Years ago I joined the size acceptance movement as part of a journey to self awareness and, to one extent, a battle for self acceptance. When I was asked, recently, to begin writing a column about body image, my initial thought was "I would be good at that because I understand it." I have since then come to realize that I was both right and wrong.

We, all of us, men and women and people of all races and creeds, come in shapes. Big, little, tall, short, plump and slender. Body image, or the message we internalize about the external package we wear, is complex. As a large woman my inclination when I hear "body image" is to think about my own issues. Certainly a great deal of the research I did in preparing to write explored how large people, particularly women, feel about themselves and how others perceive
them. But body image encompasses more. There is, particularly in western culture, a cult of thinness. There are cults of fitness. There are cults of largeness and of embellishment. Body image encompasses all of these, cultures within cultures within cultures. How we present, adorn, abuse, nurture, and display the vessel in which our selves reside covers a great deal more ground than size, shape, and form.

Anorexia and obesity are two obvious areas of interest. But what about tattoos? What about body building? What about implants? What about the cosmetics industry? What about those of us who are differently abled? What about skin and hair and any number of surface canvases of identity we adorn, or enhance? Surely these are worth examining as well.

The question, then, becomes, what is body image Most of the psychological studies I labored my way through in the past month indicated that body image is an internalized interpretation of how our outward appearance is perceived. So body image is what we think others see when they look at us, as well as what we see as a result of that.

That's more complex than it looks. A great deal has been said, and surely will continue to be said, about the media. A great deal has been said about the medical profession and its role in many conditions, syndromes, diseases, and issues. Consider some of the numbers:

75% of all girls ages 8 and over have dieted or are dieting.
95% of all people who diet gain all or more of the lost weight back.
1% of all females are anorexic.
4% of all college aged females are bulimic.
5-10% of all eating disorder sufferers are men.
50% of all American adults are considered overweight.
35% are cosidered obese.
Body piercing and tattooing have increased in popularity over 70% in the past 10 years.
10.4% of Americans between the ages of 16 and 64 are considered by the Census Bureau
to be "disabled."

What does all of that mean? That, I suppose, is the crux of the matter in the end. Why do we view our bodies as we do and who decides what is normal? How does the culture arrive at an accepted vision of size, shape, color, texture, form? The human psyche is a complex thing, and the human spirit is more baffling still. Though our bodies are merely the containers of both, they are also the package in which the gift of our selves is presented. And although we are taught not to judge books by covers or gifts by their wrappings, we do. In coming months I hope we will explore the reasons why
and the ramifications, as well.