A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

A picture is worth a thousand words- those of which I will not be writing :-) But I did want to post this image of Madonna's face, which is only half photoshopped-because it's a good reminder that what we see in print does not always exist in real life...

An Open Letter to Shape Magazine

Below is the text of an email that I just sent to Shape Magazine, after seeing Kim Kardashian on its June 2010 cover. Kim Kardashian is famous for being the one time best friend of Paris Hilton and a reality TV star; she also happens to endorse QuickTrim, a diet supplement.

Dear Shape Magazine,

I may or may not have complained about your choice in cover girls prior (see here). To be honest, I don't want to dislike your magazine, but there is just no way I will ever buy it, or read it again in good conscience after seeing this month's cover featuring Kim Kardashian. I used to read your publication a lot in college, and even then, I recognized some of the mixed messages you often send to your readers. However, it's only been in the more recent past that I have seen just how crazy, blatant and dangerous some of these mixed messages are for readers.

Kim Kardashian endorses QuickTrim. QuickTrim, according to its website, "is among the best known weight loss supplements recently introduced. This line of 4 products has been created and marketed specifically by the Kardashian sisters. They claim that they will cleanse and detoxify your body, burn fat, and even reduce cellulite, working as a spot treatment for some." Just in case you were unaware, weight loss supplements are diet pills. For some reason, I thought that your magazine was trying to encourage women to be fit and healthy. But what I wonder now is that if by putting Kim on your cover, you are also condoning the use of diet pills by glorifying a celebrity who has been outspoken about her use of diet pills? Granted, if every female on every magazine cover was determined based on health, we may have a lot less cover girls (which says something), but this is the second time this year that you have chosen a cover girl who has been controversial.

I hope it doesn't seem like I am overreacting. Maybe my tirade will seem appropriate with a few facts. Diet pills lure people because they promise quick and easy weight loss, but they contain toxic ingredients and harmful substances that are seriously threatening to one's health. Most diet pills are not regulated by the FDA, which means that they may contain more of the hazardous chemicals than advertised, and the combinations that exist among the different substances may be lethal. Many diet pills have been banned after people taking them have died or have had serious complications as a result- ephedra, fen-phen, etc.. If that weren't bad news enough, diet pills can cause the following (pull up a chair- this is a long list): nervousness, restlessness, insomnia, high blood pressure, fatigue and hyperactivity, heart arrhythmias and palpitations, congestive heart failure or heart attack, stroke, headaches, dry mouth, vomitting and diarrhea or constipation, intestinal disturbances, tightness in chest, tingling in extremities, excessive persperation, dizziness, disruption in mentrual cycle, change in sex drive, hair loss, blurred vision, fever and urinary tract problems. Overdoses can cause tremors, confusion, hallucinations, shallow breathing, renal failure, heart attack and convulsions (taken from www.something-fishy.org).

It's hard to imagine (especially after reading this list of health risks) that you all would use a cover girl for your magazine who has been so open about her use of diet pills in order to achieve a body that she is comfortable with. I think it sends such a poor message to young girls and women and discredits any guise that your magazine has of health. Please consider that young girls and women read your magazine and pick up on these messages. 'Beauty' and being thin at any cost is not health.

On Airbrushing..

Britney Spears has certainly lived out a few ups and downs in the public eye, but over the past year or so, she has remained relatively under the radar. Think what you want of Britney--this isn't an opinion piece on the life and times of Miss Spears; the purpose of bringing her up is to highlight something that she did recently that will hopefully impact many women all over the world.

So what did she do? She shot some photos for Candies, a clothing/shoe brand, as part of their new ad campaign-- and allowed the brand to release the un-airbrushed photos alongside the digitally altered photos so that we could see the differences that exist between these photos. In a society where unrealistic standards of beauty continue to be perpetuated, this act is a breath of fresh air in that it provides women of all ages a very clear example of the way that what we see is not always real! For a culture (ours) that exalts the beauty we see in print ads and pictures in magazines, it is pretty disturbing that most of these images have been doctored and are not representative of reality. I think on some level we may realize this, but seeing it really drives the point home.

Let me just say... Britney looks great in both photos. While the difference in the two pictures is very small, it is important for women to see that even Britney Spears has a little bit of cellulite. Does that keep her from being beautiful? No! Does that keep her from being successful? No way! So then why is it that we are prone to think that a little cellulite can keep us from being good enough? Or beautiful? To view the pictures of Britney before and after, follow this link. Scroll all the way down to see both pictures. I wish I could post them on my blog but I'm too tech-unsaavy to figure out how to do it :-).

Celebrities acknowledging and releasing un-airbrushed photos has become somewhat of a trend lately- Kim Kardashian, Kelly Clarkson and Faith Hill have all spoken out about the way their photos have been altered in print. I think the take away point here is that we have to be discerning about what we see. When we see pictures in magazines (etc), we must remember that what we see is not always what is real. Considering how much value we often attribute to these images and the lengths to which so many of us go to in order to look like these women (and their bodies), ... it is a real wake-up call, since even they do not have these bodies! We might say that our culture has created an unattainable ideal of beauty, but just to be clear, it is actually unattainable! It is manufactured via photoshop! While it is pretty difficult to avoid these images, I would urge you to view media with discerning eyes because what we see is not representative of reality. So next time you are flipping through a magazine, just remember that what you are seeing is more than likely not an accurate representation of women, beauty and bodies.

