Monday, January 25, 2010
Miracle Diets
Since I have started taking this class, I have become more aware of the influences that the media and our society has on girls my age. I'm more aware of comments girls make and the habits of my roommates and to be honest, I'm sick of it. Way too often girls set unrealistic expectations of what they need to look like and end up never being happy with who they are and I admit I've been guilty of this at times. I live with 3 other girls, all of which are beautiful, smart girls who should be confident in who they are. But one of my roommates, 5'5" and 117lbs, is obsessed with her weight and she took it to a knew level this week when she told me she was going on a "vinegar diet." It's as gross as it sounds. She forces herself to drink vinegar mixed with honey, claiming it burns the belly fat..that she doesn't have. I guarantee guys don't sit around obsessing over how to burn belly fat, but because of pressure from our society, girls are made to feel like they have to look a certain way, and some girls, like my roommate, go to extremes to achieve it. I don't think its necessarily all the media's fault, the girls who go to extremes are the ones who lack self-confidence, but I think that lack of self-confidence stems from pressures placed on girls in our society. Its rough being a girl in our society, we are constantly being told how to act and look and I really admire those women who can be completely confident in who they are.
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I agree with you. Society just pushes for thinner and thinner women. It is just scary. I watched this video that talked about how the Barbie body has even gotten smaller over the last few years. Her waist has gotten smaller, and her boobs have gotten bigger. Little girls grab this little pink box, rip it open, and pull out this “beauty ideal” doll, and think that this is what they have to grow up to look like. We, as a culture, know nothing else. We see ads for weight loss. We see shows for dramatic weight loss in short amounts of time. We see model shows that kick girls who wear size 3 jeans off of the show. The media tells us that being overweight is unacceptable. If you aren’t thin, you just aren’t in. It is a scary issue that makes me wonder if we will ever find a happy medium between the abnormally skinny body and the morbidly obese body. We have to find an actual “beauty ideal” that represents “ideal health.”
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and the previous comment. The need to be skinny is an epidemic. People should be more interested in being happy and healthy, rather than dropping as much weight as possible in a short time frame....and going to extremes to do so. I saw an advertisement for Quick Trim in which the Kardashian sisters fully promote. At the end of the commercial, it says, "Quick Trim. Live the dream." As if the only dream women have is being thin and sexy. I can admit that I have done the "quick fix diets" and trust me, they only work for a small amount of time and are horrible for your health. There needs to be more media focus on loving who you are now and striving to be more healthy, not just skinny.
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