Jeez, I’m all about the hate lately, and today’s edition of LOVE/HATE just adds fuel to the fire. Have you ever heard of “Brideorexia?” I just came across it for the first time. It’s just a made up word for the bad habits some brides-to-be adopt because they think they aren’t good enough, skinny enough, or attractive enough to get married. Ugh!
A study in Appetite found that 70% of engaged women were actively attempting to lose 20 or more pounds before their weddings. More than 20% of those women admitted to using extreme methods, like starvation diets, fasting, liquid diets, smoking, binging and purging, or laxatives (ewwww).
We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional survey to examine wedding-specific body weight ideals and weight management behaviors among women preparing for their wedding. The average bride-to-be was overweight according to clinical body mass index standards and idealized a significantly lower wedding weight.
I’m not anti-fitness or even anti-weightloss, but I’m talking about a movement and an industry built on insecurities. Just look at these titles…there’s The Wedding Workout, Bridal Bootcamp, Buff Brides, Diet and Fitness for Brides, and Body Sculpting for Brides. No, health is good, but what burns me is this idea that you have to be a size two to look hot (or glamorous or elegant or pretty) in your wedding gown. That your new spouse won’t think you’re a beautiful bride if you don’t drop a few before the wedding. That you don’t deserve to wear that dress unless you wear yourself down by dieting and over-exercising before the big day.
If that sounds like you, I just have one question for you. Are you nuts? Look at the solidly average-sized bride in the Stephanie James Couture dress above. You simply cannot tell me she, with all her curves and lady lumps and normal human bodily characteristics, is not hot stuff. I’d wager that if she was two or five or ten sizes bigger, she’d still be hot stuff!
What it comes down to in my mind is this: If you want to lose some weight in a safe and sane way, wonderful, but in the name of all that’s nuptial, don’t feel you have to lose weight to be a beautiful bride. And if you don’t want to lose any weight because you’re smokin’ hot as you are, that’s wonderful, too.
As always, I’m going to ask “What say you?” though I suspect most of you will agree with me.
