May you live everyday as if it were a blessing from above and may you find peace of mind, body and soul.
morphia as well as increased rates of eating disorders. I have always thought this. It makes sense right? The more one sees unrealistic images of women, the more one feels they must look that same way.
If you do nothing else today, turn to a women in your life, your daughter, your mother, your niece, sister...it doesn't matter who. It could be a complete stranger. Turn to that woman and admire something about her physical appearance. Next time you look into the mirror, stop before you criticize yourself. Don't lift up your shirt and look at your stomach. Don't turn to see if your butt got bigger. Don't suck in your gut. Look at yourself, praise yourself, be thankful for all that you have, all that you've achieved, all that you can accomplish. Self-love will create a feeling of beauty stronger than any diet pill. Surround yourself with positive images. Instead of hanging the size zero model on you fridge, hang this picture. Monitor the images you take in, the time you spend critiquing yourself and the manner in which you do so. Stay positive. -Enjoy who you are.
I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength both mind and body.
-Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792
If we begin to teach girls, at a young age, the value of loving themselves, I truly believe we can significantly lower eating disorder rates. According to About.com and the University of Maryland Medical Center, over the past 40 years, anorexia incidences in young women have tripled (University of Maryland Medical Center, 2004).
As mothers, big sisters, female educators, an all women alike, take a moment to recognize the next time you ridicule a certain part of your body. Are you in front of your daughter? Your niece? Your girlfriend? We have to start to realize that our thoughts become our words, our words become our actions, and our actions greatly affect those who look up to us.
Let’s talk health. I am a true believer in good health. So, as much as I preach about loving yourself, love handles and all, I will also stress proper health and I feel this message should be relayed to any and all young women possible. Fitness is important, not to be able to fit in a size two pair of jeans, but because the longer you live, the more positive impact you can have on this world. So if you do it for nothing else, do it for the fact that the more years you are here, the more you leave behind. I am NOT talking body building, six-pack abs, cut arms and zero percent body fat. I am talking about having a healthy heart, good blood pressure, low cholesterol. I am talking about being able to enjoy the simple and beautiful pleasure in life. Be healthy enough to take a walk around your neighborhood, enough to play with your children in the yard, healthy enough to feel good. FEEL GOOD. These are the simple joys in life and health, no matter how much you shouldn’t obsess about it, should be a priority for you. Staying healthy is one of the strongest ways to show self-love and it is the easiest way to build confidence.
For women, confidence can do a number of important things. Loving yourself first allows you to love others better. In the October issue of REDBOOK magazine there is an amazing story on domestic violence. I will be the first to say that instilling confidence and positive self-image in women can help prevent domestic violence. Confidence could save your life. Allow me to explain. (Please do not interpret this as, any woman in an abusive relationship has low self-confidence) A woman who loves who she is and values her body, her life, and her existence, is not going to allow a man into her life who doesn’t value her body, her life and her existence. It’s as simple as that. If you love yourself first, you aren’t going to stick around with anyone who doesn’t at least match that love; if not love you even more. So teach your daughters to love who they are, what they have offer this world, and what they have the potential to become. In doing this, you are preventing the very thing that leads three
"If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself."
Q: Why do Ford and other agencies put commercial interests above the health of teenage models? Why encourage a fifteen year-old girl to diet down to a size zero when, as an adult, you know that such behavior is unhealthy, even dangerous? Do you think that adults should take some responsibility for the choices made by kids, and that it is irresponsible to encourage teenage models to over-diet?
A: Parents, teachers, agents, and clients all share responsibility for the health and well-being of models, particularly those that are underage. Ford doesn’t ever encourage models to “diet down to size zero.” That’s just not how Ford works.
This is just one of the questions asked..."That’s just not how Ford works." Then how exactly does Ford work? I say to you John Caplan, give me a list of the sizes of Ford's models and we'll see what models are dieting down to. Where's the real beauty?
"People who say 'Yes' to life, there's something attractive about them, no matter what shape or age. It's a shame that
— Susan Sarandon
I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.
-Maya Angelou
I LOVE this quote.
I know it is a bit, in-your-face, but it holds so much power!!! Let me also mention that Dr. Angelou is one of my heroes. Her spirit is simply intoxicating.
This is my second post for today, because I didn't feel I gave you enough in the previous one.
According to Women's Realities, Women's Choices by Hunter College Women's Studies Collective, the conclusion found on women being whole is as follows:
"Women should not be reduced to the subordinate member of a relationship (wife x, mother y, secretary z) or a body part (breast, uterus, legs). This complex process implies, to many, a radical rethinking of what human beings are and what their society has made of them." page 43.
Jane Doe. How appropriate. A woman without an identity, so fitting for any woman of the 21st century. So I pose the question, who are you?
At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all right off the bat, allow me to tell you who you are not. You woman, are not the cellulite free, sunken cheek bones, non-touching thighs, flawless pores, no love-handles, no wrinkles, no laugh lines, type of woman that sits on the cover of most magazines around the world.
You are, however, a woman. That itself is something more powerful than any new diet craze. You are capable of bringing new life into this world. You have a kindness, strength, a passion to help, to love and to care for others. Whether you are single, married, young or wise, you are beautiful because you are a woman, and I think we should start there.
So this is my story, my reason, my passion. I am 21 years old, and I adore magazines. I love them. I read them from front to back and sometimes even back to front. I love the art of communicating, through photographs, articles, and stories.
I want women to see realistic advertisings and images that encourage self-improvement and freedom of expression. I would like
WOMEN ARE WORTH SO MUCH MORE THAN THE MEDIA GIVES CREDIT FOR.
My greatest fear is what we are doing to our younger generations of girls. I remember days, feeling like I wasn’t going to make it out of my teen years alive. I was never thin enough, always too tall, and too big. My pores were never small enough and my thighs had too much cellulite and so on and so forth. I feel like I can make my case because I am freshly out of my adolescent years but not quite fitting into my adult shoes just yet, so my memories are vivid and strong. And now, as I finish up my college experience, I think back on all of the time I have wasted trying to be beautiful when I was all along.
To summarize, I feel as a society, we are doing massive amounts of damage to not only ourselves, but most importantly to young girls. If growing up wasn’t hard enough these days, we are bombarding our young women with visuals that scream they are not thin enough, not pretty enough, not sexy enough. So, I come to find myself, surrounded by a million bleach blond women, with spray on tans and breast implants. Whether you find it attractive or not is not the point. The point is we have allowed the standard for beautiful to become very limited. Now we walk around, trying to fit the same mold, which clearly we cannot do. In the process , we end up killing ourselves.
I believe if we change the way the media portrays women, we can fix many of life's threatening problems. We can lower the rates of eating disorders; we can instill a sense of self-worth into our daughters so they can look in the mirror and praise their individual body types. We can give young women confidence, which allows them to stand up against peer pressure. Who knows, we could lower teen pregnancy rates, stop young girls from trying cigarettes to stay thin, and teach the importance of good exercise and nutrition. I would love to see diversity celebrated.
"There is something … women can do for themselves. It will not only help them look more youthful, it will help them be happier. Learn to speak to yourself with kindness and generosity. Women have this ongoing internal voice. They'll look in the mirror and say, 'Oh, you fat cow!' If someone walked up to you and said, 'Hi, you fat cow,' you would not accept that. So why would you accept that from yourself?"
—
Photos taken from www.campaignforrealbeauty.com
