Think About It

Your body lets you do so many things, from breathing to getting your 'groove on' on the dance floor. Think about your body in terms of what it enables you to do, rather than what you wish it were like. Today take some time to embrace yourself, take some time to nurture it and accept it, to love it. Lavish some attention on it!!

Deception, Manipulation and Women

It’s heartbreaking to see young women convinced there’s something repulsive about their own bodies

In our society, adult female bodies are treated like mistakes that continually need correcting. It’s too small, it’s too hairy, it’s the wrong shape, it’s the wrong colour. We’re seen to be badly designed somehow, needing extra stuff to make them okay. Being unhappy about your body is often presented as one of the essential personality traits of women, IF we believe what society tells us!!! We just instinctively hate our bodies, and, we are brought up to believe that’s normal.

Take Bridget Jones and her ilk. Women who are obsessed with how they look, the size of their butt, and convinced they are the wrong shape are an absolute staple of women’s fiction, and Bridget is hailed as representing ‘everywoman’. Of course Bridget is humorous, and exaggerates the obsessiveness to comic effect; but the fact is there is so much truth to it.

It’s almost seen as an essential part of the female experience. If I was to say, if asked, that I’m completely happy with my body and wouldn’t want to change it, I’d be viewed as arrogant. Who does she think she is? What’s the question female celebrities are usually asked in interviews? ‘If you could change any part of your body, what would it be?’ If you think there’s something wrong with your body, change it. If your lips aren’t the right shape, fake it. If your hair is the wrong colour, dye it. If your skin isn’t matte enough or glossy enough or good enough, change it. If your eyelashes are too thin, change it. If your body isn’t good enough, get something done.

Girls who’ve been brought up on the idea that our bodies can be altered at a whim by make-up and everything else, think of cosmetic surgery as the next logical step. I’m not saying that if you wear lipstick you will eventually have a boob job. Of course not!

I’m aware I may sound really radical here, on the one hand I refute the concept that there is an unchangeable standard of beauty and it’s only natural and right that women should try to attain it. But on the other, I’m not suggesting there is anything wrong with having a fashionable hair cut, being interested in trendy clothes, or being bright and colourful. And I can’t deny the fact that makeovers are just - well - fun! Nevertheless, I think that women are seen, far more than men, as changeable creatures.

Nothing demonstrates more clearly that women are seen as changeable creatures than the makeover. The traditional before and after shots; the gasps when the ‘new’ woman is brought out ‘you look amamzing!’, the fact of how completely different they look surely says something about how femininity is a construction. Ever noticed that men who have makeovers don’t look as different as the women tend to do? Does this mean that women are essentially, inherently, blank canvases to be filled in and altered by fashion stylists, make-up artists - or plastic surgeons? I’d like to think not!

There are many, many examples of the makeover factor, and of women being encouraged to change themselves to fit in with what other people think they should be. The coolest character gets made over and is instantly more acceptable and attractive.

At the end of the film The Breakfast Club, the coolest female character who dresses in black, sulks and peers out from under her duffle coat through thick black eyeliner, gets made over and is instantly more attractive and acceptable to the other characters. She’s forced into white, preppy clothes - and gets to wear make-up, which instantly makes her look far better, of course, and allows her to get the guy. In Grease, Sandy only gets to be popular when she rejects her uncool look and fakes it as a raunchy leather-clad wild-child. How many times have we seen that tired plot line?

Many times, in stories like Cinderella and My Fair Lady, updated for modern times by Miss Congeniality, in which Sandra Bullock plays an ‘unladylike’ FBI agent who gets to work undercover as a beauty queen. The trailers showed a male colleague shouting at her ‘Don’t worry - no-one thinks of ya that way.’ Presumably, when she emerges swaying in a tight pink dress, hair gleaming, they darn well do.

So, breast surgery is just a type of makeover for girls who want to ‘look normal’. Nevertheless, some women have claimed that getting a boob job is a feminist act. All the women who get breast enlargements will claim they are doing for themselves, not for anyone else, they’re doing it to empower themselves. Of course they are doing it for themselves. Who else would they be doing it for? But the fact is, they’re doing it so they’ll be happy with their own body, in a breast obsessed society. I find it hard to believe that if they lived in a remote society and had never heard of cosmetic surgery, they’d somehow have an inherent, deep-seated unhappiness with the size of their breasts and want to make them bigger!

What do I think is behind the plastic surgery, weight loss, and fashion industries? I think it is the underlying expectation that women hate their bodies, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. An expectation created to manipulate and use women for their greedy monetary gains and nothing else! Is it really any wonder!?!? The idea that women are changeable, able to make ourselves over in a few hours, or by a team of make-up artists and hair-stylists, or indeed, by a few days spent having plastic surgery, add that to a culture obsessed with a part of the female body - the breast at the moment, there you have it.

