Knowing you, appreciating you

A dear friend is worried that she's growing fat and ugly. We were chatting on WhatsApp when she loaded  her latest picture and asked, "What do you see?"

 "I see a fearfully and wonderfully formed creature," I said honestly. "I see a gorgeous woman in a perfectly fitting red dress..." 

With Natasha Museveni. She's beautiful from the inside out

 "Stop kidding, Dennis, and read the writing on the wall!"

That totally confused me. The mist had hardly cleared when she said, "I've become a hippo, I have! Don't you see all the weight I've gained?" 

I shook my head in wonder. Who tells our beautiful women that a little more meat on the bones is a bad thing?

I guess my friend is still grappling with the change that came after Campus. Back then she was so pencil-thin that I used joke that a gust of wind will one day airlift her to the end of the world, never to be seen again.

Today she has a big bank job and attends many important meetings where the best delicasies are served. Now she skips them and has resorted to one  meal a day, and drinking lots of warm water. All in a bid to put on no more weight. It's flabbergasting that with her education and versedness, my friend doesn't know the difference between being healthy and being fat.

Our girls need to know that beauty has nothing to do with weight or looks. Beauty is an inside thing. It begins with understanding and appreciating who you are -- a  unique creation that can never have an exact substitute just as you can never be someone else. Even identical twins have different thumb prints and temperaments.

It's in knowing yourself and appreciating your individuality that others will be attracted to your light, weight or non thereof.