Ah, yes. My first harangue. Now that I have everything set up, I have forgotten what it was I wanted to talk about. Crum. Oh! Wait! NO! I have it.

So, I weigh about 135 pounds and am 5'3" or thereabouts. It's a nice, healthy way to be. I mean, sure some of that chocolate cake I had for dessert for the past few years has gone to my hips, but I'm right in the middle of what is considered the "ideal weight" health-wise. So it's really not such a bad thing. Or is it?

My apartment just got an issue of a magazine called "fitness" and let's face it, I do not look like the model on the cover. So I flipped through the magazine and it was pretty much the same as all the fashion magazines I got when I was a teenager: "You're not skinny enough, you're eating too much chocolate cake for desert, you do not conform to the ideals of society, etc etc."

WhatEVER!

At any other time in history, these waif-like models would have been considered unhealthy because they're so darn skinny! Check out Gertrude Erdle, who swam the English Channel. This woman swam the channel faster than any man at the time - she was totally healthy. But by our standards in 2004 she'd be considered a bit chunky. Even - dare I say? - Fat.

In some cultures, fatness is considered a mark of beauty. In Tonga, men like fat wives as a sign of their wealth, that they can keep their wife in luxury and eat as much as they want. In Mauritania, they even have "fat camps." Don't let the name fool you - they're camps where girls go to get fat, not to lose weight.

But even in these cultures, it's becoming less popular to be obese. Why can't people just eat normally? I'm not sure that these super-skinny models and actresses are very healthy themselves, even though they claim to be. It makes people think they have to be overly perfect - and since people of course are not, we get people like anorexics and bullemics.

So why can't we just be normal people? Stay away from too much chocolate cake (although everything is good in moderation) and exercise when you can (I try to walk to and from my university campus about three times a week, which adds up to around and hour and a half of brisk walking. I supplement it with around 15-30 minutes of yoga on Saturdays.). It's called "Finding a Happy Medium." You should try it. It will make you feel better. Have some chocolate cake.