What This Blog IS About

This blog is about helping women to be true to themselves. To like themselves as they are, where they are. But that does not mean they have to stay as they are. It's about liking yourself.

We all have lumps and bumps, but guess what? That is normal. What is abnormal is to loathe your body because of the natural curvy shape which is womanly.

Our blog is about making healthy choices. If you want to lose weight then change your lifestyle do NOT diet, they do NOT work.

In order to change your lifestyle you have to decide what suits you best. It is essential that you eat more healthily, while not depriving yourself of the foods you love. Simply eat less of them.

It also means choosing an exercise regime that works for you. It is no good deciding to 'work out' if you hate excercise, you wont stick to it. Remember you have to do this for the rest of your life.

The biggest mistake made is when women go on diets, do the excercise and once they have achieved their 'ideal weight' they then then stop the diet and stop the excercise. This is a recipe for disaster. You will simply regain all the weight you have lost if not more.

That is why making a lifestyle change is crucial, dont go for the quick 'fix it' ideaology.

Begin by liking who you are. If you despise your body then you will continue to despise your body even after you have lost the weight. You will always perceive yourself as 'fat', even though your figure is perfectly normal.

Our message is simple. Like who you are. Embrace life, Live it, Love it. BE YOU, beautiful, vibrant and unique.

In the above picture. Do YOU think these women are too ugly and too fat to be happy?

I'll Do Anything To Get Them - Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery

We live in an image-obsessed, celebrity-driven culture.The enormous popularity of reality TV shows such as "Extreme Makeover," "The Swan" and MTV's "I Want a Famous Face," as well as an explosion of Web sites that extol the virtues of cosmetic medicine, has fueled the desire of adolescent girls to alter their bodies permanently, and they are finding more surgeons willing to oblige.

The rising number of teenage girls who are given the gift of knowing that their bodies aren't good enough, I’m referring to plastic surgery is disturbing. It’s really as if we are validating to our kids that something is wrong with their bodies and it’s natural to be unhappy about it. It’s as if getting bigger breasts or whatever procedure they undergo is going to make them more confident and get rid of their “hang-ups.” Some girls actually believe that they need big breasts to be successful in life and will name celebs like Pamela Anderson as proof to their claims. !?!? Who is feeding this to our girls?

These children certainly have body image issues but I believe the parents have even more issues to deal with! What parent in their right thinking mind would allow their fifteen year old daughter to have breast implants?!?! She is still developing and so what if she does not have big breasts? Are the size of her breasts the be all and end all of who and what she is and will become?

What I find so very disturbing is that parents are now giving their teens plastic surgery as sweet sixteen gifts, graduation gifts and as incentives to get good grades! Gone are the days of wanting to do well at school to move on in life, now doing good in school is seen as a means to get their parents to pay for them to have breast implants, nose jobs and liposuction!

Its kind of hard to convince your daughter otherwise when her mom, grandmother and aunts all have breast implants. Girls so want implants that they are taking loans to have these implants. Body image trumps safety. These girls and their parents don’t seem phased by the possible side effects, what some think are going to give them a lifetime of pleasure can turn into a lifetime of pain. Certain autoimmune disorders and neurological diseases can occur if the implants rupture.

These teens pushing for plastic surgery are not motivated by their health. They want to look like the women they see onscreen and in the magazines- or at least “look like everyone else.” We cannot deny that the media has a part to play in this but it’s also a physical comparison to others. Our society places very high premiums on “physical attractiveness” and rewards those who are thin, youthful and handsome. We also live in a culture that emphasizes competition and legitimizes “self-improvement” as a way to gain a competitive edge.

Do we realize that fashion is geared toward fueling and funding the weight loss industry and the cosmetic surgeons? Clothing is cut to make you feel that you either need to lose something to look good in it or enhance something for it to fit properly. All we see are flaws because that’s what they want us to see, we see flaws and we are willing to do just about anything to get rid of them.

So what can we do to save our girls? Are we going to give in and in essence validate that their bodies were made with flaws to be fixed and when fixed you are the “perfect woman”? What are your thoughts???

Self Esteem Begins with YOU!

"It's really essential that you love yourself because if you cant love yourself its really hard to accept love from other people."

This is a quote from one of the young women in the YouTube video. What she says is absolutely true, in fact what they all say is true. If you despise yourself and the way you look it will colour everything that you do and all whom you meet. Please watch it and realise that YOU are beautiful as you are.