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The Choose Love Project: Inspiring Words of Wisdom to Love Ourselves

January 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
GillianLettertoSelf

A couple weeks ago, on a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles I picked up Southwest Airlines’ inflight magazine, Spirit, and was moved by what I found inside. Several celebrities and entertainers published letters filled with wishes, knowledge, comfort, and advice to their younger selves. Seth Green, Rita Rudner and Bill T. Jones all wrote letters encouraging faith and love. It was Gillian Anderson’s letter to her younger self that moved me the most. For hers was not only a call to action for herself, but a call to us all. She boldly mandates what might not seem like an obvious, or comfortable, path in the journey to find love for our bodies and selves. Get over yourself, and into the world.

I don’t know for sure, but this firm stand for self-love seemed to be inspired by The Choose Love Project. The Choose Love Project is the brain child of Rachel Cole, a life coach who helps women answer the question, “What are you truly hungry for?”. Rachel approached online colleague Lori Race, also a life coach, in May of 2011 with the idea of working on a body love project based on the “It Gets Better” campaign, a video campaign geared toward helping LGBT youth understand that life gets better after high school. The idea behind The Choose Love Project is to send the message to women, young and old, that at any age, body shape or size that they can indeed make the choice to love themselves and their bodies. Rachel and Lori both felt it would be extremely powerful to send the Choose Love message to women through a collection of letters written by individuals who had struggled with body image conflict and dysfunctional relationships with food and exercise in the past and who had come to choose love along their journey instead.

Each contributor was asked to write a letter to themselves at an age at which they felt like they were at a crossroads of sorts between choosing to love themselves or choosing conflict with their bodies. The letters were to include the wisdom of both what it looks and feels like to be on the other side of the body struggle along with words on how they got there. Each woman’s journey and story of a life lived, at one point, through the lens of a destructive negative body image is completely unique and as a result, there is wisdom to be gleaned for every single soul who comes across this project. Living in an age where we are constantly bombarded with images that tell us our appearance is flawed and requires tampering with, these women are here to say that it feels like the purest of freedoms and joy to be able to step into your own power and make the choice to love yourself just as you are.  Rachel and Lori are looking to inspire a global explosion of woman who are ready to make that choice, to stand up in the face of the “ideal” of stick thin models, tooth whitened, spray tanned celebrities and the billion dollar weight loss and plastic surgery industries and say, “I Choose Love”.

They would love you to join them.

A collection of 39 incredibly compelling and resonate stories of true beauty and healing, it is worth checking it out.

To be inspired, download the project, watch many of the contributor’s accompanying videos, or find out how to become a part of The Choose Love Project go to http://www.thechooseloveproject.com .

 

 

 

 

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Five Surprising Ways to Love Your Body This Halloween

October 18, 2011 By 5 Comments
Image by Kyla Hollis

By Ashley-Michelle Papon

When I was a kid, before I understood that patriarchy wasn’t a particular type of game hen, Halloween was my favorite holiday. I spent weeks dreaming about my costume. In hindsight, this was a rather amusing waste of my time because I dressed up as a ballerina for six years straight. It’s worth mentioning, of course, that growing up in Kansas, I spent many Halloweens lacing my toe shoes over my snow pants as a way to stem off the cold while we trekked from door to door.

Maybe it was this early flirtation with clothing conservatism that kept me from seeing the value in the trend of Halloween costumes in recent years. In fact, I often feel like Lindsay Lohan’s character from “Mean Girls,” trying to dream up the most awesomely intricate character charade, only to be greeted by fellow femmes hanging out in lingerie and animal ear headbands.

With this kind of backdrop, is it any wonder Halloween seems to kick off the season of shame and insecurity? As women, we’re constantly bombarded with messages that we need to be all sex, all the time, something that has created a wide range of lasting impacts in our society from eating disorders to self-esteem issues. Culturally, women are taught that their overall sexiness defines their worth and identity. Even a night which has come to commercially bill itself as the one in which we can be anybody else offers only a conditional escape for women: they can be whomever they want to be, provided that person is still sexy.

This year, Halloween we get a much-needed make over in the self-esteem department from the Love Your Body Day campaign on October 19. Since 1998, the Love Your Body Day, an awareness effort by the National Organization of Women, has sought to get a dialogue going to speak out against advertisements and images of women that are harmful, disrespectful, and demeaning. These same words seem to be pretty appropriate descriptors for the Officer McNasty get-ups and sexualized storybook characters (I really don’t recall Dorothy wearing thigh highs, and remember, I’m from Kansas, so I’m totally an expert on all things “Wizard of Oz”).

Of course, swearing off the makeshift black cat backup costume is only a small step towards living the dream of body acceptance. Here are five surprising ways to use this fright night to celebrate and accept yourself—the scariest possible concept to companies that bank on people always hating what they see in the mirror.

