Is the problem that fat people don’t ski or that they don’t make pants for fat people so fat people don’t ski?
One of my favorite pastimes is skiing. I’m not a talented skier. I enjoy skiing anyway. I like the reflection of the sun on the slopes. I like the feeling of flying (though a slow fly for me) down the mountain. I like the crisp air. Steep slopes are scary and exhilarating! To ski I need to wear appropriate clothing and ski gear. I’ve had the same ski gear since 2008 and it has served me well. While my body size has fluctuated during the last 13 years, the skis and ski boots still fit and I make it down the mountain pretty effortlessly.
Because my body size has fluctuated, my clothing has changed - primarily my ski jacket and ski pants. In the past, every time I bought a bigger pair of ski pants I chastised myself, and every time I purchased a smaller pair I celebrated. In the past couple of years, I have been focusing on shying away from judgment on the sizes of the clothing I wear. I want to be comfortable, end of story. I am learning that my body is not a form to be chastised and molded. My body is the part of me that moves me and sends me down the ski runs. My body is something I should celebrate for its flexibility and abilities to take me up and down mountains. My body is fabulous.
Sometimes I find it difficult to recognize how fabulous my body actually is. These times are when I go clothes shopping, and last year it was when I was searching for ski pants. My ski pants were ok, but the snaps on the top were broken. I would end up wearing a big shirt over my ski pants so that people could not see that the snaps didn’t close. Then I wore a ski jacket over the shirt so really no one could see that the snap was broken, but I KNEW it was. That made me feel uncomfortable. Additionally, I found the pants uncomfortable when I was bending down to close up my ski boots. My mind would slip from seeing my body as fabulous to seeing my body as one that’s inferior. In an effort to keep my body image on the up and up, I decided it was time to get ski pants that fit.
About a year ago, after teaching a yoga class with the theme of “resiliency,” I decided it was time to take my resilient body shopping and find a pair of ski pants that I was comfortable with. It seemed I had to reckon with the challenge that only skinny people ski.
I have faced this challenge before. I’ve been skiing regularly since I moved to Utah over 15 years ago. As I’ve mentioned my body size has fluctuated during those years. Ski pants come in many colors and styles. There are thin, slick-looking ones. There are ones in bright colors. There are flower print ones. All those pretty fancy pants, they come in many sizes and all of those sizes smaller than the sizes I have always fit into. My size ski pants come in only one color - black. The black pants that are made from puffy material making my less than slender legs look like the bottom half of the Michelin Man. I try to shy away from the mirror when I wear ski pants.
To start my shopping journey, I headed to two local ski stores in my neighborhood, I found no pants that fit. Even the pants that I thought were “my size” were too small. I became very frustrated that the stores did not offer ski pants for my size. Studies in the fashion industry show that 68% of women are a size 14 or larger. Am I the only one in my size who skis? Do I represent the entire community of people my size who are skiers? I don’t think so.
I went home quite discouraged. My “resiliency” lesson was slipping out of my head and being replaced with shame and disgust. I turned my sights to the internet. The benefit of the internet is that you can order ANYTHING (so it seems). I was sure I would find well-fitting ski pants there. The challenge is that you really don’t know if the pants fit well until they show up at your door. I had a couple of ski days planned for that week and suddenly my existing broken snap ski pants weren’t good enough. I wanted new ones. So I found a pair online that looked roomy and paid the extra $15 for the express shipping so that they would arrive in 2-3 days.
The pants arrived. They looked great. Even the packaging was great - a reinforced plastic bag with inspiring sayings on it. Their mission statement claimed, “healthy, active outdoor lifestyle accessible for everyone.” If I looked hard enough on their website I could find photographs of a few curvy people engaging in strenuous activities.
When I tried the pants on they fit great - in the front. The back was another story however. The pants gapped a bit at the waist (a challenge I seem to have had since birth - if I want something to go over my hips, the waist seems to always be too big), and they were too low cut so they left a gap between the top of the pants and the bottom of my jacket (only in the back). I was disappointed. I took photos and videos for my friends to see to if the pants fit, so I could get a feeling of what they thought of the pants. Honestly I knew they didn’t fit properly, but I wanted to find someone who would give them the ok, and then I would settle for the fact that they weren’t quite right. Because I didn’t want to have to send them back and I didn’t want to resume my search for the above average pants in a sea of average pants. In the end I did send the pants back.
The next morning I got up and set my intention for the day. I was going to find some ski pants that fit my body. I started out armed with the internet and a google map of local sporting clothing stores. I called a store in advance to see if they had my size. I set out again to find the pants. I was going to be resilient and not let the lack of ski pants for “Every Body” hold me back. As I entered each store, I was focused on being mindful and not taking it personally that no store had pants that fit me, but it wasn’t working. Dressing room after dressing room I entered with a few pairs of ski pants and left with nothing. Nothing came close to fitting. I was almost ready to go back to the shipping store to see if they could hand me back the ill fitting ski pants I had recently sent back.
The last store I entered was a large sports chain. I felt beat down before I even walked into the store. The store was filled with wall-sized posters of smiling people skiing, golfing, fishing, and all in bodies smaller than my own. I felt like I didn’t fit in. Maybe the reason they don’t have ski pants for people my size is that so few of us actually ski. Or maybe so few of us actually ski because they don’t make pants for us. They don’t make posters of us. I want the stores and ski pants makers to know - EVERYONE CAN SKI. The mountain doesn’t care what size you are. The skis don’t care what size you are. Why do the clothes makers care?
I would like to say I found pants in that store, but I didn’t. In the dressing room, a 3-walled room with a door that only went as low as my calves, I sat on the bench and ordered another pair of ski pants online. I wondered, as I browsed the internet, if people were looking at my calves and ankles through the bottom hole below the door wondering what I was doing in the dressing room. I had only brought in 1 pair of ski pants (and they were men’s thinking men’s might fit better - they didn’t) and I was taking so much time in the dressing room. I had to breathe. I had to talk my way out of thinking that the lack of clothing in my size was somehow my fault. I want to say it worked, but I was still pretty disappointed from the experience.
Luckily, the second pair of pants I ordered online fit. This year, they still fit. This year, I bought a new coat. Luckily for me, I only had to visit 2 stores. This year, perhaps some of the stores are getting the message. All bodies ski.