Hey people! Darrin your Starting
Over Coach, here to discuss body image and how it affects our lives and
decisions we make regarding health and weight loss.
Welcome to America where the
streets are paved with gold, money grows on trees, and everyone is living the
American dream. In reality we live in a
world of false images where we like to play a little game called “Let’s hide
the truth”, when it comes to health and body image. In this game the rules encourage you to never be
the real you. Bonus points are awarded
to those who can afford procedures like: Botox, collagen injections, face
lifts, liposuction, gastric bypass, tummy tucks, breast implants, butt lifts, dyed
hair (…everywhere), tattooed eyebrows, etc., etc., etc.
Mainstream media has distorted
our views on what is considered beautiful. Beauty is youth, beauty is thin…beauty is a
flawlessly airbrushed image in a magazine. You’re told that once you’re thin and
beautiful the gates of the good life will be flung wide open for you. Your dream man/woman will magically appear,
accompanied by your dream career, dream house, dream car, dream family, dream
whatever, and you will live happily ever after, right?
This line of thinking is less
than conducive to healthy living or realistic expectations. In a lot of unfortunate cases, it’s “be
beautiful or die trying”. The American
research group Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders, Inc. says that “one
out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight
control—including fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative abuse,
and self-induced vomiting.”
According to one of the latest
‘miracle pill’ commercials, “It’s great being thin”. Keep in mind that selling these almost
unattainable images to women has its benefits; the benefits of ever increasing
revenue for the diet industry. “It is
estimated that the diet industry is worth anywhere between 40 to 100
billion (U.S.) a year selling temporary weight loss (90 to 95% of dieters
regain the lost weight)”
Are we heading down the path of
self-destruction in the name of self-improvement? The media leads you to believe that if you
don’t look like the woman/man in the magazine there must be something wrong
with you, and that attaining that level of ‘perfection’ is a never ending
process. Magazines, more often in
women’s than men’s, are bursting with articles designed to create a new and improved you through phenomenal weight
loss, miracle working beauty products, or special cosmetic procedures. It practically becomes ingrained in you to
believe that you’ll never be good enough.
The sad thing is most of the
images you worship are the works of artists who take hours to airbrush every
imperfection out of existence. These images
are figments of their skill and vivid imaginations. They’re not real, or realistic! The editors alter the models from head to
toe. Their skin tones, complexions,
eyes, cheek bones, lips, breasts/pecs, waistlines, thighs, and anything else
they deem imperfect…back rolls and all! Ever
clicked your heels and wished to be a cartoon character? No! Why? You
know somebody drew them; therefore they are neither real nor representative of
what actual human beings look like. The
same thought process should apply when it comes to what the media claims, but
somehow it doesn’t and women and men turn to crazy and often dangerous diet
fads. Try a plan that only allows you to
eat 500 calories a day, or requires you to inject yourself with crazy
chemicals, or eat nothing but fruit and water, or eat nothing after 4 pm, and insanity
ensues.
The plan administrators tell you
nothing of the havoc fad diets wreak on your body and hormones. The diet outline certainly doesn’t prepare you
for the psychological pain you endure when you gain the weight back- and then
some.
Cosmetic procedures aren’t any
better. If you went into surgery with
poor eating habits and no plan to fix that aspect, you’re coming out of surgery
with the same poor habits, and bandages.
It’s no secret that nothing can replace a healthy diet and exercise! You get out what you put in! You put crap in
and you’ll look like crap, plain and simple, and no miracle pill can change
that or your eating habits.
The weight didn’t appear
overnight, so what makes you think that it will disappear overnight? Common
sense can go a long way here people. We
must change what we see in our minds before we can change what we see in the
mirror or the media! One of the most
beloved beauty icons of all time was Marilyn Monroe- and she was a size 14. Let’s not make the goal to be thin. Genetics
alone may prevent some of us from ever getting there. But that’s ok because we can focus on getting
healthy.
When
you treat your body right on the inside,
it has
no choice but to shine on the outside,
and
that’s just beautiful.
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