Entries Tagged 'Body Image & Self Esteem' ↓

This is real beauty. You have been blessed. What you see in the mirror is real. Other people will notice you. Beauty is an asset that will provide you with opportunities. Be grateful for it, but realize that it’s not your only asset.

You were also blessed with brains, intelligence, a sense of humor, creativity, a thirst for knowledge, kindness, love, compassion and many other unique gifts. These assets will provide you with more opportunities as you pursue your ambitions and passions. 

Confidence is sexy. Brilliance is sexy. Intelligence is sexy. A sense of humor is sexy. Knowing who you are is sexy. Being comfortable in your own skin is sexy. 

—excerpted from Ainsley, Wonder Years by Tracee Sioux

Evidently, I am the only girl advocate on the Internet who thinks the Self Esteem Act, which is supposedly going to make its way to Congress is a stupid waste of time. The Self Esteem Act is a “truth in advertising act,” a bill attempting to force advertisers to put a tiny little sentence admitting they use Photoshop on photographs in advertising — which is also somehow going to “save girls’ self esteem.” Google it. Everyone is simply head-over-heals crazy in love with this idea. It’s supposedly going to make such an impact on how girls feel about themselves and prevent eating disorders and solve all these body issues that the media causes with their evil ways of making women look too thin and too pretty (and girls are too stupid to be aware of Photoshop you know).

Personally, I think it’s going to cost a great deal of effort and have no impact at all. Let me explain why.

• The government is not responsible for the self esteem of anyone. Period.
• Media, marketing, advertisers and corporations are not responsible for the self esteem of anyone either. Period.
• You and only you are responsible for your own personal self esteem. Your mother is not responsible. Your husband is not responsible. Your boyfriend is not responsible. Your best friend is not responsible. Body Image is the relationship you have with your body and your image in the mirror. Self esteem is the relationship you have with who you are. It is your responsibility alone. If it brings you pain, then you bring your own pain. If it brings you joy, then you bring your own joy. Deal with it, either way.
• Maybe you’ve noticed, but no one in Congress can agree on a single thing. What in the world makes you think they are all going to huddle up and say, “Oh the girls. Yeah, we won’t force corporations to give women equal pay, but let’s force these same corporations to put a tiny disclaimer on their advertising copping to using Photoshop. Why didn’t we think of that Ladies?”
• There are bigger fish to fry in this country right now. In other words, I personally, and a lot of unemployed Americans might agree with me here, believe there are a lot more important issues that Congress should focus on — unemployment and job creation, tax equality, a world economy on the brink of collapse, hundreds of thousands of mortgages that are underwater or in foreclosure, people drowning in debt. You know, things a tad more significant than whether you’re looking in the mirror and saying, “I hate my thighs,” no matter how many times I’ve advised you to stop doing that.
• As Tina Fey says in her brilliant book, Bossy Pants, no one under 80 doesn’t know that advertising is Photoshopped. In fact, tweens and teenagers are better at using Photoshop than Photoshop artists employed by magazines. Why do people presume that kids are idiots who don’t understand computers? They come out of the womb Internet Savy. It is WE who find this shit shocking and have to wrap our brains around it, not them.

There are actually things that DO work that take a lot less effort than trying to get Congress to pass a lame bill that’s never going to make a dent in anyone’s self esteem.

• MOM — Mothers have, and will always have the biggest influence on their daughters. Don’t believe me — try to get your mother’s voice out of your head. I’m 38 and have been unable to accomplish this. If you’re 60 or 80 you have been unable to accomplish this. So, make good use of it. Tell your daughter she’s beautiful. Tell her she’s got a great body.
• If you’re a mother, make peace with your own body and get a self esteem. Nothing, but nothing is going to replace this. Not a bill. Not a law. Nothing. Grow a Self Esteem.
• Make it against the rules to talk badly about your own body. My kid gets in trouble if she calls her brother a name. Likewise, she gets in trouble if she calls herself a name. We don’t call names here. Period. We don’t “feed” negative body talk with a bunch of B.S. sympathy either, “oh poor baby why do you feel badly about yourself?” If it’s something we can fix, we fix it. If it’s not, we tell her it’s perfect the way it is, and that it’s simply not okay to bash yourself. Period.
• Tina Fey, again in Bossy Pants, recommends we embrace Photoshop because it’s here to stay and it’s better than plastic surgery and we should simply add a credit like a photo credit to the work. Photographed by, Tracee Sioux. Photoshopped by, Tracee Sioux. This is free and doesn’t involve Congress and serves exactly the same purpose as the Self Esteem Act.
• Dove’s viral videos, Campaign for Real Beauty were genius. They were targeted to women. They should target some to girls. Publish them where tweens and teens hang out on the Internet.
• If all the non-profit organizations that are gaga for this Self Esteem Act pooled their resources they could make Public Service Announcements informing girls about Photoshop and educate them about self esteem. Run them during iCarly and Gossip Girl, thus reaching their actual target audience. This would actually be effective  instead of wasting their time and energy on something futile.
• Church youth groups, Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, 4H, and other organizations need to address the issue of healthy body image and will do a better job of it than a tiny sentence on some ads that kids will never read.
• School Boards should make sure healthy body image and media education is in the health class curriculum. Parents and girl advocate groups should make sure School Boards do this. Cause that’s how the system works.
• Parents or grandparents can write their daughters a book or just tell them about beauty and sexiness and Photoshop and what it is and isn’t. Novel concept, I know.

