Tall women are often plagued by insecurities associated with their height. Your frame is taller, wider and different from that of shorter women. Your feet may be longer, your hands bigger. And you weigh more. These are all natural byproducts of your height but you may find yourself trying to hide them. It’s time to throw off the shackles of shame and start to embrace your differences. It may require the occasional self-deprecating joke, but as you learn to accept yourself for who you are, you’ll discover that those around you will accept your differences, too.
1. Don’t Slouch
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How many times has your mother told you not to slouch? “Stand up tall, be proud of your height,” she might have whispered while poking you in the back. I know my mother did.
The unfortunate thing about slouching is that it really doesn’t make you look any shorter—it just makes you look less confident. When you walk into a room with your shoulders curled forward, you end up looking a little like a turtle trying to retreat into its shell. Since no one wants that, practice walking around your house while balancing a book on your head. It may sound like a torturous etiquette practice from the 1950s, but it works. You’ll train yourself to lift your head high, hold your shoulders back and walk with a confident and upright demeanor.
2. Wear Thong Sandals
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I have very large, size 11 feet and very long toes. My high school friends lovingly referred to them as toe-fingers. I spent my teenage years mortified at the thought of people seeing my big feet and long toes. I found just about every way possible to hide them from view.
Looking back, my insecurity was ridiculous. I have these amazing big feet that support my amazing tall body. Anyone who looks at you and doesn’t expect to see long feet and toes to match your long body hasn’t really thought through the physics of height yet. Rather than cover up your feet, show them off. Treat yourself to a pedicure, get your nails painted and buy the coolest pair of thong sandals you can find. There’s no shame in sporting the toe-fingers.
3. Ignore the Weight on the Scale
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Really. Ignore it. And when your friends start talking about their weight, ignore that too. Tall women are built differently. We weigh more, our frames are generally wider. And really, you want to know what weight tells us? It tells us how gravity affects a particular piece of mass. It offers no substantial information about health, fitness or strength. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not telling you to ignore your health. If you want to know how you measure up health-wise, get a personal trainer to test your body fat percentage. Unlike weight and BMI, body fat percentage will actually provide you some information regarding your fitness level and your susceptibility to chronic disease—information that’s worth actually knowing.