Diet! Diet! Exercise! Diet! DIET! I can’t tell you how often I hear those words or say those words everyday. Well I could but then you’d want to kill me. We spend an awful lot of time thinking about diets, going on diets, going off diets, complaining about exercise and worrying about what our diets are (or aren’t) doing for our bodies.
Do you think it might be time to stop worrying so much about diet, diet, diet and worry more about overall health? Do you think it might be time to give our bodies a break and start appreciating them for what they DO look like rather than what society has convinced us they SHOULD look like?
Alas, a Blog launched the first Big Fat Carnival last week (the next one isn’t scheduled til April, darn it). There are some terrific size acceptance links in the Carnival. Go read! Ponder the message! Consider your own body, your feelings about other bodies. Does size matter?
After you’ve surfed the carnival – stop by Fat Chicks Rule and be sure to consider Lara’s entry from February 13, Soon they’ll be saying a little anorexia is ok:
Moderately heavy models may actually lower women’s self-esteem
The most annoying part was near the end with the claim “These results shed light on why magazines featuring only plus-sized models don’t have the success of the magazine that feature slim models: “…campaigns featuring moderately heavy ‘real women’ might not be as inspirational (or effective) as expected,” conclude Smeesters and Mandel.”
Interesting, eh? Women often scream for advertising that includes “real women” but is that really what we want? Does size matter?
**Cross Posted @ Blogher**
Technorati Tags: diet, weightloss, sizeacceptance, fat, bigfatcarnival, blogher
It makes me think of some of the feedback on the “real women” ads that Dove did/is doing. I was surprised to find that many women didn’t like them and thought they were unattractive. I loved them because no matter what size you are, no matter what your shape there is always something about your body that you are unhappy with/self conscious about/don’t like, etc. I was saddened that so many women couldn’t embrace the thought that these women were up there having the confidence to show off the parts of their bodies that they don’t like.
I still haven’t gone to the gym to see how much a membership is. I really ought to get on that. I will get my nice arms back. hmph!
And now I’m off to read the links. Seems like some good Sunday morning reading.
I was sort of surprised by the response to Dove, too. But only sort of. Women are incredibly ummm negative about the way other women look – just like they are negative about their own looks.