Vanity and physical fitness.

Betty Beguiles is blogging about the difference between making the effort to dress attractively and succumbing to the sin of vanity.   She names three innocent (read:  vanity-proof) reasons to care about personal appearance:

First, I want my husband to know that more than a decade after we first started dating I still like to look pretty for him. I think that's a perfectly innocent way for me to express my affection.

Second, I think it's important to show my children that this vocation of mine is worthy of respect and that I value it. I want them to know how much I love being a wife and mother.

And third, I hope to witness to the culture effectively. I aim to convey to the world that I love my life and am thriving. 
  

All of these are good reasons to put effort and resources toward appearance:  dress for your family, dress for your work, and dress for the world. 

How those efforts get expressed, of course, is going to be highly individual.  Is self-expression another innocent reason to care about your appearance, or is that a sign of vanity?  I'm not sure.  I tend to think that if you carefully choose your clothing/makeup/footwear with "self-expression" as a primary goal -- even if the result is sloppy or ugly -- you might be creeping into "vain" territory, because it's such a self-conscious act.  When a person dresses practically and attractively in accord with his or her state in life, though, the result can't help but let the self shine through, and be an expression of the unique combination that is the intersection of what she likes, what she needs, and what she does.

I caught this side comment with interest:

(Somewhat related is my goal of becoming more physically fit. I pursue this not to have a hot body, but rather because I want to be as healthy as possible...)

 I call bluff on every woman who has ever uttered this.

Yes, yes, we're all supposed to pay lip service to "health" as the reason to become physically fit and lose weight and all that sort of thing.  I've done it myself.  But admit it people.

You (yes, you) want to have a hot body.

Health is more important!  Yeah, yeah.  But you also want to have a hot body.    To say otherwise is tantamount to saying, "I want to dress well, but not so that I look good.  What's most important is to avoid hypothermia."

And I say that to want, and to work towards, and maintain what you've got in the hot-body department, whatever that may be is, absolutely permissible and nothing to be ashamed of, for all the same reasons that Betty outlined that it's permissible to dress attractively. 

Is the road of consciously working towards physical fitness with the motivation of looking better fraught with temptations to vanity?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. 

So is the road of dressing attractively on purpose.  As one of Betty's commenters, the indefatigable Jen-of-Conversion-Diary, wrote in the combox to the linked post:

When I put effort into my appearance, especially if it's to go out in public, I ask myself if any part of my goal is to feel or be perceived as being better than other people. To me, that's the heart of vanity -- wanting to be valued more than other people.

This applies to having a fit body as well as to having an attractive outfit.  And believe me, the temptation is there.  I got a tremendous rush from the realization, after my weight loss, that I looked so different (better, in my opinion) from before.  It took me a few months to come down from it.  I am still drawn to mirrors.

There's also the temptation to begin looking down on people who look more like you used to, or more like you look on a bad hair day, or whatever.  Assuming that they (unlike you) are letting themselves go, lazy, etc.   I continue to struggle with the temptation to use unattractive strangers on the street as motivators to keep me from falling back to gluttonous habits:  eyeing the fat people at the salad bar, and their plates,  before I go up to choose my portion.  It is not right for me to use my image of these unwitting strangers as a means to an end.

I'm not sure about reshaping one's wardrobe, but with something like weight loss or visibly improved fitness, vanity comes mixed with a good deal of temptation to pride.  This is the thing that makes it different:  For months and months, everyone congratulates you.    This does not tend to happen with clothing choice; I mean, someone might compliment you on your cute shoes or your new top, but nobody says "I wish I could dress like that" or "Tell me your secret" or "Gosh, it must have been a lot of really hard work" or "I can never find the time, how often do you get to the mall?"    But it does tend to reinforce the smug feeling of "I'm special, most people don't manage this, I did it all myself, I must be a really dedicated, strong, smart person compared to all those others," etc.

But -- just like with desiring to dress attractively -- the fact that sometimes it comes with vanity doesn't mean that there aren't good reasons to desire to have an attractive body.  Betty B.'s reasons will do just fine.  Let's reiterate:

First, I want my husband to know that more than a decade after we first started dating I still like to look pretty for him. I think that's a perfectly innocent way for me to express my affection.

Second, I think it's important to show my children that this vocation of mine is worthy of respect and that I value it. I want them to know how much I love being a wife and mother.

And third, I hope to witness to the culture effectively. I aim to convey to the world that I love my life and am thriving. 

These are all good reasons to want to be visibly, physically fit too.  

 In a way, you could think of the dressing part as an outward extension of the same impulse:  dressing well means, in part, clothing the body you have as if you love it and care for it and appreciate its beauty.  

It's a little bit of a paradox.   I think it's pretty much impossible to dress well unless you're able, somehow, to accept the body that you are living in right now.  We've all seen people who make the error of dressing as if they were 50 pounds lighter or 30 years younger.  Or, heck, as if they were much heavier or older than they are.  It doesn't look good.  But on the other hand, dressing well is something that really improves the appearance of a body.   So you can't dress to enhance your body unless you first accept and acknowledge the body you have.