“Half the 4th Grade girls have boobs and wear bras,” Ainsley reported.

“Really? Like, for real?” I asked, stunned because no one had boobs until like the 7th Grade when I was in school. “Like they really need bras?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, give me five!” I said, holding my hand out.

“Why would I give you five?” she asked

“It’s better not to be the first one to get boobs in the 4th Grade, believe me,” I informed her.

“Well, I don’t want to be the only girl without boobs,” she said.

“You’re not. You said half the class. That means half the class doesn’t have boobs.” I said.

“They are having a Bra Club. You have to have boobs to be in the club,” she reported.

“Well. Go get ready for soccer,” I said.

A few days later, as I was getting ready for bed she came into the bathroom.

“Mom? When can I shave my legs?” she asked.

“When you’re 12,” I said, because this was when I had been allowed to shave my legs and so obviously, this is the right and appropriate answer.

“All the kids make fun of my hairy legs!” she exclaimed.

“Who does?” I asked, wondering if she just uses this line because I tend to fall for it a lot.

“Sarah and the kids at soccer and when I wear shorts at school,” she claimed.

“Ainsley, shaving your legs is a real pain in the butt. Once you start your hair grows back in all stubbly and scratchy and black, it doesn’t grow back in all soft and downy like your hair is now. I’m not kidding, it’s a massive pain in the butt and you have to shave like everyday. That’s why I don’t think you should do it yet,” I explained reasonably.

“I don’t care. I don’t want all the kids making fun of me. Look at this hair! It’s embarrassing!” she yelled, showing me her admittedly hairy legs.

I looked down and rubbed her hairy legs and wondered how the hair would grow back in if we just used Nair rather than shaving them for a few years. Would they grow back in stubbly and black then?

“Go to bed Ainsley. It’s late,” I told her.

“Fine! I’ll just have everyone make fun of me and go to school embarrassed and play soccer in shorts embarrassed! You don’t care!” she yelled and slammed the door to her room.

I sighed and went to her room. I really am a sucker for the teasing and embarrassed thing,I thought as I opened her door and said into the dark, “Maybe we’ll try Nair this weekend and see what happens.”

“What’s Nair?” she asked.

“It’s this cream that dissolves hair. I don’t know how it will grow back in. But, we can try it and see,” I said.

“Okay. Thank you,” she said.

“Good night. I love you,” I said.

I shut the door. Is there really any reason that 10-year-olds were required to have hairy legs if it embarrasses them, I wondered. Is there some rule that says it has to be 12? I wonder when other parents let their kids shave their legs? 4th Grade sure isn’t what it used to be, it got a hell of a lot more complicated. 

“You’re lucky you got my hair, it’s gorgeous,” I say while I am curling her hair before school. The last six months is the first time in her life she has allowed me any access at all to her hair, because she wants more intricate styles than she can do for herself.

“Yeah, well I got Dad’s teeth,” Ainsley said.

“They’re straight and you won’t need braces,” I said.

“You also got my eyes, which are really beautiful,” I continued.

“Quit bragging about yourself,” she chastised.

“Hey, I’m bragging about you. You’ll notice as you get older that girls will criticize themselves to death, “Oh, I hate my teeth, I hate my hair, I hate my . . . whatever. Until they really hate themselves”

“Demi Lovato hates herself,” she interrupts. “She hates her show and she hates herself and she got fat and all the kids at school made fun of her, so she started throwing up and she hates herself now.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“All the kids at school saw it on the Internet,” she explained.

“Well, now you see why it’s important to look in the mirror and see what’s good – like your hair and your eyes – instead of listening to what the other kids say or focusing on what you think might be bad,” I say.

