Dangerous Curves Ahead

I’ve been reading a lot of articles lately about all of this airbrushing and Photoshop nonsense that has been happening in magazines and product ads lately. There’s been quite a fuss made over it all and it’s not hard to understand why. Everyone keeps talking about the tremendous pressure that it puts on women to keep themselves up to an unrealistic standard of what’s considered “beautiful.” I would like to know who decides what these standards are so I can find them and tattoo the words Douche bag on their forehead. I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t want to look like an androgynous, skeletal stick person, and I certainly don’t understand why anyone would want to strive for that if it‘s not natural or healthy for their body!! I have never been what would be considered a “thin” person, and quite frankly I am imperfectly fine with that. I love my boobs, and so what if I have wide hips?! I wouldn’t mind if they were a little smaller, (same with my thighs, yikes!) but that’s why I go to the gym! You would think in a society riddled with obesity we would be more focused on our masses becoming more healthy and fit rather than zeroing(hint, hint) in on how tiny our waists can be. Lets face it, no one’s going to live long enough for that to ever be a reality because everyone’s going to die of heart attacks from either being extremely over or underweight! Its not really surprising that we have a problem with obesity (please remember that this can also mean too thin as well!) in our society when our entire culture has shifted to become about what’s convenient. With the constantly growing amount of businesses and technology that cater to your every whim without even having to step foot out your front door, it’s really very easy to become sedentary and lethargic. Why go to the gym when you can strap on a belt that’s going to give you “instant abs“ or take this pill and lose 50 pounds in three days? Or, why should I actually go to a library or book store, and then waste precious nanoseconds turning a page when I can push one button on my Kindle without leaving my couch? I’m honestly surprised that people aren’t just using catheters so that they don’t even have to physically move to another room to go pee! But then there’s the opposite spectrum where counting every calorie, or just not consuming any at all, while spending countless hours on the treadmill will hopefully make you a size 0 like the incredibly airbrushed model in Vogue. I would be a big, fat liar(no airbrushing needed) if I said I hadn’t wished a time or two that I had a freakishly unnatural body build, but then I look at my daughter and I think of all of the pressure and scrutiny I’ve faced growing up, and I can’t possibly stomach the idea of her going through the same thing. For myself, personally and as a parent, I just try to keep a good stock of healthy produce and low-fat options around my house. If I go to the grocery store by myself, I park far away and walk all of the bags back to my car (all of that and a 50lb child can make that jaunt a bit of a challenge). I try to frequent my gym, though honestly I don’t go as much as I should, but at least I go, and I try to get my daughter outside and active over parking her butt in front of a movie, like she would much rather do. If people could just shift their focus slightly and think about things, they might just realize that being the size of a toothpick doesn’t mean you are going automatically be that much happier, just like sitting around for hours and then eating a Big Mac isn’t going to have the same conclusion either (unless you are a toothpick, then please do this X3). So why all of a sudden is it so bad that all of this hype is cropping up about digitally altered photos to make already waif-ish models freakishly thin, when at the same time it’s being crammed down your throat that you shouldn’t be “fat” anymore?! GOOD QUESTION! But to me the answer is simple: Don’t focus on either one! If you’re constantly worried about the SIZE of your body, then you’re not focusing on the HEALTH of it, not to mention the mental anguish and stress it causes you to be so constantly worried about it all. I don’t want to have a huge ass, or cellulite…or cankles…..or wrinkles…or ..well you get the point. But I’m also not going to obsess about it! Maybe a little…. Maybe ad companies should start running ads featuring actually “average” sized models (which clothing designers could back up by actually making these sizes normal), or start marketing the benefits of feeling good about yourself the way you are, not the way you think you should be. Other than the outside influences like medical issues (I myself have a thyroid condition that affects my weight, but I manage this with medication), I see no reason why the focus shouldn’t just be on eating right and exercising, (which for the most part I also follow because even hormones are no excuse to not try to be healthy). I don’t want to spend the next 6 months in starvation mode just to fit into a single pair of jeans because someone else dictated that I should. Where is the logic in that at all?! But that’s how people think and it’s sad!!! It’s sad that a beautiful woman that’s a size 12 is considered “Plus-sized,” when an anorexic size 0 is considered “beautiful.” If I ever look down and see multiple ribs sticking out through my shirt, I’m going to hope that it’s because someone tranquilized me and dropped me off in some impoverished, 3^rd world country for a year, because that’s never going to happen by choice! I know I jumped back and forth here a little, but my point overall is just try not to compare yourself to these unnatural and illogical expectations of how you “should” look. It doesn’t matter how big, (or small for that matter because some people are just naturally tiny), you are if you’re healthy and happy with yourself. I stress the HEALTHY part of this because I feel that is what’s most important here. Just in case any of this didn’t strike a cord or make my point clear enough on this issue, I’d like to share some statistics and a few outside references to reinforce my point of view here.

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa And Associated Disorders, Inc, (ANAD):

Up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder) in the U.S.
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
An estimated 10-15% of people with anorexia are male.
The body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.
81% of ten year old girls are afraid of being fat.
95% of all dieters will regain their weight loss within 5 years.
Over one-half of teenage girls, and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.
In a survey of 185 female students on a college campus, 58% felt pressure to be a certain weight, and of the 83% that dieted for weight loss, 44% were of normal weight.

www.anad.org

http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/should-photos-come-with-warning-labels/

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/before-and-after-britney-spears-releases-unretouched-candies-ads-1284888.html

Hopefully these links work (I'm new at this), and kudos to the celebrities that encourage the non- digitally altered photos to be released.  Afterall, they are who most of us end up comparing ourselves anyways!