The Perfect Body?

We are inundated with images of the "perfect" body type and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Every time I lose a pound or two I'm excited that I'm one step closer to my ideal. But what is my ideal? I keep saying I want to be thinner, fitter, healthier, but how will I know when I've reached it? It seems like once I've had a taste for a smaller waist (I'm just starting to fit into a smaller size now) I start changing my goal to something bigger. I haven't been a single-digit clothing size for as long as I can remember. One of my goals is to get into an 8 and stay there. But then I start wondering if I should aim for a 6 or a 4. The truth is, I can't even imagine I'd look anything like myself at that size, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

As I flip through the images of women in magazines and catalogs, I find myself gravitating toward the athletic, muscular woman. But even in the era of Michelle Obama arms, we see these images of the strong woman too infrequently. I think this is why I was startled to see the image I included in this post. It's an ad for a Marc Jacobs bathing suit. The tiny arms, the rib cage, even the awkward pose sums up everything wrong with the "ideal" woman. If this is what we're faced with by simply skimming a catalog, how will we ever be satisfied with who we are?