I've been contemplating my post-baby body as well as the topic for the first issue of meowpower - body image. I know that at times, I feel icky about myself, but sometimes I love all the curves that my body has presented. I also know that in the past, my body image has, at times, been horrid while at other times, it's been good.

My question is thus: how is your body image? What do you do to maintain your body image? How do you cope with medias fixation on what your body image should be? What do you think of diet plans where exercise (and in fact healthy eating!!) are a side factor of losing weight? How about the current round of makeover and plastic surgery shows? And, if you have a negative body image, how does that impact your feminism?

My body image is totally whack. In high school I thought I was a cow, now I look back and
think, "Damn, I wish I looked like that again!" Post-Ella I lost a lot of weight. I've
gained about 5 lbs since, but I'm still in my new pant size. Yeah! The problem is that since
I lost a lot of weight and I'm down about 2 pant sizes I think I look ok. But I know that I
don't really. See, told ya my image is whack. I look better than I have since high school
and I'm ok with it some days and then others I feel like I really need to get down one more
pant size.

I maintain my image by just wanting to look good in my clothes. It's hard because I still
wear some clothes that are pre-Ella which are perhaps one size too big. So I look like a
slob. I'm a slave to media crafting my body image. I try really hard to reject most media images
but I often find myself thinking "If only I could look like that...If I had money I'd look
like that...she's the image of perfection!" Of course when I think like that I feel like
someone's going to come and take back my feminist card.

When would I be satisfied with the status of my body? When I looked more like Salma Hayek.
She's my image of perfection. We're both Latina, got the boobs, have the hair, so all I need is to lose the weight. It's always the weight.

After having Ella, I'm not that obsessed with the status of my b00bs, I quickly learned to love them again. My belly sags more too, but I chalk most of that to weight issues. I don't even mind my stretch marks. Egads...I'm a mess!

Labels: feminism, latina