Entries from January 2009 ↓

“If we don’t get serious about putting women into the leadership pipeline, we (will raise) the aspirations of a generation of American girls without doing enough to actually make their ambitions achievable,” Marie Wilson, The White House Project.

This year we will have 17 women in the US Senate and at least 74 women in the House of Representatives. We have risen from 71st in the world for female representation to 69th. Isn’t America supposed to be more competitive?

It’s just not good enough. The world we create is the one that will be waiting for our daughters. No better and no worse. The one we create is the one the will inherit.

Check out the Obama Administration’s Agenda for Women.

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Send your daughter's photo for a custom Fit Girl shirt

There are millions of parents out there who, like me, worry about their children’s weight and the weight of children in general.

• 16 percent of children (over 9 million) 6-19 years old are overweight or obese
• In the last 3 decades the childhood obesity rate has tripled for children aged 6-11 years.
• Overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults. This increases to 80 percent if one or more parent is overweight or obese.
• For children born in the United States in 2000, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives is estimated to be about 30 percent for boys and 40 percent for girls.

(Statistics taken from National Association of Children’s Hospitals, based on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Study, 2006)

In The Girl Revolution Fit Girl Series, we want to make sure our children are at an optimized weight for their life long health. We’re concerned with the health related habits our children develop that will either burden them or carry them through their adult lives. In many cases, we’re struggling with weight issues ourselves. We can see how our own habits have contributed not just our own weight issues, but to our children’s.

When Ainsley was 5-years-old the doctor told me Ainsely was in the BMI Red Zone. Of course, I thought that doctor was insane. She LOOKED perfectly normal (to her mother). After the shock and denial (and a little indignation), I researched early puberty and that was what tipped me over the edge into Serious Action. Ainsley is back in the “normal” range, barely. But, this is an ongoing process that should last her entire childhood and adolescence, so that when she goes off to college she’ll have already established an active healthy lifestyle.

As we’ll see in the Fit Girl Series – there is a link between early puberty and weight. Specifically, puberty happens at around 100-110 pounds, according to Dr. Teresa Knight, an Ob/Gyn and others I interviewed.  The faster your daughter gets to that weight, the earlier she develops breasts and starts menstruating. Early puberty is the number one risk factor for breast cancer.

To diagram that: early weight gain = increased chance of early puberty = higher breast cancer risk.

But, let’s get even more honest here. The best thing about being a 30-something, slightly pudgy married mother of two is that the amount of sexual harassment from strangers, coworkers and random jerks has drastically reduced. Yet it happens to girls the minute they hit puberty and begin developing breasts. If you forgot what it was like, or want to believe it doesn’t happen anymore or your daughter will be immune to it, go read this essay by Latoya Peterson at Racialicious, Not Rape. (Brings back memories – not good.)

What would I do to keep my 8, 9, 10 year old from having an adult body, which might result in increased sexual harassment from boys her age and grown men?

I’d get pretty damn serious about her exercise and eating habits to prevent early puberty. Would you?

That’s what I’m inviting other parents to do during The Girl Revolution Fit Girl Series. We’ll talk about the medical information and health risks to our daughters, the social implications surrounding girls’ bodies, we’ll examine the best ways to approach weightloss or maintaining weight without creating new body image issues or harming self-esteem. I’ll share some tools and tactics I’ve tried in our family to aid our change in lifestyle, and hopefully you’ll have a lot of great tips to share too.

It’s still January and it’s not too late. Maybe you’ve made a Family New Year’s Resolution. Maybe you’ve made personal New Year’s Resolution that involves your own lifestyle, eating or activity level. Maybe not.

The resolve for 2009 at The Girl Revolution is Fit Family = Fit Girl.

Send me a photo of your daughter doing her favorite fitness activity and we’ll customize the Fit Girl shirt . This is just one more way that we can Create Positive Media for our girls.

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Remember when they gave us Generation X – which basically meant that were were hopeless slackers? Gee that was fun. We’d wallow in our Baby Boomer parents shadow, drifting aimlessly?

Even in The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream
, John Zogby is calling us the Nike Generation. The generation that really got sucked into media. Zogby says we’re cynical. We don’t buy into hope, we “just do it” like a Nike commercial tells us too. L-A-M-E.

Today is Inauguration Day, already they are branding our kids Generation O.

O for Obama.

O for Optimism.

I, for one, can’t say cynicism has gotten me one damned thing worth having. Oh, it’s gotten me plenty of depression, anxiety, fear and hopelessness. But, I’m over it. I’ve had my fill of it. Too cool for school? Don’t call me anymore. Going to sit back and complain about how much you hate the government because they can’t do anything right? Lose my number. Don’t talk to me at parties. Know the stimulus is never going to work? Keep it to yourself. Think Universal Healthcare is a disaster waiting to happen – stop wishing for your own destruction so you can be “right.” I’m looking for solutions. To find solutions you have to believe in trying.

Yesterday, I sat my children down and had them watch the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have A Dream” speech. It was beautiful. Then I made them watch Oprah’s Inauguration special. Ainsley said, “This is is kind of boring.”

I saw something different. I saw millions of people volunteering, willing to pitch in where there is need. Millions of people waking with HOPE – remember HOPE?

I was 8 months pregnant with Ainsley when I saw the second plane crash into the Tower on 9/11. They said her Generation would be be defined by that awful moment. How horrible to be defined by an act of evil.

I prefer, Generation O – a generation growing up with a President who speaks hope not fear. A president who makes us all feel like pitching in and doing something different. A president who unifies not divides. A president who makes us take responsibility for ourselves as he takes responsibility for our nation’s policy, national and International. A president who calls us to Optimistic Action.

Yes, we can.

In honor of this super-awesome day (and not connected to last week’s Launch Party Giveaways – entries until Friday) I’m giving away one I Am Generation O onesie or t-shirt from genOtees.com. Contest will run for 7 days. I’ll draw from random.org.

All you have to do is leave a comment saying something optimistic and hopeful about our future as America.

Guess what it says on the back?

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It’s All About The Girl is offering $50 in their gift registry. It’s pretty “girly” in there. They offer some cute bedroom decor, clothes, lunch boxes and school supplies. I’m sure you can find $50 worth of cool stuff for your daughter’s next birthday. Continue reading →

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Mew Paper Arts is offering 3 beautiful sets of notecards. Each set is a different beautiful, unique design by Alissa Sampogna. The insides are blank.

Teach your daughters to write a Thank You note. We can all get better at this . . . but, there are people in a girls’ life who push her forward, build her confidence, give her gifts, teach her something valuable. Teach her gratitude. Continue reading →

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