Bikini Season! Bikini Season!

Read any good magazine or newspaper articles lately about getting your body into tip-top bikini shape?

It's a little early here for sarcasm -- I'm only mid-way through my first cup of coffee, after all -- but I couldn't help but notice that just about every publication I've picked up in the last few days seems to contain a piece offering advice on how I can whip myself into shape and finally have the hot beach body I deserve. It's the start of summer, so the deluge of "get yourself ready before you show some skin in public" stories really doesn't surprise me. These are what we in the writing business call "evergreens," those same ideas -- ideally packaged with a "fresh" angle -- that make their way into newsstand magazines each and every month. Summer issues, for most women's magazines, are that special time to zero in on women's body insecurities, offering up tips on not only how to change your body, but how to choose a swimsuit that minimizes your flaws, a cream that banishes your cellulite and, of course -- if all else fails -- a stylish cover-up.

If you read my post from Monday, you know that I've just returned from a week in Florida, where I did, in fact, appear publicly in a swimsuit -- and not even one specially chosen to minimize my "flaws." I spent about an hour in the water with my kids, flipping my son off my outstretched hands and swimming with my daughter on my back. It's one of my favorite memories from the trip.

There was a time, though, when I wouldn't have done that. I'd have sat by the side of the pool, shorts and T-shirt covering my suit, telling my kids that I just didn't feel like getting in the water. And as I looked around at the women sitting poolside, I found I could easily pick out the ones who I suspected loathed their bodies. It was written all over their faces, and in their body language. Those who did get in the pool? I didn't see any supermodels -- just plenty of normal, healthy women, each beautiful in her own way.

That's why this made me smile this morning.

The re-touching issue aside, I think we forget sometimes that the models we see in magazines and on television are doing a job. In their recent Huffington Post piece entitled Find Bikini Bliss, writers Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent advised women to "do your job, not a super model's" and reminded readers that it's a model's "full time job to look like that and you can bet that she works at it just as hard as you work at your job."  My favorite line from the piece? "Until Heidi Klum is expected to know how to do your job perfectly, stop pressuring yourself to do hers."

Love that thought!

My bit of bikini season advice? Make this the year that you jump in the pool or play in the waves with your kids. Because in the end, I can bet that my kids don't remember -- or even care, really -- what I looked like in my swimsuit during our vacation. They only remember that I was there in the water with them.

Comments

[Marsha @ A Weight Lifted]

We have the original piece that introduced the "There are 3 billion women who don't look like supermodels..." posted on a bulletin board at Green Mountain. It's from an old pamphlet distributed by a soap/body stuff store (sorry, store, I can't recall your name at the moment). It definitely strikes a chord with our participants!

Thanks for the great post, Dara. Can't hear enough of your kind of take on bikini season!

[Sagan]

It's never too early for sarcasm!

It irritates me how all of these magazines assume that we want/need to lose weight. And then a couple pages later it's got an article about how to be happier with ourselves. Grr!

Thanks for making me smile too- that sign is awesome.

[Alyssa]

(I think that was from The Body Shop.)

GREAT post!
I wrote in my blog a couple of weeks ago that Bikini Season used to be called "Summer." Summer is fun. Bikini Season, not so much.
I wore a bikini 3 years ago (for the first time since I was 7), when I dove into Lake Tahoe. I won't be wearing it again anytime soon. Let's just say that my fear of the bikini has less to do with body fat percentage than the memory of ice-cold water hitting body parts that hadn't seen the light of day in 30 years.
On a more serious note, having lost my dad to melanoma a few months ago, my swimwear (and that of my family) now consists of rash guards, board shorts and LOTS of sunscreen.

[KCLAnderson (Karen)]

I love that your kids will grow up with those wonderful memories of their Mom playing in the water with them! And I love the quotes about supermodels and their jobs (and ours)...definitely a wise perspective!

[julie]

Regarding models in magazines, more often than not they don't look like that either-airbrushing is rampant to take away anything not perfect. I guess I'm lucky to live somewhere that doesn't hardly get warm enough for shorts, let along bathing suits.

[Dara Chadwick]

Thanks, everybody, for the kind words.

Alyssa, I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. Your experience gives a whole new perspective to bikini season. My thoughts are with you and your family.

[Hanna]

The notice is from an old ad campaign that the Body Shop crated in 1997
http://www.thebodyshop.com.au/Content.aspx?Id=131

I have one of the original posters somewhere, they photoshopped up a chubby Barbie, it was fantastic! I think they're still making tote bags with the slogan on it, you see them around Australian cities every so often.

As a plus-size model I normally flaunt myself around in biki season - I always get some mixed reviews, but mostly 90% are people saying "Wow, I wish I had the courage to do that" or "Why don't more women do this?! You look great!" the later 10% is a fair mix.

I've only ever had one bad review in which a mid-20s gym junkie surfer commented that I looked like a beached whale, luckily 4 of the other men I was talking to all laughed when one said "Mate, better a whale than a broom handle, at least she looks like a real person!" :)