1. Stage a costume contest that doesn’t include a category for the Sexiest Costume. Instead, honor the Most Comfortable Costume or Best Looking Costume That Escaped Conditioning for What Women Should Look Like but Really Don’t Because It’s Unhealthy. Similarly, good luck fitting that title on a plaque.

2. Listen to songs that preach loving every inch of yourself, regardless of what the magazines say. When you’re creating your party shuffle, make sure to sandwich songs like Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and India.Arie’s “Video” between Halloween hits “Monster Mash” and “Thriller.” These tender tunes (and others) are a perfect anthem of acceptance.

3. Make a pinata based on snappy advertising lingo. Take a stack of magazines and pull out the pages that offer up advertisements promoting weight loss or exploiting women to sell a product. Use these strips of magazines to create your own Halloween pinata, because what will be most satisfying than smashing words like “THE NEW AND IMPROVED SKINNIER YOU” to pieces?

4. Bob for buzz words. This activist twist on the old favorite has partygoers attempting to remove apples from tubs of water, but each apple is carved with charged, body-shaming language like “THINspiration” or “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” Whoever collects the most gets to take the apples home to make into a pie of body-praising affirmative goodness.

5. Skip the usual monster and spooky fare to create a more positive pumpkin carving experience. Using medium to large-sized pumpkins, select a word that sums up loving your body. Decorate one side of the pumpkin around this word, carving and bedazzling it. Make it yours! On the other side, illuminate why this word applies to you.

Halloween is usually a holiday where we get to celebrate being someone, anyone else, for another day. This year, let’s focus on celebrating the opportunity to be ourselves.

This post is part of the 2011 Love Your Body Day Blog Carnival.

In Hollywood, Love Your Body Day is celebrated on Sunday October 23rd and Adios Barbie will be there! Co-founder/co-editor Pia Guerrero is leading a panel called “Beyond Beauty and Body Image” that’s not to be missed. For more information, visit NOW Hollywood’s website here.

Related Content:

Halloween is Frightening When it Sexualizes and Stereotypes

7 Ways to Love Your Body (Through Thick and Thin)

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Mirror-Less Schooling: A Positive Initiative?

October 11, 2011 By 7 Comments
Girl Applies Makeup

By Sharon Haywood

Last month, a UK high school attracted media attention when its administration chose to remove all mirrors from its bathrooms. Shelley College in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire put the policy in place only a few weeks into the new school year to enforce the no-makeup rule for students between the ages of 14 and 16. The radical move also aims to minimize the social time students spend in the bathroom, an initiative that has been met with parental support. I know my parents would have stood behind mirror-less schooling.

When I was 16, I spent an awful lot of time looking at myself. My hair and makeup demanded time. (Think Madonna’s Big Teased hair, circa early 1980s coupled with an obsession with the color purple—painted heavy-handedly on my eyelids and lips.) I went to a Catholic high school so a uniform was a must, leaving hair and makeup as the primary vehicles to visually explore and express my sense of style, my sense of me. The importance of how I looked was magnified as I was also suffering from an eating disorder. When reading about Shelley College’s decision, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had lived without mirrors during school hours, would it have affected the way I viewed myself? Would it have created an alternative culture among my schoolmates where accomplishments overshadowed looks? Would I have valued my intelligence, my sensitivity, and my gifts over my appearance instead of the other way around? Potentially.

When this story broke last month, Margaret Hartmann of Jezebel straddled both sides of the argument:

“Teenagers have enough trouble accepting their looks and it seems a bit cruel to take away something that could make them feel a bit more comfortable…. On the other hand, maybe it’s a good time for girls to learn that they look fine even when their faces aren’t coated in makeup, or as 14-year-old student Rebecca Mannifield put it, ‘nobody is no prettier or uglier, we all just look normal.’”

Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky took a firm stand by stating she could support the makeup ban but she thought removing bathroom mirrors was “harsh.” Here at Adios Barbie we couldn’t think of a more appropriate person to weigh in on the issue than Kjerstin Gruys, the PhD student who has vowed to live mirror-free for a full year.

We featured her story and the first 100 days of her self-imposed experiment this past July. Since then she successfully navigated the adventure of getting married without peeking at her reflection (with the exception of one fantastic photo she has allowed herself to see and share with readers). Gruys supports mirror-less schooling and I agree with her. Like myself, she also suffered from an eating disorder while in high school. Neither one of us believe a mirror-free secondary education would cure an eating disorder but we both recognize the potential preventative and positive effects it could trigger.

Here is Gruys’ straight-shooting stance in her own words:

Day 181: Why Taking Mirrors Out of Schools is FABULOUS!

By Kjerstin Gruys

1) Removing mirrors sends a clear message to girls that their bodies should be used for doing things (hugs! sports! thinking!), not just for being looked at. When is the last time somebody told YOU this message so blatantly?  Did anybody tell you this as a young teen? Okay, how about this: when was the last time you saw any form of popular media share this message, in any way or form? Bottom line: this school is trying to fight the good fight. They (and we!) are up against a powerful toxic cultural environment. Yes, I realize that removing mirrors doesn’t get rid of this larger environment, but every little bit helps. Let’s be supportive of positive change.

