"I used to live with a girl who only ate watermelon."
Pick up a fashion magazine at your local Walgreen's. Scratch that, it doesn't even have to be a fashion magazine. Pick up any magazine at your grocery or drug store of choice and see what is on the cover. I'll go ahead and take a shot in the (not-so) dark: It's a stunning twenty-something woman with perfect hair, ridiculously long legs, flat abs, and a tan that looks as if she just strolled in from the beach. Or, it's a celebrity who has gained five pounds and is getting a world of grief because, *shocker,* she has a hair of cellulite like the rest of us and isn't wearing any makeup!
What is beautiful to us? All too often, I fear that what is beautiful to Americans is the girl who only eats watermelon, the girl who spends five hours per day at the gym, or the girl who starves herself because "skinny" is what turns heads and books jobs.
I used to struggle with an eating disorder, and still today, it rears its ugly head more often than I care to admit. I know how to restrict calories and run marathons so that I can lose "just a couple more pounds." I smile so big inside when people tell me I look thin or ask if I've lost weight. Why? Our culture likes pretty people.
The fashion industry seems to have pushed this phenomenon. As the girl in the video below points out, some models are naturally skinny. Good for them. Most, though, are not. So they quit eating, because that is how they win more photo shoots. Of course, no one knows about the person behind the body on that magazine. No one knows that she could have a heart attack any day because of her anorexia. No one knows or cares that she passed out yesterday for lack of nutrition. What young girls see in the photo is a beautiful face and a perfect body and they think (regardless of how achievable this is for her body type or not), "I want to look just like that!"
The girl in the video says that Victoria's Secret is doing a great campaign for more "normal" women in their photos and ads. I have to disagree. Yes, Victoria's Secret makes larger sizes because they want to sell their products. But have you watched the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show lately? Or checked out the catalog? I can hardly look at either without feeling ten times worse about my own body, and I consider myself to be fit (most days). I'll keep buying from Victoria's Secret until the day I die, but I don't think anyone needs to look too hard at the first page of the link above to know that 98 percent of women do not look like those models.
The girl in the video below advocates health over being skinny, and I truly wish that more people would see the value in taking care of themselves instead of just being fashionable. As she says, we don't want to start modeling our lives after obese people, but being dangerously thin is equally as detrimental.
What is beautiful? Feeling good in your own skin. That is what should be on the front of magazines.
(Check out this and other videos on My WebTV: http://webtvs.filmannex.com/MaryRachelFenrick.)
