read Amanda’s post earlier and found myself (without having even clicked through to the details article) just certain that I’d find the article an atrocity.

Not so, not so.

After reading the article, (really, go read it) I see it a different way. When saying “fat is back,” the folks at details aren’t calling the women fat, but rather saying that they have fat on their bodies, a normal, healthy thing for all women. Frankly, I love seeing the return of curves, but I’m biased in that direction. Even when I’m a size four, I have very curvy hips. Since having a baby, I might even have boobs at a size four, too — but I don’t expect to ever learn whether that’s true or not.

It took me years to get here, but I realize now that in MY body, I simply don’t look good at any size lower than a six. Even a six is pushing it a bit. Comparing myself to someone with a stick-straight figure and naturally narrow hipbones is insane. Of *course* that person will wear a zero or two! That’s what their bone structure demands! A size zero on me would look positively anorexic — a strong-boned skeleton in motion. Ick.

True story — the other night, my father commented that I looked great, and asked if I’d lost some weight. After I gave him grief about his phrasing (What? I looked awful before? Perhaps you might say instead, ‘you look thinner; have you lost weight?’), I mentioned that yes, I’d dropped perhaps eight pounds over the past few weeks, and told him what my weight had been at the endocrinologist’s appointment on August 2. His jaw dropped, as did my (bird-boned, narrow-shouldered, no-hips) grandmother’s. You couldn’t *possibly* have weighed that! Where did you put it? And you weight what now? Anatomy lesson time, folks… I carefully explained to both of them that I am naturally quite muscular and strong. I would wear a smaller size now at 130 (not my actual weight…yet) than I did in high school at 110-115 — and look better, too.

Back to my initial point — I now find myself vaguely irritated at Amanda’s initial post. It, in my opinion (YMMV, as always) was misleading as to the nature of the actual article, which expressed hope that a trend toward more healthy, round female bodies will continue.

I’ll drink to that.

I will say this, though — the pig/sparkly shoes photo? Tacky and in bad taste.