What is wrong with people???

[EvaGina]

Why is it that we judge ourselves according to unattainable phsyical ideal set forth by an industry that makes money from our insecurities?

 

The women that most women compare themselves too attain a repulsive, sexless, emancipated "figure" by starving themselves... they not only deny themselves a basic, biological pleasure that keeps us alive, but they stem their appietites with class A drugs and ciggerettes.

 

If they look over 25 they buy themselves a new face... suck out any flab and tighten their thighs.

 

the stupid thing is, we are the ones the fuel this utter crap. We buy the magazines, we get sucked in my marketing... we freak out about cellulite, thick ankles, wrinkles, boobs...

 

Yes, its unhealthy to be obese.. yet MUCH MORE SO to put the strain on your heart with fad dieting... which doesnt even work in the long run, it just makes you fatter

 

Low body fat leads to depression... and those with eating disorders are 33% more likely to kill themselves.

 

Do we really have so little faith in humanity that we think we are judged as a lover on how we look?

 

Why dont we stop buying into the crap and just enjoy eating a cookie?

 

Anyways, Im not going to stand for it anymore... only 0.01 % of women look like kate moss naturally... Im healthy, I enjoy my ice cream AND my salads... Screw if Im not Vouge's thin ideal... Im happier and sexier than any model snorting cocaine off a toilet seat... and as my beautiful boyfriend (who loves me despite my orange peel thighs and bad skin) said to me the other day

 

"better to be plump and happy, than thin and morose"

[Cimmie]

Yay for you, Eva

 

And for your boyfriend too. I happen to think that most men prefer a woman who is not a scarily pre-pubescent, boyish-figure starveling.

 

GREAT post.

[Spugly Fuglet]

The leading contrys of the world are consumerist in nature, money is made by selling products to customers, one way of doing this is throw fear, tell the pertenshel customers they have a problem there unaware off, tell them that if they do not address it others will react negatively to you, but don't worry our products are herebto save you, all you need to is by them.

 

From religion to tooth past this is the fear sell.

 

the down side is you instill fear and ansiety in you user base. But that's ok as they then will allways need more of what your selling.

 

fear sell but when you make that fear you can do harm.

[shes2smart]

link removed

 

Link is to an article about a study that showed 3 to 5 year olds said food in a McDonald's wrapper tasted better than the same food without the wrapper.

 

Behold the power of advertising on young minds that cannot think critically. In addition to shaping brand preferences, they're also shaping ideas about whats attractive, acceptable and normal. By the time one is old enough to have critical thinking skills, those messages are hard-wired in there.

 

Challenging them takes a good amount of effort, thought and soul searching. These are things that are not generallly rewarded/encouraged in a culture where buying more crap = good.

 

God forbid we ever be happy with ourselves as we are, where we are, right now. The economy would collapse.

[Spugly Fuglet]

^ very well put

[Cimmie]

Actually it is much more healthy to be slightly overweight than slightly underweight. Longevity decreases more dramatically for underweight than overweight.

 

What amazes me is the fact that there is a lot of 'news management' around the actual health status of these icons of thinness. The fact that Nicole Kidman suffers from osteoporosis in her mid thirties is not widely known. Christy Turlington, to be fair to her, has gone public about her emphysema, but celebrities are very cagey about the depredations their efforts to remain 'perfect' cause to their health.

 

Spugly and S2S are dead right about the basis of this being anxiety. Marketers are experts in the psychology of fear and desire.

[shes2smart]

Actually it is much more healthy to be slightly overweight than slightly underweight. Longevity decreases more dramatically for underweight than overweight.

 

Absolutely.

 

It is not excess weight by itself that causes health problems. It is a sendentary lifestyle. Someone who is overweight but exercises regularly is healthier by the measures of blood pressure and blood levels of cholesterol and sugar than an average weight or underweight person who is get little or no exercise.

 

By focusing solely on a person's weight, we are focusing on the wrong thing...if, in fact, the true focus is someone's health.

[DN]

Personally, I have never found stick-insect like models to be attractive in any way. They just look unhealthy - and apparently none of them have enough energy left to smile.

 

The interesting thing is that so many people blame men for this situation but hardly any men I know like very thin women.

[Spugly Fuglet]

Here's another point, have you heard this one from tv and film makers.

 

"seeing TV/film/Computer game violence dos not make you violent"

 

really!, so why spend on adds?

The power of properganda, for this is what mass meida is in all its froms, is to modifie the behavior of humans, by renforceing, creating, shifting, idears in the mind. Add men/woman know this that's why theres adds.

 

If you show the hieros always resorting to violence to get there way, show the power through the thrat or use of violence is what cool and smart fowks do, then is it any wonder, children seek guns and join gangs. Innthe UK we have a real problem now where adults are vilifyed for using violence to stop child gangs from braking laws, one must csll the police and be carm, but kids are KILLING!!!! adults as thow it was a game ot tv show, they have no idear what there really doing, its all about gaining respect throw the use of violence.

 

THIS MUST STOP!!!

