Some fresh air for thought--

"Make the most of yourself,

for that is all there is of you."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Introducing: Plastic Surgery Barbie.

Maybe one day you will actually be able to buy a Barbie like this for your child:




...coming soon?

Invisible.

Below is an excerpt from the USA Today article, "Do thin models warp girls' body image?"

It's not surprising that women want to be slender and beautiful, because as a society "we know more about women who look good than we know about women who do good," says Audrey Brashich, a former teen model and author of All Made Up: A Girl's Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty.

For several years, Brashich worked for Sassy and YM magazines and read thousands of letters from girls and teens who wanted to become a famous model, actress or singer.

And no wonder, she says. "As a culture, we are on a first-name basis with women like Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie," she says. "The most celebrated, recognizable women today are famous primarily for being thin and pretty, while women who are actually changing the world remain comparatively invisible. Most of us have a harder time naming women of other accomplishments." The idolizing of models, stars and other celebrities is not going to change "until pop culture changes the women it celebrates and focuses on."

Wonderful what they can do nowadays.

Media

The media sends the message that if we don’t look like…

This woman:

this woman:

Or this woman:

Then we should change our appearance.

And how do we do this?

Why, of course, buy purchasing the products that these models are selling..

(Makeup, clothes, perfume.)

However, realistically, using these products most likely won’t make any of us look like the models in these advertisements.

The body of a model—that which is portrayed as “attractive” in the media—occurs genetically in only 5% of our population. It almost never exists, but it’s all we see in the media. What the Body Shop says of this misrepresentation: “There are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and only 8 who do.” (Killing Us Softly, Jean Kilbourne)

How has such a small percentage of the population come to dominate the media, lives, and minds of men and women?

Even more perplexing--why are we trying to ‘fix’ ourselves? We’re not broken.

Ad Attack.

Here are some advertisements promoting plastic surgery and other cosmetic procedures in the media today, many of which made me think, "Did they really just say that?"















"What is it they say about inner beauty?"
(an ad for "be perfect" aesthetics)



"Be born again."






(..it doesn't??)






"It will change more than your body."







..and if you dare, watch this promotional video for The Swan Center for Plastic Surgery. I know it's long, so it's alright if you can't make it all the way through. I was too creeped out to make it past two minutes.

America the Beautiful

What do you think?

Check out the trailer for this film, released in 2007 by Darryl Roberts:

$$$$

Americans spent about 11.8 billion dollars on plastic surgery in 2008.





and each year, more than 23 billion is spent on over-the-counter diet products each year.



(What else could this money have bought?

I'll let you consider that question for yourself.)

Plasticized.

There were over 10 million cosmetic procedures (both surgeries and nonsurgeries) performed in the year 2008 alone, as reported by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS).


From 1997 to 2008, there was a 162 percent increase in the total number of cosmetic procedures.

Dying to be thin

"The promotion of the thin, sexy ideal in our culture has created a situation where the majority of girls and women don't like their bodies," says body-image researcher Sarah Murnen, professor of psychology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.
"And body dissatisfaction can lead girls to participate in very unhealthy behaviors to try to control weight." (USA Today)

These behaviors are identified as disordered eating--this term includes a broad range of eating problems, including frequent dieting, anorexia nervosa (self-starvation, unhealthily low weight, and fear of becoming fat), and buliia nervosa (binging and purging).

An estimated 5 million people suffer from eating disorders in the US.

As many as one in seven people diagnosed with anorexia nervosa will die from the illness.


In 2006, photographer Laura Greenfield documented the stories of four young women suffering from eating disorders at the Renfrew treatment center in South Florida--people who are literally dying to be thin.









Greenfield: "It's not what we tend to see in the media when we see celebrities having it--it doesn't have this kind of--glamorous tinge--that we sometimes see associated with it in the media."

Diet

Diet advertisements have been around longer than you might think:











Of course those seem ridiculous, but the advertisements we see today don't make any more sense:

Warped.

The average American woman is 5' 4. For this height, a healthy weight is generally anywhere from 115 to 150 pounds (the range is so broad because it depends on whether one has a small or large frame, and is different for each individual.)

A healthy weight lowers your risk for health problems. Common sense, right?

While many associate these problems with being overweight, being too thin poses many problems as well. Weighing too little can increase your risk of osteoporosis and compromise your immune system.
(...attractive?)

How often does the media convey the image of an appropriate weight and its importance in leading a long, healthy life?

...Not so often.

"We know seeing super-thin models can play a role in causing anorexia," says Nada Stotland, professor of psychiatry at Rush Medical College in Chicago and vice president of the American Psychiatric Association. Because many models and actresses are so thin, it makes anorexics think their emaciated bodies are normal, she says.
"But these people look scary. They don't look normal." (USA Today)