“Yeah,” she concedes. “My hair is beautiful.”

“I think those kids have way to much access to the Internet,” I say.

I stand back to look at my hair masterpiece.

“Why’s it all messy!?!” she demands.

Then we have an argument about her talking to me like I’m “the help” instead of her mother doing her a favor.

Time Magazine has an article stating that the “difference between earnings between the typical good-looking worker and the below-average-looking worker over a lifetime is $230,000.”

David Hammerish has spent 20 years researching this and wrote about it in his new book, Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful. Evidently, 59% of men are average (I’m betting because the bar is lower) and 51% of women are average, while 27% of men are good-looking and 31% of women are good-looking, only 2% of men are strikingly handsome and 3% of women are strikingly beautiful. The majority of us agree on who is and who isn’t.

My bet is, the only people who really know this better than good looking people are average looking or below-average looking people.

Think about it: if Gloria Steinem were ugly would anyone really have paid attention? Probably not.

I’m pretty certain that I’ve gotten a few jobs because of my looks. And I’ve lost at least one because I had roots and wore the wrong clothes (yeah, that Texas socialite actually took me out back and told me my looks were unacceptable).

We talk the talk and tell our girls that beauty doesn’t matter, that looks aren’t what counts. But, from a very early age, they know we’re lying. When Ainsley was barely two, she had clearly defined ideas about what was beautiful and what was not. She knew it counted for a lot in this life. She cared very much about what kinds of clothes she wore. As she’s gotten older, it has only mattered more.

As parents, we know this is true and we care deeply about it. This is why we’ll spend hundreds every year on school clothes. This is why we’ll spend thousands on braces and retainers. Why we’ll spend money on cool haircuts and accessories. This is why many of us had hair wars with our mothers that left emotion battle scars, curling iron burns and hideous photographs of bad perms and ’80s bangs. This is why many of us have hair wars with our daughters that are sure to leave future emotional battle scars and burns on their ears from Chi’s. This is why black girls spend millions of dollars every year in relaxers and weaves (I just saw Chris Rock’s Good Hair, oh my). It’s why more than one parent I know has prayed their sons got the tall gene.

This is why I’m letting Ainsley whiten her teeth. She has “mottled teeth.” I Googled it. It’s a discoloration of teeth caused by fluoridation in the water when children are getting their adult teeth. When she was little, she had perfect pearly white teeth. They grew in yellowed in some areas and white in others. She noticed. How could she not? Other kids notice and comment on it. This does not sit well with her. How could it? I noticed, probably long before she did. I had already talked to the dentist about it. I had already decided we were doing something to fix it as soon as possible, well before she brought it up. But, when she brought it up, well, it was a no-brainer. Whitening strips it is. We’ll have them Zoom! whitened at the dentist if we have to. Cost be damned.

The only surprising part is that looks matter more for men than for women. Above average men earn 17% more than below average men, while above average women earn 12% more than below average women.

Hammerish says that plastic surgery won’t change your attractiveness rating, or your income. His advice: You get what your born with. Work with what you’ve got and focus on your other strengths. Oh, and he rates himself a 3.

Image.

. . . and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons,

Luke 8: 2 New King James Version (NKJV)

1. Anxiety
2. Depression
3. Addiction (smoking, xanex, beer, food)
4. Physical Illness
5. Hopelessness or feelings of Failure
6. Cyclic Negative Thinking
7. Worthlessness and/or lack of Self Esteem

Oh wait, that’s just me.

But, there’s something universal about the demons, though they can take many forms: eating disorders, addictions, afflictions, victim identities. God frees me from one at a time, but I pick them back up and have to beg, plead and barter to be freed again and again. God frees me from one and I switch it to another. Sometimes, for years even, I feel like I’ve “got it” and make huge strides running forward with confidence.

Then BAM! I find myself wrestling with another demon, usually one I’ve met before, one so familiar to me that it almost feels like it IS me, but it is not. It’s only the demon, or the “Pain Body” as Eckhart Tolle calls it in A New Earth. It is on me, it is tackling me, it is trying to win me over, but it is not ME. It is not who I am. It is a separate identity from my inherent self as God’s child, of God, having God within. It is a demon telling lies in my head, believable and painful lies, but big fat lies just the same.

Fall down. Get back up. Fall down. Get back up. Fall down. Get back up.

Was it a Rocky movie that quoted Gen. Custer, “It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up?”

It is just the human condition. Now, if I could learn to forgive myself the sin of being human it would be easier to get back up and get back in the fight.