 

We have to stop showing children that brurn not brains is the way to get by in the world.

 

Superheros SUCK if your kids knighing the kid next door.

 

DO you see now where the "Cool to be dumb" idear comes from,

 

Villons are all ways smart, batman beats the joker by hitting him,

 

James Bond, kills bad guy until super smart mr big gets killed by him.

 

Superman smashs, the human Lex Luther base to bits.

 

Transformers smash, mutent nijer turtiles bash,

Derty harry, shoot, Born kills,

 

over and over.

 

Smart guys get beat up by strong guys

 

don't get a PhD get a Glock 9mm

 

When was the last time you hard on a tv show a pritty woman saying "o I like smart guts"

rich, good looking, powerfull yes, but smart no.

 

Is any wonder guys think being dumb and violent is the why to get the girl.

 

Its time to stop teaching our kids this.

[Spugly Fuglet]

Personally, I have never found stick-insect like models to be attractive in any way. They just look unhealthy - and apparently none of them have enough energy left to smile.

 

The interesting thing is that so many people blame men for this situation but hardly any men I know like very thin women.

 

There was some reserch done on female porm models and female fashion models body shapes.

it showed that men find fuller figer woman more atractive, but woman see slimer woman as more so to men.

Theres a miss mach in ideats,

to me that's made buy the fashion industrys.

[Cimmie]

Ok this is going to sound controversial, but I will say it anyway.

 

Many male fashion designers are gay. I believe they are the ones who demand that women conform to a body type that is more 'boyish' than womanly, since that is what they find more attractive.

 

I hope that doesn't sound homophobic, I am not AT ALL, but it is a theory I have about the fashion industry and very young, flat chested models...

 

There is very little about heterosexuality in it all.

[DN]

I read somewhere once that fashion designers prefer very thin models because they think clothes 'hang' better and thereforeeee look better. Also, since so many women want to be slimmer then subliminally they think that if they buy those clothes they will look better.

 

It's the same sort of marketing trick that tries to convince men that if you buy that car you will also be able to attract a woman like the model draped over it in the advertisement.

[Spugly Fuglet]

with cars is even more of an out and out lie,

 

Add opens, Car zips alone an empty contry road, doing 70 to 100 mph

 

"The new (what ever) the open road awaits.

 

Lie lie lie

 

Open road!, what on the way to wallmark or the school your kids go to.

I have seen the SUV's lined up out side a school each going noware and

mum or dad just will not let Little jonny out to walk the 1/2 mile to school

becouse of all the SUV's on the road.

 

So you get a car that dos, crappy MPG and 50 MPH over the speed limit so it can do 11mph in trafic with all the other mumpets that fell for the pich.

 

and the Police pop a speed cam on the open roads becouse mupets in fast cars try to live the add and get them selfs killed, making that open read a car death black spot.

 

A good car would be an Eletric car that dos the speed limmit and has a 200 mile range, can sit 5 has a power cell to you can swhich it at any petral station for a charged one.

 

Lost cost, good for your kids and safe,

 

You have to ask the men of oil with all there cash why they hate cars like that so much, Arr yes becouse "greed is good" our children and there children will look back on us like we where Savages for our love of greed.

 

There world will be a bleek place becouse we could not grow up.

[Batya33]

I was borderline anorexic in my teens and early 20s. Part of it was fueled by the other girls I knew who were dieting, those skin tight designer jeans, and a well-meaning high school sweetheart who once remarked about a girl at his school who was very physically fit. I was very fortunate to have a mother who was totally normal about eating and food (and who always has been slim) and, ironically, to get an infection at age 23 (unrelated to the dieting) that put me on IV for over a week with no appetite at all - it clicked for me what it was "really" like to be unable to eat and I didn't like it.

 

But, in the last 18 years it's still been difficult (for those of you with past eating disorders you know that it cannot be 100% cured) because I live in a city where many of the women - especially professionals - strive to be perfectly thin and in shape. I think I deal with it reasonably well but it is so easy to lose perspective - even if the "charts" tell me that I am slim I have those "fat" days - which I blame on myself in the sense that I should be smarter than to react to those model types all around me.

 

Like EvaGina wrote, it is very helpful to have a significant other who finds me attractive, who loves to watch me eat whatever, and who is baffled if I whine about feeling "fat." I have dated men who made little comments about what I was eating (I have a very good metabolism) and I knew that if they were doing that on the first few dates it would only get worse and feed into my past eating issues.

[Dako]

Dog analogy:

 

Skinny women look nervous and sickly, like a shivering chihuahua.

I prefer a thick, happy Labrador.

[DN]

Dog analogy:

 

Skinny women look nervous and sickly, like a shivering chihuahua.

I prefer a thick, happy Labrador.

Nice Dako - but I think some people may not appreciate the analogy.

[Miss Firecracker]

I experienced a little of the anorexia, back in my youth.

 

Irregular heartbeat gave me a clue that it wasn't cool.

[Dako]

Nice Dako - but I think some people may not appreciate the analogy.

 

I see your point.

