Okay, let's talk about this and be done with it!

I've received a lot of flak, mostly off-line, about photos I've posted on this blog. I was wrong in one case, but not in others, which will require a lot of explaining and reveal some uncomfortably personal details.

I volunteer at a center that treats eating disorders. I take it very seriously. Word got back there that I was advocating unhealthy body images on this blog... and that led to a most uncomfortable conversation (and how was your day at work? discuss your sexual preferences with your boss?)

I posted a photo of a woman with an incredibly tiny waist [here]. People come in all shapes and sizes and, with 7000000000 people, some are going to be very unusual. This woman claims that she's always naturally had such a waist, was embarassed by it, but it got her attention in the modeling world, so she's come to accept it. I hope that's true. For the record, the point at which I thought the various women pictured became unattractive was the point at which they appeared to go from naturally small-waisted to manufactured.

That was also the point of another post I had that's been problematic. There had been discussion of whether a certain female marathoner was too thin and my view is that it's none of my business; if she can win a marathon, she's obviously healthy. I then went on to post photos of women who went out of their way to look unusual (one was photoshopped), which I meant as commentary: accept who you are and don't try to fit some other ideal. It was here.

There's one I need to apologize for. I was complaining about an ex-girlfriend and I didn't want to say which one, so I posted photos of two women I dated and of three other women, one of which was of a teenage girl with enormous breasts. That photo came from a medical journal discussion about the risks of breast reduction surgery in girls who may not have stopped growing. I should not have exploited a medical condition in an attempt at bad -taste humor and for that I apologize. [I'm not adding the link.]

That leaves the recent post where I created an imaginary running team [here]. People read things into it which weren't there. What I did was post photos of women with pretty faces who had red hair. I started by using fashion models, knowing there'd be some attractive women. I quickly had a list of about 15; when I looked through them to find who I found attractive, I was down to 4. Here's two I didn't choose:

Lily. Oddly doll-like.

Ilva. A bit angular.

I then added two more, which I thought were interesting photos. That was the problem. One of them was an extremely thin woman and, as she was the first one people saw, people assumed I was choosing the women because they were thin.

Here it gets embarassing. There are "breast men" and "leg men." For me, faces are all-important. I stand by my choices - those are some exquisitely beautiful faces.

I could get used to looking at this.

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One of the things that continuously bother me are people who judge others as "too thin" or "too fat;" that is the most common sign of an eating disorder, in my opinion. People might be fat or thin, but you are in no position to decide what's right from looking at a picture.

Here's my famous example. I just happen by coincidence to have always been the same size as a celebrity. Here's the two of us, same height and weight, at lowest body mass index of 17.9:

During sub-34:00 10K.

And again, both at highest BMI of 22.9:



BMI is not a good indicator of health or fitness.