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Our culture has a lot of contradiction in it, but nowhere is it more evident than in our body weight. Americans consume more food in unhealthy ways than anywhere else on the globe, but at the same time they glamorize and obsess about their weight to the point that their models become like stick figures because that is some sort of status.
I seem to vaguely remember some cartoon as a child where the point was that each person places status on different levels. To the one group of people, some ugly masks were considered something of status. However, the owners of these masks valued having a lot of weight. The solution, offer peanut butter to those that wanted weight and get the masks! However, even having the masks was foolishness, because in and of themselves they were ugly.
Society has defined our elite, at least as far as women go, as those that have a certain figure. In most cases, it’s an unhealthy figure– one that shows how many ribs you have for everyone to count! We have glorified this, and then we wonder why so many people fail to meet this “ideal.”
The reason that more people don’t look like this poor model here is probably two-fold: 1) Who has the time?! 2) McDonalds.
Seriously– we live in a stressed society. Studies have shown that if we’d sleep longer, have less stress, and actually take our time eating food we’d be healthier, fitter, and have less sickness.
Doctors are now proclaiming that children need less structured activities and more time for play. Why? Because unstructured play leads to more creativity and fun. It leads to less stress and is a better controller of healthy weight.
Instead, we have men and women obsessing about their weight and contributing to it through stress and not getting the proper sleep and exercise. If we’re going to glorify a body type, we should be glorifying one that is healthy and stress free.
Omigosh! I don’t mean to sound ugly, but this poor girl looks absolutely horrible! How on earth can any sane person believe that this woman looks beautiful and sexy! That poor creature looks like a living skeleton! She needs food and fast!
I hate to see these kinds of pictures because it truly can be detrimental to our youth and how they associate themselves with Hollywood icons. These are very impressionable minds and it is very dangerous ground to portray this hideously thin women as beautiful!
I zoomed out those pictures. These are absolutely horrible – MIn, it is no criticism towards You, just the facts of what those pictures show.
Anorexia is real, one of my students has got it, she is absolutely horridly thin and ill all the time, yet she claims to be fat and ugly.
And the effects – heart diseases, osteoporosis, infertility, premature deaths… all for the stupid and untrue ideal of looking skinny.
Where are we going, world?
Have you heard about Caren Carpenter? Why she died young? The same madness. The abuse of God’s given gifts.
Fortunately not the whole industry follows this trend.
Look here, a good example of sound approach.
It’s amazing what people will believe about themselves regardless of evidence to the contrary. It’s also sad to realize that the people that are poster boards for bad lifestyle choices don’t even acknowledge that they have that power.
Leticia said it all. That girl is concentration camp thin.
Anna, I’m glad that some countries (Spain from your link) are realizing how devastating an effect these too-thin models are having on young people. Karen Carpenter’s story is so sad. I always thought her voice was so gorgeous.
My daughters and I just finished a study on health and body, and it covered anorexia and bulemia really well. Horrified my little girls (age 6 and 8 ) but it hopefully made them more aware of how dangerous it is to dwell too much on body image.
“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Anorexia is a Spirital problem.
and that girl looks like a sick African woman who has been in a five year famine.
Mrs. Meg Logan
The other day, as I was contemplating how distorted people’s thinking often is concerning their body image (skinny people think they are fat and the obese think they aren’t) I thought, “what if someone’s out there just trying to convince everyone to believe whatever would be bad for them to believe about themselves?”
Then I remembered that someone is.
YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE SHOULD KNOW ITS BAD FOR YOU TO BE THAT SKINNY AND ALL YOU GUYS WHO ARE WILLING TO TAKE THAT DARE THINK BEFORE YOU ACT , LIFE IS TO SHORT TO TAKE DARES LIKE THAT, SO THINK!!!!
PEOPEL OUT THERE IN THE WORLD,BEING TO SKINNY IS NOT COOL.IF YOUR FRIENDS ARE TO SKINNY LET THEM KNOW WHAT THEY ARE GETTING INTO.HELP THEM OUT AND MAKE ARE COUNRY A BETTER AND HEALTHY PLACE!!!!!!
GIRLS BEING THAT SKINNY THAT YOU HAVE TO TAKE PILLS IS BAD.BEING A LITTLE OVER WEIGHT IS OKEY,YOU CAN WORK OUT TO BECOME SKINNYERBUT WHEN YOUR AT THE POINT OF PILLS THATS JUST NOT RIGHT!!!
LOVE
I hope I didn’t confuse you, Deysha. I’m not advocating this life style, but in fact just the opposite. We need healthy role models instead of “bags of bones.” I believe that you’re totally right and we need to be getting the word out that people need to be happy with the body God gave them.
girls out there should be proud of there body.people who are 25 and up are model for teens,teens are into magizines so they look at older woman and probly think “there so skinny i want to be like them”!!!YOUR RIGHT THEY SHOULD BE PROUD OF THERE BODY GOD GAVE THEM
GIRLS SHOULD BE PROUD OF THERE BODY , THER BEAUTIFUL ONE WAY OR ANOTHER WEATHER THERE A ARTIST,SMART WELL ITS THERE PERSANALLITY THAT IS IMPORTANT NOT THERE BODY YEA MOST WOMAN ARE A LITTEL RUDE BUT LIFE GO’S ON.
The only thing we can do is reinforce, to our children, that they are God’s creation and are absolutely beautiful.
I think that, in addition to what God thinks of the, Leticia, we have to reinforce the concept that we should be more concerned of what we are inside than what we are on the outside. The “beauties” of 10 years ago are long forgotten, but those that have a heart for the Lord will be remembered forever.
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2007/2088_The_Beautiful_Faith_of_Fearless_Submission/
You need to think lifes so short to begin with,killing your shelf slowly is Stuiped……SO THINK
Scary and creepy
.-= David Parsons´s last blog ..Growing and Getting Taller Naturally =-.