Which is, I think, also kind of true about trying to have that body itself be as good-looking as it can be.

Comments

[Bethany]

Great post/response! And I love the hypothermia comment. I laughed out loud!

[Delores]

as always, a great post.

a question: what do you think is the sequence for losing weight? Not accepting your body, so you change it; or accepting who you are and then from that acceptance just 'loving' yourself enough to change.

[bearing]

Hm, Delores, I would say that dressing properly requires accepting the truth about your body. You should dress the body you have, not the body you wish you had or the body you fear you might have.

But for me, losing weight required accepting the truth about my behavior, not my body. Accepting or not accepting my body was sort of irrelevant.

[Margaret in Minnesota]

You know, whenever I find myself obsessing about my figure, I think, "What would Our Lady do?"

Or Blessed Mother Teresa, for that matter.

It's kind of extreme but you get the point...and it's what trips me up EVERY time. Sometimes I think that I am called to be a 50's mom--you know, home all the time and baking cookies and whatnot. A comfortable mom.

And then there are days that I want to be Jillian and show up at the boys' baseball games in my running pants, all healthy & trim.

But I will say this--I hate it when people refer to women's figures as hot. It's a trend I wish would die.

[Betty Beguiles]

You're so very right, Bearing. I should have said "I pursue this not to have a hot body (primarily)..." LOL. I'll take the hot body, I assure you. ;)

As for my use of the term "hot body", to each his own I suppose. :)

[bearing]

@Margaret, it's not my preferred term either, but Betty started it. I just wanted to keep the writing consistent. Blame her ;-)

[Betty Beguiles]

I am unapologetic. ;)

[Nicole]

I love this. I just discovered your blog, and am starting my own! Getting married this summer, and have the urge to write. I think we're on the same page about a lot of things.

I really look forward to reading more!

[MrsDarwin]

"You (yes, you) want to have a hot body."

I claim it.

To be honest, it's watching my re-emerging contours appear that keeps me motivated in my weight loss. That', and the recent wedding/reunion I went to, for which I wanted to present an image of looking attractive and fit as the one of the set who got married right away and had a boatload of children. Vanity? Evangelization? Advertisement? It's all mixed, motive-wise.

Also, my husband notices, and that matters more than anything -- more than the health angle, really. Is that vain? I don't know, but I will say that I've noticed as he's lost weight, and I appreciate it. I assume that he feels the same about me.

[Jennifer]

Have any of you ever experienced "pretty discrimination"? You know the once over look from someone and followed by the cutting remark "Why so dressed up?". I've personally found other women to be very critical of those women who look good, especially if they have a bunch of children and have it together. I know this sounds vain, but I struggle with feeling like I shouldn't dress it up too much, or else I will get the daggers. A good friend of mine lost a lot of weight and she confided in me that she lost a good friendship because of the weight loss. I think that happens a lot. Women get jealous of other women who have it together.

[bearing]

@Jennifer: I don't think I remember anyone ever asking me that, but I might have been oblivious to the implications...

OTOH, I only aspire to looking put-together. I think I only achieve it sort-of. Am trying to do it mainly through better shoes these days.

The problem is that I waffle between whether the real me wears waterproof hiking boots or cute vintage-inspired pumps. I suppose the real answer is some days one, some days the other.

[Amy F]

"The problem is that I waffle between whether the real me wears waterproof hiking boots or cute vintage-inspired pumps. I suppose the real answer is some days one, some days the other."

I know that when my husband mentions that College Amy is back, I need to step it up. He thinks it's cute, but I want to strive for better than college t-shirts and sweatshirts.

[MrsDarwin]

Bearing, shoes are key. I stopped wearing sneakers around (except for exercise) several years ago, and it's made a definite difference in my appearance, as far as looking appropriate.

Jennifer, I think the "pretty discrimination" is real, and a way for those who feel frustrated with their lack of style (whether through disinclination, financial disadvantage, or the pressures of young children) to take out their irritation in a passive-aggressive way.

[bearing]

"Shoes are key..."

I hope makeup isn't, or I'm sunk. Never could get the hang of it.

@CollegeAmy: If I get gussied up enough to put on heels, my husband eyes them and asks if they are crampon-compatible.

[MelanieB]

Hmmm I never could get the hang of makeup or heels. In fact my primary criterion with shoes is that they are comfortable. I desperately want shoes that are cute too. But I'm not willing to sacrifice comfort for looks.

[bearing]

I'm short, so I appreciate the boost of heels. But "heels" and "uncomfortable" aren't mutually exclusive. I have a couple of pairs in one particular designer that I could walk miles in.

[MelanieB]

I've never met a pair of heels that weren't uncomfortable. But I have big wide feet and most shoes are uncomfortable. Plus I think that maybe being taller makes them more uncomfortable? I'd love to find some nice looking shoes that I could walk miles in. I think I'm more willing to believe in unicorns, though.