Not So Great Shape Grandma Barbie

Are You in Great Shape?

As opposed to Great Shape Barbie?

I’m the Not So Great Shape Grandma Barbie – but I’m overcoming my struggles with body image. Do you want to know why?

As a teenage-fashion model, I worked in an industry with beauty standards few could attain and even fewer could keep.

During that time I weighed myself daily and agonized over every real and imagined blemish. Who wants to live like that? Certainly, I don’t.

In the real world, eating “Häagen-Dazs” is not a crime.

So what if we’re not seven feet tall and seventy pounds like the girls in the fashion magazines. The average fashion model is a size four. The average REAL woman is a size 14 with curvy hips, a rounded stomach and an ample bosom. Real women are not on magazine covers. Real Women are at Walmart.

When Great Shape Barbie came out in 1983, I was still in great shape.

But now that I’m in my fifties, just getting into the Unitard and leg warmers was a sweaty workout.

Yes, my stomach does lie next to me while I sleep (almost like a pet)

My spider vein on my legs look like a road map to Milwaukee and by the numerous laugh lines on my face you’d think that I spend all my waking hours watching I Love Lucy episodes.

Grandma Barbie and I may not have the tiny waist or flat tummies of our yesteryears, but we’re okay with that. I wear my Fitbit and try to walk every day.

I’m doing the best I can and that’s okay. How about you?

More to read:  Living Beyond Barbie