Media promotes unrealistic perfection
I was relaxing at the bookstore, lounging in one of those comfy leather loveseats in the adjacent coffee shop, enjoying a cup of black currant tea and a pumpkin spice loaf cake, when I glanced over at the covers of a few magazines. Each cover adorned with beautiful women that look like their bodies were perfectly sculpted by god. Every cover had a story concerning body image. “Whose cellulite is this?” and “she’s packing on the pounds,” or “get Fergie’s abs in seven easy steps” are just a taste of the body obsession that is graffitied all over these magazine covers. And some of these magazines do feature stories like “how to dress your body” that embrace the shapes of all women. But then they turn around with a whole segment pointing out cellulite on celebrities, isn’t that a bit contradictory? I started to second guess eating the rest of my loaf cake when it hit me, this is how it starts. For all those girls that religiously go to the gym and weigh themselves after every workout, all the girls posting pictures of Victoria’s Secret models on their walls and eating nothing but fruit, and even the girls that sit and watch Entertainment Tonight eating a whole pizza and a box of Oreos, this is how it starts. It’s a picture put in our heads of how we should look and then we’re reminded of it everywhere we go. Whether it is on the cover of a magazine, or on TV, or at the grocery store with the array of 100 calorie snack packs showcased everywhere, that image is shoved down our throats. So I inhaled the rest of my loaf cake in triumphant spite and gave the magazine section the evil eye as I walked out the door. The point of all this (here comes my Tyra moment) is that it’s ridiculous! Why should I sacrifice my pumpkin spice loaf cake because Cosmopolitan says the world should be a size 2? So ladies, I am encouraging you to laugh in the face of fad diets, shun the entertainment media, and spit (metaphorically speaking) on the cover of every magazine telling you you should be anything different than what you already are.