I happened to catch a fragment, the other day while surfing, of an item about a TED talk given by a woman extolling strength of character as a means of dealing with her obesity. Well, what she actually said was that she was fat, but, she said, that descriptive carries no more weight than being female or, as she declared she was, a belly dancer. This woman, whose name I didn’t catch, was quite attractive in her own way and clearly defiant in the face of contemporary attitudes regarding female body types.

I must say I found her perspective quite refreshing. I hurried off to tell my friends at the spa about this remarkable woman. As it turned out the ladies at the spa, while enjoying the information really didn’t need a moral boost. They feel just fine, they told me, being who they are in their largeness. They then pointed out to me ‘svelte’ when it comes to preferred body type is quite the exception historically. Royalty throughout the ages has often been characterized by largeness of countenance and as far as popularity goes consider the ladies in Peter Paul Rubens paintings.

Well, there’s no doubt they have a point, but in this day and age, with all of the medical caveats directed at maintaining extreme largeness, being too Rubenesque, unless lost at sea, might not be a wise lifestyle to assume.