My name is Erin. And I have hips.

"Hi Erin."

Let's talk for a second about curves. In our current world, curves on the road in a fast fancy car commercial? Good. Curves on the girl driving (or, more likely, riding in) said fun fancy car commercial? Not so good.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the role body image plays, in my life and beyond. This is largely (no pun intended) on my mind because I, who used to be the stick-thin, long-legged, gangly girl am...well, no longer stick thin and gangly. I've grown up, in some sense of the phrase, and have recently had to accept that the body I inhabit has also grown up, changed, and perhaps doesn't WANT to fit into those jeans from college. That realization alone is enough to send you straight to the pint (of Ben and Jerry's, that is). However, recognizing this shift and dealing with this change is not what upset me. What really gets to me is that my first reaction to this whole situation was guilt. How could I let this happen to me? I'm going to have to *gasp* go up a size! How dare I allow my body to mature past the age of 18!

A look at art throughout the ages is often used as an illustration that heavier women were once the ideal shape in the Western world, and how bodily ideals change as a result of the current societal and cultural views. And to an extent, I agree. A part of me is convinced that the "ideal" body shape is dictated only by the shape for which current fashion designers create clothing (Can't find a blouse that fits? Your body must be the wrong shape). But don't you also have to take into account that artists from the Renaissance and beyond painted many different shapes of women, not to mention they all had patrons who dictated the image they were to create? Ideal, schmideal.

A recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune reported that neither the hourglass figure, nor any figure for that matter, are "ideal" as once was thought, stating that all body shapes have their trade-offs ("the human body is a compromise"). It goes on to remind people, "In the past, women were their bodies. Now it is about what we're doing in our lives and who we are as people." So yes, bigger hips may mean scientifically more fertile, which at one point in time may have been an "ideal" way for women to be. And maybe now, as an assertion of our independence from that mode of thinking, we somehow managed to create a culture that worships straightness, flatness.

My bottom line with all this? Beauty doesn't have to be (and SHOULDN'T be) curves or no curves or some magic ratio in the middle. Why is there so much importance placed on what size we are and not how healthy or happy we are? If we actually are the strong, independent and no-nonsense women we claim so loudly to be, why do we let the number on the tags of our clothes dictate how we feel and treat ourselves?