Big, Strong, Healthy Women of Faith

That is what I should strive to be, hey?
Interesting piece by Elizabeth Lev in Zenit, and if I endorse her wisdom I can have that cheeseburger I have been jonesing for all through Lent, (but would this also mean I shouldn't work on putting together that faith-filled diet program, the Little Weigh?)

http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=105837
When Thin Wasn't In
While the trash people [a modern art display] were occupying the Piazza del Popolo, young women of Giacometti-like thinness were heading for Milan’s annual fall fashion previews. Last week, style pundits were abuzz with the news that Allegra Versace, the 22-year-old daughter of the famous fashion designer Donatella Versace, suffered from anorexia.
The news sprinkled gasoline on an already heated discussion about young women and body image, especially after the recent deaths of such rail-thin models as 21-year-old Brazilian Ana Carolina Reston, and the Uruguayan sisters, Luisel and Eliana Ramos, who died within six months of each other. They were 22 and 18, respectively.
Europe has been responding to the growing concern that fashion and the media promote an impossible body image to young women, causing them to become obsessed with weight and ultimately succumb to eating disorders.
Last September in Madrid, excessively thin models were banned from fashion shows as officials imposed a required body mass index of 18 or over (15 indicates starvation). London and Milan are considering following suit.
But the fashion world, which claims to cater to women, won’t give up the skinny model without a fight. Modeling agencies decried discrimination against models and “the freedom of the designer.”
It is hard to see what is empowering or beautiful in skeletal figures teetering precariously along a catwalk. These victims of the whims of fashion designers (who tell them to wear ball gowns one day or tar and feathers the next) seem physically unsubstantial, unable to resist the tempests and hardships of life.
Up until the last century, images of female beauty drew mainly on the physical resilience required for bearing children. But the world of fashion, which reached its zenith just as the birth rates started to drop, has no interest in this aspect of female beauty. No children equals more money, more money equals more clothes, and more profits for the industry.
The result is models who look like children, yet who are paraded before women as the ideal femininity. They encourage women to remain like children -- self-absorbed, unable to feed themselves, unwilling to shoulder adult responsibilities.
Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo gave us an ideal of female beauty while painting in the Sistine Chapel. Already stressing the co-responsibility of man and woman in the salvation of humanity, by putting Eve in every scene with Adam, the Renaissance artist, wrongly deemed a misogynist by uninformed critics, empowered women more than any slick advertisement in a glossy magazine.
Side by side with the great protagonists of the Old Testament, Michelangelo frescoed Judith and Esther, heroines because of their beauty and their virtue. No will-o'-the-wisps here, a long neck and graceful pose indicate femininity, but these women are strong and determined. Judith's arm is strong enough to wield the sword that will save her people.
The most stunning examples of female beauty are the sibyls. The Delphic Sibyl sits in one of the first niches from the main door holding her scroll. While her face boasts the small mouth, large eyes and regular features still admired today, she clearly could not model any designer jeans. Yet her energetic pose, dynamically twisting in two different directions, emphasizes the strength of her body.
The last sibyl in this row, the Libyan Sibyl poses with her back toward the chapel. Her waist is slim and her hips are full, while her pointed toes perch at the edge of her niche elongating the line of her limbs. But the breadth of her shoulders and extension of her arms as she turns to close the book of prophesies, seems like a wingspan ready to propel her off the chapel wall. With the fiery colors of her robes, she looks like a bird of paradise perched above the altar.
Michelangelo's portrayal of women was innovative in his own time. Most artists, like Raphael, represented women with soft flesh and round curves, physically weaker and more susceptible to temptation. But Michelangelo saw in both men and women the vocation and capacity to live virtuous and holy lives. He created men and women who look ready to resist sin and forge ahead on the path to heaven.
Far from encouraging women to starve themselves to attain an impossible physical form, Michelangelo incites women to nourish themselves with faith and exercise heroic virtue to achieve the very real goal of paradise.