Has your self-esteem ever taken a blow after looking through a People Magazine? Hollywood stars today are taking drastic measures to achieve the "ideal body". Their images are sending signals to Americans that in order to be successful we should look the same. However, for many Americans, these Hollywood style bodies are unachieveable (if not unhealthy) as it takes expensive gym memberships, and tons of pricy diets in order to get Hollywood results.
Do you feel that body images are a measure of success? More importantly, do you think the criticism stars receive communicates negative feelings about our own self-images? I was shocked to look through the magazine and see the criticism Courtney Cox was getting for body. To any mere mortal's eye, her body appeared flawless; however, to the critic's eye perfect is unatainable. If the stars' bodies aren't good enough, then who's body is?
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I don't know where the whole skinny trend came in. To be honest, the reason to have a "good" body is to be attractive to the opposite (or same if you roll that way) sex. Most guys do not think that girls like Mary Kate Olsen are attractive. 12 visible ribs aren't really a turn on. Jessica Simpson has also been recently been bashed for a weight gain. However she was just ranked #70 out of all the women in the world by askmen.com. Thats pretty good so screw the critics. Throughout history women's fashion constantly restricts them. In China foot-binding, in Africa neck bracelet things, Europe few hundred years ago corsets, now high heels and unhealthy weights. Women shouldn't take this any longer. Wear fashions that maximize your potential, don't debilitate yourself.
ReplyDeleteTo expand on how unrealistic American's ideal body is, most of the images you see in magazines are airbrushed and touched up in post processing to make them thinner and emphasis certain aspects of the human body.
ReplyDeleteGoing along with what Maerz has said; I recommend taking a look at Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. One video in particular;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dove.us/#/features/videos/default.aspx[cp-documentid=7049579]/
Our society is screwed up as far as superficiality goes. But things like Dove's campaign can open our eyes to our own unrealistic expectations. Why set ourselves up to fail?
I forgot to add this;
ReplyDeleteIf you watch all the videos on the Dove campaign site, you'll see one featuring a little girl, and another with a girl called "Amy". I have a little sister who is twelve years old, and she already has it in her head that she isnt pretty simply because she weighs over eighty pounds. America is raising a generation of little girls who are encoraged to hate themselves. It is not healthy for our nation, and it is cruel to let those little ones think they arent worthwhile.