A Healthy You Is Beautiful
Fashion industry, modeling industry, Hollywood and marketers you need to stop! Stop telling adolescent and teen girls that in order to be beautiful they need to be stick thin and flawless; insinuating that they must attain your image of "perfect" to be accepted.
It's difficult enough for young women to accept who they are as they navigate through the adolescent and teen years. Even those who appear to have good self-esteem question if they are pretty enough, or if they will be accepted by their peers. To have fashion magazines, models, Hollywood and marketers make them feel inadequate is an added burden they don't need.
I'm not sure when the image of a beautiful woman began being portrayed by someone who was stick thin; no hips, almost non-existent breasts and no curves. Perhaps it started in the 60's when Twiggy came onto the modeling scene, and that image propelled the fashion and modeling industries to continue on that path. In the process they have caused young women all over the world to feel fat and inadequate; giving them images every day of something unattainable. Hollywood and marketing firms drive it home even more in movies and commercials. Is it any wonder that young women have low self-esteem and feel they can't measure up?
In the 50's women had curves and they were beautiful; Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Bridget Bardot just to name a few. Hollywood and fashion designers wanted these women in their movies and wearing their clothes. Men admired their curvaceous bodies and certainly didn't think they were fat. These women looked healthy, and healthy equaled beautiful during their time.
We need to start teaching young women to be healthy; to eat right and get daily exercise. Let them know being healthy is what's important. Not everyone will be stick thin; we come in different shapes and sizes and each one is beautiful. Finding their healthy weight should be their goal; not starving themselves to try and reach an unattainable and flawed image of "perfection". We all know there is no such thing as perfect.
It doesn't matter how hard parents try to impart the right message to their daughters. As long as they are bombarded every day with images that make them feel less than "perfect", then their self-esteem will continue on a downward spiral.
As the saying goes, "it takes a village". Time for those who hold so much power to start sending the right message to young women; that if they are healthy, they are beautiful.
It's difficult enough for young women to accept who they are as they navigate through the adolescent and teen years. Even those who appear to have good self-esteem question if they are pretty enough, or if they will be accepted by their peers. To have fashion magazines, models, Hollywood and marketers make them feel inadequate is an added burden they don't need.
I'm not sure when the image of a beautiful woman began being portrayed by someone who was stick thin; no hips, almost non-existent breasts and no curves. Perhaps it started in the 60's when Twiggy came onto the modeling scene, and that image propelled the fashion and modeling industries to continue on that path. In the process they have caused young women all over the world to feel fat and inadequate; giving them images every day of something unattainable. Hollywood and marketing firms drive it home even more in movies and commercials. Is it any wonder that young women have low self-esteem and feel they can't measure up?
In the 50's women had curves and they were beautiful; Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Bridget Bardot just to name a few. Hollywood and fashion designers wanted these women in their movies and wearing their clothes. Men admired their curvaceous bodies and certainly didn't think they were fat. These women looked healthy, and healthy equaled beautiful during their time.
We need to start teaching young women to be healthy; to eat right and get daily exercise. Let them know being healthy is what's important. Not everyone will be stick thin; we come in different shapes and sizes and each one is beautiful. Finding their healthy weight should be their goal; not starving themselves to try and reach an unattainable and flawed image of "perfection". We all know there is no such thing as perfect.
It doesn't matter how hard parents try to impart the right message to their daughters. As long as they are bombarded every day with images that make them feel less than "perfect", then their self-esteem will continue on a downward spiral.
As the saying goes, "it takes a village". Time for those who hold so much power to start sending the right message to young women; that if they are healthy, they are beautiful.
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