I put on a frock today, in anticipation of a posh lunch at the in-law’s golf club. My husband, also readying himself in the bedroom, eyed my lacy-underwear-and-stocking combination appreciatively – right up to the point where I covered it up with nipple-to-knee neoprene.
‘What on earth is that?’ he said.
‘Pants,’ I replied curtly, not least because said garment causes a slight shortness of breath.
‘Why are you wearing them?’
It was at that point that I realised my outlook was a little skewed, because I didn’t put on industrial strength knickers for my husband. I didn’t put them on for the roguish gents at the golf club celebrating a hole-in-one. I put them on for my mother-in-law, who at sixty is enviably slender and possesses an iron will which would see her refuse a square of chocolate even if Cadbury’s were the only food provider left in the world. I wore my fat pants for her.
Feminists will tell you that women dress for themselves, but I disagree. If that were true I would spend my days in pyjamas and bed-socks, teamed with a hole-ridden hoody I hate washing because it never gets soft enough until at least the fifth day of wearing.
But neither do women dress for men. They don’t diet for men. The vast majority of men prefer their wives, girlfriends or one-time-lovers to have breasts; to have bottoms; to have an hour-glass shape they can properly explore without risk of bruising themselves on a protruding hipbone. And I think women know this. Yet still we obsess about getting thin, sucking in our stomachs, and denying ourselves the pleasure of dessert. My Facebook time-line is filled with calorie counts, weigh-in results and the number of steps taken since breakfast – assuming breakfast were eaten at all. And why are we doing it? For other women.
A friend of mine commented on the ‘infectious’ nature of slimming, and she couldn’t be more right. Dieting spreads through groups of friends like smallpox, supportive on the surface, yet highly competitive underneath. They lose, and they lose and they lose, until they all look the same: Stepford lollipops shrinking into clothes with single-figure sizes, posting photos on Twitter the day they discover they can fit into the pre-teen range at New Look.
I had a hysterectomy at thirty four, and I’ve watched my body slide into the menopause a decade earlier than my peers. The thickening middle; the thinning hair; the papery skin. I’m fighting a losing battle the Stepford lollipops are winning, and I just can’t help but think they’re on the wrong team. Is it worth it, the endless pursuit of Thin?
Kate Moss famously said that ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, but I beg to differ. There’s sticky toffee pudding on the menu today, and I’m leaving the fat pants at home.