Referring to a woman’s weight is a notion that can send chills down a man’s spine. “Do I tell her how she really looks in that dress, or do I lie?” Personally, I happen to be of the rare breed of woman that wants to know the truth. I prefer not to go into public resembling sausage cases. Unfortunately, not all of my sisters feel this way. I posted an informal poll and was surprised to see the results.

I wanted to know how women felt about being called “thick”. All of them replied that it depends on who the term was coming from. This brought up an interesting avenue for me. I looked the term up on urbandictionary.com and the definition it gives is as follows:

“A thick girl is a girl who is an above average size. However she is not fat. She is solid. One way to see test is to slap her ass………If it jiggles then she’s more fat than thick. If it doesn’t, you my friend have a thick girl.”

This definition is by no means politically correct, but it is the way the term is used.

As Black women, we are genetically inclined to be more voluptuous than our Caucasian counterparts. While I expect this term to send some White women rushing to their plastic surgeons, I did not expect the response from my sisters to be as such. We have typically prided ourselves in our round derrières and ample hips, so when did this change of thought come about? What outlet, be it men, other women, media, etc. caused us to want to stop identifying with the term “thick”? Why does being above average size bother us now when we’ve known that “average” has never applied us to anyway?

The media has slammed us for years with images of sickly, pale models and some Black men have been choosing White women their whole lives. But, obviously now these external influences are having more effect on our personal body images. We’ve worn so many hats and been so many things to so many different people that we have forgotten to still love ourselves. To wake up every morning and look at that skinny, thick, plus sized image in the mirror that stares back at us and say, I love you, girl. We’ve reclaimed so many things in the past years and it’s time to reclaim our beautiful senses of self. Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez have built careers based on being shaped the way most of us were blessed with. Move over, ladies-the original thickness is coming back.

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