A Man in a Woman's world

It's a woman's world.  No really, it is ... at least when it comes to weight loss.  If an intelligent alien species decided to learn about our civilization using the internet, they would come to the conclusion that only women are affected by obesity.  That's what I've come to learn over the past few days, while hunting the web for weight loss tips, healthy food recipes, and support groups etc.  Only women are fat, and men are not. 

At first, I thought, that's so great for women.  They have so many sites, blogs and forums for weight loss geared towards them.  They've got a huge support system, and so many of them willing to help each other out.  I felt like the odd 'man' out.  At one point I even felt a little embarrassed to be blogging about weight loss.  Now, I know I'm not the first guy to blog about this, but the numbers are overwhelmingly one sided. 

As I was reading through some of their stories, I realized what a sad situation this is.  No, not sad for me, but for the women.  The amount of pressure they have to look perfect and try to live up to society's ideals, which no doubt were created by guys like me, is unreal.  What struck me the most, while reading online, was that how so many of them look good already.  Most of them are not even overweight let alone obese.  Yet, in their minds they look fat.  “Just a few pounds more” seems to be the mantra.
I'm certain that I'll never feel the same pressure as women do.  However, one day my wife and I will have kids, and chances are one of them may be a girl.  I'd hate to have her go through life feeling what most of the women today feel like.  So I'm going to do my part to change this.  I shall start by not judging, dimissing or drolling over women based on their looks.  I will also do my at most to empower them every chance I get and help them see how special they really are.  Now, please excuse me while I call my wife and tell her how beautiful she is.