What Defines You?

I was with a group of women yesterday leading a discussion on body image. We had such great conversations, but the one thing that kept coming up in our discussion (that comes up all the time!) is the pervasive idea that once we achieve our ideal weight or our ideal 'look', then we will be happy and complete and fulfilled. I think this is certainly a deception and a myth that our culture and the media sell us and encourage us to believe about ourselves. Have you ever thought that being your ideal weight/size/appearance would make you happy??

I am sure that we all have had thoughts like this at one point or another, but I fear that others of us have such thoughts most of the time. Yesterday, I talked with these women about how they define themselves, and where their self-worth and value comes from. One of the women said that her worth most certainly comes from the number that she sees on the scale each day. She said that she wished it weren't that way, but culturally that is what has been communicated as important, so she feels that the number that she sees each day on the scale is what makes her valuable and worthwhile. That made me so sad because we really are SO much more than our weight, our size, our bodies, our looks. We are too interesting, too complex, too great to be contained or defined by those things; we do ourselves such an injustice when we define ourselves and limit ourselves in these ways.

One thing that I encouraged these women to do, which I challenge myself and all of you to do as well, is to think about the people in your life that mean the most to you- whether it is family, a marriage partner or relationship, friends, or all of the above. When you think of the people that mean the most to you, consider what comes to mind. I doubt it is someone's weight or size. When you think of the people in your life that you love, you think of qualities that make them unique to who they are, or personality traits, or even experiences, memories, laughs and sorrows that have been shared between you.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I think it is important for us to focus our energy on developing character and inner beauty, and a sense of value and purpose which far outweigh our physical bodies. I believe that by simply being alive we have an innate sense of worth! We were created uniquely and wonderfully. It's not that wearing make-up, getting dressed up, or caring what we look like is bad- because it definitely isn't!!! But I think we sell ourselves short when we assume that if we could reach our 'ideal' weight, then our lives would be complete and we would finally be content. If you're not happy now, what makes you think you will be happy 5 pounds from now? This pathway of thinking is so deceptive and so destructive. When we base our worth and our value on things that change (cultural standard of beauty, what others think, etc), our happiness and peace of mind are never secure. That is no way to live! It is important to be rooted and grounded- whether that means finding your sense of worth and value in your faith, or finding it elsewhere, this is something worth meditating on and considering. After all, we only have one life to live, and being content and at peace is a much better way to go through life! It's also much better to go through life loving who you are and being able to appreciate the beauty you possess instead of wishing that you looked like someone else or were different than you are! We were all made beautiful- so let's work on being aware of that beauty and celebrating it in each other and ourselves.

Michelle Obama and Jessica Simpson?

This has been such a busy week for me and I haven't had a lot of extra time to blog! But I do have some posts I am working on that I'm looking forward to sharing soon. In the meantime, I'd like to share an opinion piece that I read last week because I think it was spot on when it comes to the Goldilocks syndrome I wrote about a few weeks ago (read about that here!). I don't know why, but I'm always pleasantly surprised to read such thought provoking pieces about body image and weight on the Huffington Post. The HP recently added a 'body image' page to their site, which highlights stories about weight, eating disorders, body image and all things related- very cool. Anyways, below is the article I mentioned above, by Charlotte Hilton Andersen. Hope that you enjoy this piece and that it challenges you to examine where you can find middle ground in your life!

You know it's a weird month in celeb-land when Good Housekeeping cover girl, Michelle Obama,is photoshopped within an inch of her life and Marie Claire cover girl, Jessica Simpson, is not only un-airbrushed, but also sans makeup.

Both women are known for their beauty (oh, and by the way, Ms. Obama might also be married to the President of the United States, or something) and have been targets of intense media scrutiny regarding their looks. So it is fitting that each in her own way -- and you can't possibly be more surprised than I am that I'm putting Michelle Obama and Jessica Simpson into the same category -- is on a current campaign to reshape global attitudes about our bodies.

Ms. Obama has made headlines recently for departing from previous First Ladies' safe platforms and tackling the touchy subject of childhood obesity. After launching a nationwide initiative to "end childhood obesity in one generation" she reinforced her point by revamping the traditional Easter celebration at the White House. This past weekend she removed all candy from the candy-infested holiday and instead treated children to exercise stations hosted by Olympic athletes, hand-washing stations and the inexplicably named "pre-screened" fruit in their goody bags.

Strangely, the same media that laments the obesity crisis on a daily basis lambasted the First Lady for "stealing Easter." The Easter Bunny notes that he is "not threatened" by Ms. Obama, although he thinks some of the Olympians might have been looking at him funny.

Also making mixed headlines, Ms. Simpson has been traveling the world for her new reality show "The Price of Beauty" showing what women in other cultures perceive as beautiful and the means they use to achieve it. This week's episode had the girls and their hairstylist visiting Uganda to watch women being fattened in the name of beauty. This ritual, which to my Western eyes seems every bit as eating disordered as anorexia or bulimia, highlights an important point: not everyone thinks thin is as in as we do. In fact, adiposity is adorable in some cultures.

Somewhere in these extreme messages, there is a middle ground. Catwalk thinness and obesity are both undesirable from a health perspective. And neither should be a moral statement about the person possessing said body. Now, if only we didn't have to photoshop our already-gorgeous First Lady or take contrived pictures of the already-gorgeous Jessica Simpson to prove it.

To view the article as it was published on the HP, follow this link.