~I’m all for people having a healthy body image, but there’s one phrase that gets wheeled out at every available opportunity and certified as fact (by people who quite possibly want to make themselves feel better and/or are ill informed) that Marilyn Monroe was a size 16. Let’s face it, she wasn’t. She has curves, I’ll give you that but can somebody please watch ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ or ‘Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend’ and tell me she’s anything but absolutely tiny? I mean she makes Jane Russell look big and you’re not telling me she was a size 20. Come off it.

I’ve seen several experts from the fashion industry say that at some point she may have been a size 16 but that’s much more like a modern day 10-12 and actually for the most ~part she was no more than a size 8. Don’t be holding the woman up as a shining beacon for a healthy bigger body image while you’re stuffing your face with crisps and chocolate and spilling out your Primark leggings. That’s NOT a healthy body at all. You’d have to be about 6’5” or something for a size 16 to be medically healthy – I used to be there and trust me it was not healthy. I’m not suggesting it’s wrong to be a size 16, if you’re there and you’re GENUINELY happy about it, then g’wed girl but that Marilyn would’ve shopped in Evans or Simply Be if she was about today is quite simply…bullshit.

Now don’t think I’m preaching to you from a pair of size 6 skinny jeans, I’m not! I’m pretty tall and normally range between a size 12 to 14 depending on how well I’m doing on the salad graft (and it IS a graft) – I don’t consider myself to be fat. Even when I was 2.5 stone lighter than I am now I was still a size 12, that’s just my frame. It’s taken me many years to accept that, but accept it I have. Don’t get me wrong there are some days when I feel bloated and think I look aesthetically inferior to a sack of spuds but every girl gets that bloated feeling. Norassed, it passes. What I strive to be is in the healthy weight range. I eat right with the occasional fall off the wagon, I used to exercise a lot but I’ve moved house away from the gym (badly need to get back there or join a new one) and it IS a struggle to maintain that balance when there’s scones and kettle crisps and lazy days on the couch calling my name – but I don’t want to get to my mid 40’s and be faced with a plethora of health issues just cos Domino’s keep texting me with their special offers (the bastards). So I graft to be healthy - Every. Single. Day

It seems to be more acceptable now to pick on images of the really skinny and say it’s unattractive but shock horror if someone says it about an overweight person. That's also not attractive because it’s just not how we were designed to look.

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Size is all relative to height. If I was shorter and kept the same proportions I probably would be a size 8-10…..if someone is a size 16 and really short they ain’t gonna be looking anything like Marilyn Monroe so don’t use that as an excuse to fall down the cakey rabbit hole girlies. If you're not happy with your body then why not make it your goal to get healthy not to starve yourselves to get skeletal or give up and eat yourself into type 2 diabetes. Marilyn Monroe was gorgeous and a stunner, a 50’s version of Beyonce or Kelly Brook – she IS what we should aspire to be - womanly. I saw a twitter user say regarding skinny girls: “Only a dog wants a bone.” And I love that. I’m not saying that everyone MUST get fit and healthy, nor that it’s easy (it’s definitely not) just don’t be using ‘MM was a size 16’ as an excuse to trick yourself into feeling sexy when you’re actually miserable/unhealthy. 

~I think there is a definite, if sometimes imperceptible switch towards a better body image in recent years. We don’t want the unhealthy skinny, nor the unhealthy fat, we want the nice curvy, ‘something to grab’ in between body, and since the Olympics especially, the fit, athletic body. Well pretty much all of us that is, apart from Katie Price – My first thought was ‘You cheeeekkkkkyy bitch!” when she had the nerve to call Kelly Brook a heifer this week. Yes love you may have the hips of an 8 year old child but you’ve got a face like a smacked arse and Kelly is still considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world. Get back in the kennel Jordan. Soz aba you.

Happy salad grafting girls xx