ROADKILL CHRONICLES, VOL. I: HIT THE BOOTY DO ...

ADVENTURE IN LIFE: Being bad built.

THE SANE: Studies show that African-American women who have a lot of belly fat have a high risk of getting Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease.

THE INSANE: Studies also show that African-American women who have a lot of belly fat have a high risk of public scrutiny, stress on the jeans and songs parodied after them.

Booty-do. Muffin top. Levee belly.

These are terms I’ve heard many men and women use to describe people, particularly women, when it comes to the unflattering shapes of their bodies. No, the terminology isn’t complimentary, yet it does provide a colorful description of what has become known as “bad built.”

How many times have we seen a bad-built woman walking our streets? How many times have we commented on the ill-fitting outfits? How many times have you seen a chick among her friends, only to assume they’re not her friends because she’s wearing something she totally shouldn’t have and they failed to tell her?

 

Just what does it mean to be bad built? Can you still be built bad & yet still be considered "hot?"

"Hell no," said Randy Jones, aka DJ Ram, of New Orleans, "If she's is built like a boiled egg, nothing can become attractive."

Everyone has their own view of how THEY want to look (and then everyone else has the actual view). But has Hollywood, the media and other entertainment outlets so pressured us to assume every woman should be 36-24-36?

“Men usually like women with some curves,” said Gerry George of Nashville, Tenn. “Some like smaller curves and others like a lot of them … saying that, bad built could mean a constant interruption of those curves.”

Understood, I think. I know that’s one heck of an interruption. Not paying your cable or telephone bill couldn't cause an interruption as disturbing. 

"Bad built is when your measurements don't necessarily fit within the confines of the traditional parameters, i.e., 36-inch bust, 24-inch waist or 36-inch hips, as in the party favorite 'Brick House,' said Kelder Summers, a friend and New Orleans radio personality. "If you have a 40-inch bust, but a 50-inch waist and 30-inch hips ... well, you get the picture. Any skewed variation of that 'Brick House' bust to waist to hip ratio could be considered as showing bad built traits!"

I know a lot of women who aren’t Marilyn Monroe curvy, but they’re Jill Scott or old Jennifer Hudson curvy. I know women who are top-heavy, gut busters, pear-shaped, apple-shaped and sheetrock-shaped, but they dress accordingly and highlight whatever attributes they may have. According to my friend Nakia Noel-Nelson of Alexandria, La., that’s really all that matters.

A sister needs Jenny Craig

“The proportions you have, you keep up,” Nelson clowned.

By no means am I trying to hike on anyone about their size or shape, because Lord knows I could stand to drop about a good 50 pounds right about now. However, despite the expansion of my roadways, I've managed to still  keep my curves. But seriously, I also realize that now my health may be affected. My self-esteem hasn’t necessarily taken a dive, but I am a bit more conscious of the clothes I wear. I simply can’t wear the things I used to and more important, how I used to. Gaining weight has also affected how I see myself. I’m not saying that I was a vain person, but I always thought I had “it” together. Now, I’m in the mirror longer, as I try to enhance certain parts of my body to divert eyes from my other protruding body parts.

 “I feel the same way about my body,” says 5-foot-4 Shauna Rhone, also of Nashville, who claims she used to weight 230 pounds. “I don't look as bad as I used to be, but I don't look as good as I want to be. I feel like I'm ‘slow walking’ to a better body although that damn aging clock is ticking big time in my ear.”

But by no means do you have to be overweight to be “bad built.”

According to Urban Dictionary, being bad built means “being awkwardly shaped,” with “your upper body and lower body not equally proportionate to each other; having a gut and tiny legs.”

 

“I saw a woman that looked like a square once,” George recanted. “(She had) no neck, stomach out farther than her breast and flat in the back from neck to ankle.”

Wouldn't that make her Spongebob Squarepants?

Now there’s a problem, particularly the stomach issue. Numerous organizations, including the International Diabetes Foundation and American Diabetes Association, have linked belly fat with Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease. So regardless of whether you’re a size 6 or 22, if you have a muffin top, booty do or levee belly, it’s not a healthy look, literally and figuratively.

I have to admit, my abdominal area has suffered considerable damage in the past year. I don’t have stretch marks on my belly, but if I did, they’d probably lose elasticity from my gut getting so big. My family, including my mother and father, has diabetes, so the numbers are against me. In fact, according to ongoing research by James DeLany Ph.D., at the University of Pittsburgh for the ADA, obesity-related diseases such as diabetes are found at a alarmingly higher rate in African-American women. Why? Who knows, but some of us older gals need to speed up the engines and just slow down on that second half of po-boy.

“Metabolism is not my friend,” Rhone said. “And I know my 38DDs are as genetic as my dry sense of humor, but I've learned to value both assets.”.

During the Fourth of July weekend, I hung out in New Orleans for the Essence Music Festival. Though I didn’t attend any concerts, I did hang out at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. There I caught up with Summers and bay-bey, there were more booty dos, booty cracks and just plain old bootiness on display. Women were wearing things they just shouldn’t have, and I say this constructively. Of course, being that it was the Essence Festival, I’d imagine attendees wanted to be fly, with a dose of high self esteem and vainness, but some just did more harm than good.

Kelder Summers-Jones & I at Essence

“(For) the rest of my life, I'll never understand the silent conversation that talks a size 22 woman into styling in a halter or tube top,” Rhone joked. “But I’ve seen it with my own bleeding eyes. Guess that's bad built ... ”

Is it safe to say to each her own? Perhaps, says Summers.



"I think most women are the victims of their own egos - present company included," she said. "In our minds, we see ourselves a certain way and it isn't necessarily how other folks see us. We believe we KNOW what looks good on us and you can't tell us otherwise. And unless you live in a house of 360 degree mirrors, you really can't see the WHOLE picture so, I believe, women focus on that ONE great feature they have, play up on it, and completely ignore the flaws that they can't or won't see."

The next day, I gathered with some friends, including Summers, and we collectively discussed the highs and lows of the festival so far. After a very lively and hilarious discussion, a parody of sorts was created to exemplify the one thing we all could agree upon: the bad-built woman.

Claude McField & I

An entire song – named “She Bad Built,” of course – was written by the end of the weekend. From chicks who are built like Buicks to shoulders like boulders, the creative content spearheaded by New Orleanians Brian Trusty, Claude McField and others known as “The Porch Krewe,” has set a standard for the mild declaration of a woman’s assets, or in this case, liabilities-all set to New Orleans Bounce.

Brian Trusty

By all means, the song is truly one made in jest. After all, one man’s view of “bad built” may be another man’s view of “good erection,” if you get my drift. Or just ask Trusty.

“It's completely subjective,” he said. “What one finds aesthetically pleasing, another may not. That’s the beauty of the thing.”