The first answer is this: If people can get you to worry about how skinny you are, they have already taken away a substantial chunk of your time and energy. Seriously. Look at how many “solutions” there are to the problem of girls not being “skinny enough.” Are you doing yoga? Are you running? Are you swimming? Have you gone vegetarian yet? Have you gone vegan yet? Have you tried eating only meat? Are you using diet pills? Are you drinking diet shakes? Are you wearing slimming clothing? Have you tried fasting? Have you tried surgery? Have you tried spinning around counterclockwise while saying “I want to be skinny” backwards 300 times? You’re not trying hard enough! Try harder! Be more skinny! Oh my god, it is TOO MUCH WORK. Exercise is nice, and you should definitely do that, and healthy food is really super, too. But I also like to, you know, read books, and go to movies, and learn things. And all of that is stuff I would not have time to do if I worried full time about being skinny.

But this relates to another unpleasant fact, which is: if people can get you to worry about being skinny, they can get you to buy things. They can get you to buy books about how to be skinny, and magazines about how to be skinny, and clothes, and exercise equipment, and gym memberships, and all the rest of it. “You should be skinnier” is the core premise of an entire industry. Not a small industry. So if you are really focused on being skinny, you are ideally funding someone’s summer house in Florida, and he is going to go run over a manatee with a jet ski or whatever, and do you know how grateful he is to you, for buying his jet ski with your subscription to his brand-new diet plan that will finally get you skinny? Not a lot! That dude runs over manatees! He’s a jerk!

I will forever think of this bastard running over manatees when I feel myself beginning to give into diet hype!

(Source: cleolinda, via chileancarmenere)