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Loading...Celebrate Love Your Body Day This Week
Do you love your body?
You should and you should celebrate NOW’s Love Your Body Day this Wednesday October 19, 2011.
For over a decade, NOW has used Love Your Body Day to “educate and encourage women and girls to say ‘no’ to negative stereotypes and ‘yes’ to awareness, health and a positive body image.” The campaign challenges the unrealistic beauty standards, gender stereotypes, and sexual ideals promoted by the media, Hollywood and the fashion, cosmetics, and diet industries.
These unrealistic and often unhealthy beauty standards take their toll on women and girls. In fact, did you know that . . .
- In the U.S. 80% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance
- Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful
- Only 11% of girls globally are comfortable using the word beautiful to describe themselves
- 54% of women around the world agree that when it comes to how they look, they are their own worst beauty critic
- More than 50% of women say they would consider having plastic surgery
Part of this year’s Love Your Body campaign is a video project for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week called “Let’s Talk About It.” The goal of the video campaign is to provide a space for women and girls to talk about their struggles and success with their own body image.
NOW Foundation Education Vice President Erin Matson says the following about the campaign, “The airbrushed body type portrayed as ideal is naturally possessed by less than five percent of women, so if anyone should feel bad about the pervasiveness of eating disorders and low self-esteem in women and girls, it’s advertisers and the media. Let’s talk about why it’s so important to put an end to this madness with the most powerful tool we have: Our own stories.”
Matson herself who overcame anorexia is determined to stop other women and girls from having to go through what she did. Ford models Kate Dillion, Amy Lemons, and Crystal Renn are also joining the campaign and sharing their stories with their own personal videos about their struggles with body image.
“Women and girls spend far too much time and energy worrying about their physical appearances when they have so much more to give to the world,” says Dillon. “I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish as we overcome this unnecessary diversion.”
It’s true. Imagine how much more we could do with our lives if we didn’t spend so much time and energy worrying about how we look (and how much more money we would have if we didn’t buy all the products meant to make us “beautiful”). The world would be a different place, that’s for sure.
Check out how you can be a part of Love Your Body Day on NOW’s website.
Related from Care2:
Fox News Says “Hilarious and Hot” Is a Must For Female Comedians
Maggie Goes On a Diet: Children’s Dieting Book For Girls 6-12 Years Old
American Apparel’s Plus-Sized Contest Sparks Controversy
Photo credit: Photo by SweetOnVeg (Jennifer) used with a Creative Commons license
Read more: beauty ideals, body image, dieting, Love Your Body, negative body image, now!, positive body image, self esteem
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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Yes, let's love out bodies, no matter what shape it is.
not an easy issue to tackle, but as a teenage girl in high school deffinitely one i support!
I always write a poem for my birthday and read it at my party....here's one I wrote....body image, body image, oh my!
Oh fiddle
I’m fat around the middle.
I often wondered when I’d see
women my age looking like me,
“How’d they get that
fat around the middle?”
One morning I had a waist,
the next morning I had a tummy,
then oh fiddle,
I was fat around the middle!
Must be my German genes,
couldn’t be the burritos with beans.
I used to exercise with sex
but that’s all gone at sixty-six!
Soft and sweet, I’m still a treat,
but it’s no riddle,
I’m just fat around the middle.
Becky Young
It is always sad for me to hear how people do such horrible things to themselves in order to work in the modeling industry. That is why commercial modeling is so wonderful. The most successful ones are the models who have the ability to look like every day people.
Most of the people attending my workshops are women. They are normally between the ages of 25-50. They know that this is age where the majority of commercial models are cast.
I hope people can learn to understand who they are, and use their strengths, instead of trying to fit into the crazy concepts of the "perfect" look.
Easier said than done---replacing those negaive thoughts and images with belief and self worth.
I do love my body, my body is awesome!
I beleive when it comes to models the agencies are to blame for how skinny these girls are. These poor girls barely eat to stay in the weight range these agencies want and the also get addicted to cocaine to keep their weight down. I wouldn't want my daughter to get involved in it until they change the way they look at the size requirements.
is this only for boring, frumpy, plain and or fat women? it's hard to have the confidence when your body is messed up from scoliosis. unless only your face is gorgious then it won't matter? but shopping can prove difficult. not mild case.
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