Blow up That Bridge

NOTE: I have learned that this is a hoax. Or at least, it started that way. It was meant to inspire exactly the kind of discussion I’ve started here. So life imitates art. Read on: Perhaps you’ve heard of the thigh gap. It’s the determination to be so thin that your thighs don’t rub together. It’s ridiculous and in many cases, unsafe to pursue this stupid fad. But that’s not stopping some teen girls from making it their goal. And it gets even better. Or in this case, worse.

Meet the bikini bridge. It’s the gap created between the tummy and the bikini bottom by the hip bones of a woman lying on her back.

No one knows where it started. It seems to have been a lark by young women posting bikini bridge selfies on social media.  But it has caught on.  Now photos are being posted with lovely sayings such as, “girls, if you don’t diet until you get a bikini bridge, don’t be surprised if the attractive girls get all the attention this summer.”  Scummy diet pill sellers are using the pursuit of the thigh gap and the bikini bridge to advertise their products. It’s sickening!

I heard a fascinating perspective on bodies from a stand-up comic. He said, you have no right to be proud of your physical form because it’s determined by DNA. He said he understood being proud of breast implants because they were something chosen and paid for. The rest is just the luck of the draw.  Comics oversimplify of course.  Hoovering everything you see into your pie hole or working out like a demon will change your shape.  But I think we get his meaning.

These girls are playing a dangerous game.  But I know teenage girls. I was one. You don’t have much to prop up your self esteem. You haven’t really accomplished anything and you haven’t yet become anything. So if you’re a DNA winner you have your looks to make you feel special. And it’s easy to look around and see that other girls might not. It’s an ugly trend and I had hoped we were smarter as a species.  This week I heard about a plus-size model who is size 12. Yes, 12 is considered plus on a continent where the average woman is size 14. An ABC News report on modelling found some women as small as size 6 were considered plus size and that most models meet the criteria for anorexia. I had hoped the generation after me would stop the madness but by the look of these social media trends, that doesn’t seem very likely.