I just really love dogs.

[Cimmie]

We are 'sold' each other in the same way that we are 'sold' commodities like clothes, homeware, and cars. Some makes and models of human beings are marketed as more desirable than others.

 

It takes, as S2S remarks, maturity and a critical mind to see through the hard sell (or rather to hear through it, as it is like having your natural instincts drowned out by a loud noise) to the reality beyond.

 

What worries me is that marketing targets a younger and younger audience all the time for their lifestyle/commodity pitch. People will have no minds of their own unless they are taught to think for themselves.

[itsallgrand]

Yah Gina! You go!

 

Starving to fit into some weirdo industry type's pocketbooks...ick.

 

There was a GREAT book I read that changed a lot of my mind regarding body image, and I've never struggled like some girls/women. No eating disorders, none of that, just a general "wonder if I'm attractive enough" that kind of hung around especially in my early 20s. Working myself too hard to get that "muscular" look; fighting the curves along the way too! Silly now, but I do admire muscularity still..in a more healthy way.

 

Anyhow. The book is called FAT.

 

It's fantastic. It's a bunch of short essays on FAT: as a compound, as a measure of beauty, as a tool, how it is looked upon in various groups of people.

 

Eye opening, and makes you stop to remember: Hey, fat has some GOOD to it, too. There's a reason we love it so much, and it ain't all bad.

[Spugly Fuglet]

I see your point.

I just really love dogs.

 

 

Or you could put it like this

 

image removed

 

over

 

image removed

 

 

for thows cat lovers out there

[dietrying]

I'm starting to look more like just a skeleton and it does NOT look good at all. I just feel like I'm missing some things.

 

Women look so much more attractive with curves.

[jengh]

Eva,

great thread...

 

I battled anorexia when i was 13-16... at my worst, i was 5'7 and 100lbs... even though i KNOW how unhealthy i was... i, to this day, still have a twinge of guilt for "letting myself go"...

When it comes to dating, i got hit on SO MUCH more when i was thin like that.. Now, i'm 5'7-5'8 and weigh 170-ish and cant get a date to save my life. (and i mean meeting a guy in "real-life"...i go on plenty of dates with guys i meet online)

These girls at the university are all so skinny!!! It bugs me so much...iknow how much more i enjoy my life now than when i did back then, but still...it's hard....i don't think i'm unattractive, but ithink guys DO think that.

[CharLit]

Yay Eva

 

I'm living in the Netherlands at the moment, and a while ago a documentary about today's unrealistic beauty ideals made quite a splash here. All of it was eye-opening (even for me with my limited Dutch *hangs head in shame*). A very interesting part was a clip from a 1950s beauty contest, the bathing suit section - the diversity in body shapes was astounding compared to similar contests now! The most shocking part for me was that on the most recent trend in plastic surgery, "Vaginal rejuvenation". The "rejuvenation" part is misleading, the case they followed was that of a FIFTEEN year old girl, who was getting it done with the full support of her mother, to deal with her "condition" - the condition was that her labia minora were larger than the majora. It was absolutely horrific to watch.

 

A week after the documentary was aired, a 21-y.o. who weighed under 110 lbs pre-surgery and spent 5 days per week at the gym, died during a liposuction operation. Tragic, and incomprehensible: I'm anti-plastic surgery anyway, but what surgeon with any morals at all would agree to perform liposuction on a girl who was a perfectly healthy weight?

 

There is some hope though: For the follow-up documentary, the maker got a number of high-circulation women's magazines and Playboy magazine (!) to agree that for one month, this coming September, they will all add logos to all pictures that have been manipulated using photoshop - which is practically every one single of course. Great initiative, pity it's a one-off!

 

I also like the recent Dove advertising campaigns, especially this "Evolution" commercial.

 

Finally, let's not forget the men. They are also presented with an ideal in advertising that is unattainable for most and more and more beauty products are being marketed towards them... eating disorders among men are on the rise also, as is something called the "Adonis complex" .

 

Make a stand people! Normal is beautiful!!!!!

[EvaGina]

whoa!! that evolution of beauty thing is completely warped!! I grew up in that industry, my entire family is in advertising and it still amazes me.

 

link removed

 

I havent had an eating disorder as such, but I have been overweight and I have put myself through a lot of self-hate and guilt for what I eat.

 

Jen... I was just talking to Mat (he made me get up early and go for a run... gah) and while I said he doesnt need to lose weight, that he is really healthy, he said we can always be healthier...

 

Now... does he realise that the "healthy" image we get from the media is completely emancipated? I dont want to be like that... "healthy" doesnt just include body fat, it includes mental and emotional wellbeing... I will NOT be a healthy (happy) chappy if I have to agonise over what piece of lamb I buy for dinner or if I put too much olive oil in my salad dressing...

 

Obivously, I still feel the pressure... I was worried about my thighs wobbling when I was running down the road (it was horrible... I am so tired!) but, to be honest... WHO CARES? My wobbly thighs are mine... screw the skinny, taut limbed women with thin bones and reproductive difficulties!