I had a nice lunch today with my good friend. She’s a lovely lady, about 5 years older than me and very “hip”. I enjoy her company very much…except for one thing.

Every time we’re together there is at least one comment that she makes about the fact that she’s “fat”. Now, mind you, she’s a size 8 at most and looks great in everything she wears – she’s very attractive and in great shape. Yet no matter what we’re doing, whether sipping coffee, eating out, sitting in the park watching the kids on the swings – every time the conversation somehow turns to how overweight she is or how big her hips are or how she needs to stop eating so much because she’ll not be able to fit into her clothes much longer, etc. And it frustrates me.

I don’t take it personally. I honestly don’t. Even though on a good day I’m happy to squeeze into a size 16. But in a way I do take it personally. I mean, if she thinks a size 6 or 8 is fat, then I must be a whale in her eyes. Of course, she would never say that and I honestly don’t think she means that when she’s making her comments.

But I fear what she and many other women are doing is perpetuating this “skinny is beautiful” mentality. And it’s not healthy for our daughters. Even though my friend may not believe she’s saying “wow, you’re fat” to me or any other person tipping the scales at over 150, that’s definitely what our younger daughters are hearing. “If Mrs. Jones says she’s fat and she can fit in my clothes, wow, Mrs. Smith must be super fat.”

Is it any wonder that our girls are growing up thinking skinny is the end all to life?  How can we, as moms and Titus 2 women, help stop the madness when it comes to this?  I think that it can start with each of us changing our word choices for one:

Replace “I’m so fat” with “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”

Replace “I really shouldn’t eat this burger – it’ll go straight to my thunder thighs” with “Yum, a burger sounds great!” or “Hmmm I had a burger last night – maybe I’ll get a salad instead.”

Here are 13 reasons why I don’t watch television:

13. Really….what is there good to watch anyway? Think about it. Most of the time when I watch the chatter on twitter or forums about watching tv it’s a lot of how bad the shows are. I’m sure there’s some good programming on but honestly I don’t have the energy to wade through the muck to find a leeeeetle bitty bit of fresh water.

12. It’s another screen! I spend about 70-80% of my waking hours in front of the computer screen. Why in the world would I want to put my eyes through another hour or two of screen torture?

11. My hips. Need I say more??? That time could be spent taking a walk or using one of my exercise machines. (Could be – didn’t say it IS).

10. It’s expensive. I don’t know about you but not having to pay a cable bill every month helps us to go out for a nice dinner together as a family once a month. Now I know that these days you can roll your internet, long distance and cable into one bill but for us it still saves us a good chunk of change not to have cable. (plus who needs 563 channels).

9. I see very little of my husband anyway. Why would I want to spend time that I could be chatting and snuggling with him watching some goofy sitcom. That’s not to say we don’t watch movies on our “big screen” occasionally. Actually we have our family Pizza Movie night every Friday night.

8. Think of all the things that one can get done with the hour of time that one usually spends watching a TV program. Even if you have one of those Tivo things – you’re still just sitting there.

7. I can’t stand the commercials. Except for the occasional giggle generator (I do like the beer commercial where the men go to the opera the first time – but hey, I found that one on youtube so I didn’t even need TV to get the giggle) commercials stink.

6. The television news is biased – that could be a Thursday Thirteen in itself. And if you think they’re not, you’ve been watching too much TV!