Why are American women so readily prepared to use pregnancy as an excuse to claim that their bodies are "just never the same". There really is no reason that one's body should not be just the same as before within a few short months after giving birth. Aside from getting older, which certainly changes the shape of one's figure slightly, pregnancy provides no biological excuse for everything to be "in different places" six months to a year to, let's be honest, three years after having a baby. We should love ourselves, which does not mean accepting a yucky body, but taking good care of our bodies, eating only beautifully healthy food throughout pregnancy, exercising as much as possible, and getting right back after baby arrives. We owe this much to ourselves, do we not? And more, we owe it to our babies - eating donuts while wit child, is bad for baby, and if we're craving something so void of nutrients, we are probably having some deficiencies that should be addressed. I just can not understand the whole culture around this. Is it all over the Western world? Is it only American? And why?