2) Some people have suggested that this ban prevents creative expression. I call bullshit. I agree wholeheartedly that makeup and fashion can be a form of self-expression. I enjoy these things in my own life, though not without angst and expense. That said, let’s not forget that there’s a powerful beauty industry that wants us to believe that we’re “expressing ourselves” when we buy their products and then apply them exactly as directed by magazines. This industry benefits even more when we decide we can’t be “ourselves” without these products. Here’s a crazy idea: without makeup, without mirrors, and because of the strict dress code, these poor, poor girls will be forced to express themselves through things like: creative writing, drama class, music class, journaling, or by (gasp!) just being themselves.  

3) Finally: vanity makes us dumber. Don’t believe me? Check out the research for yourself. Numerous psychological studies find that worrying about appearance (called “self-objectifying” in the literature) leads to poorer performance on all sorts of mental tasks, from math tests to word recall, and even something wacky-cool called the Stroop Test. Given this, if removing mirrors helps reduce the mental energy that students had been putting toward their looks, that mental energy can now be put toward helping them be more successful learners. Since giving up mirrors, I can’t claim to have become any smarter, per say, but I’m definitely better able to focus.  

In closing, I admit that I am biased about this topic. But… I’m not biased because I’m avoiding mirrors; I’m biased because I had an eating disorder when I was in high school. I’d never suggest that getting rid of mirrors could ever cure a full-blown eating disorder. But, creating a daily environment in which young women are valued for their minds and spirits instead of their looks just might help prevent one.  

Every little bit helps.

Cross-posted with permission.

Related Content:

100 Days Without Mirrors

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For Spirit Junkie Gabrielle Bernstein, Body Acceptance is Essential for Self-Love

September 13, 2011 By 2 Comments
Spirit Junkie cover

By Valerie Kusler

“For twenty years, I kept a journal. I wrote about heartbreak, anxiety, and eating disorders. I wrote about trying to quit drugs while high on drugs. Pages and pages are filled with self-loathing and self-doubt. My journal was my only outlet from the turmoil and deep-rooted pain I felt every day. I’d release my fears onto the page and get honest about my sadness as I scribbled over my tears.”

This passage by Gabrielle Bernstein rings true for probably too many of us who floundered and wavered through our teens and early twenties and were lucky enough to live to tell about it. But also like many of us, Gabrielle pushed through the dark times and has since cultivated a sense of calm, peace, and happiness in her life. This week, Random House publishes her second book, titled SPIRIT JUNKIE: A Radical Road to Discovering Self-Love and Miracles.

Before Gabrielle “overcame fear and changed her perceptions” (guided by the popular spiritual book, A Course in Miracles), she was a New York City PR maven by day, Sex and the City party girl by night.

“By the time I was 23 or 24, that world was no longer glossy anymore. I was really, really disenchanted with the nightlife scene in New York. I had spent years looking for happiness ‘out there’ – in a pair of shoes, a boyfriend, getting past the velvet rope at some fancy nightclub. I learned the hard way that none of that worked. By the time I turned 25, I hit a huge bottom and had to surrender to the fact that true happiness had to come from within. This was when I shut down my outward search, turned inward and surrendered to a life as a full-on Spirit Junkie.”

Although I agree with the main premise of Gabrielle’s message, I’m not sure how much I love the “spirit junkie” moniker. Of course, it’s coming from an ex-PR gal, so the brazen title was certainly a calculated choice. With the title and the language she uses in the book, Gabrielle attempts to make spirituality hip to the younger generation. “My students are… a new generation of seekers looking for true happiness… Therefore, I must speak to them in a language they’ll dig. And most importantly a language that is authentic to me. This new spiritual lexicon uses words like ~ing to refer to inner guidance and Spirit Junkie to refer to oneself as a spiritual person. Making this work hip and relevant is a huge part of the gig.” Well, to each her own. Being a PR gal myself, I personally cringe at buzzwords, and that’s what it feels like to me. Then again, I don’t think I’m truly a marketer at heart, so what do I know?

Of course, we at Adios Barbie wanted to understand how Gabrielle felt about body acceptance relative to self-love and self-acceptance. “Body image and self-acceptance go hand in hand. When we take the necessary steps to reconnect with our self-love then our body image issues begin to subside. This miraculous shift occurs when our inner love shines so bright that it reflects outward.”

Gabrielle believes that when you find your path to self-love, self-care comes easy. “I had a beautiful experience of this,” she shares. “Three years into my self-reflective practice of overcoming addictions (to food, love, drugs – you name it), I began to respect my body more and more. I was at a party with some friends and they were passing around cupcakes. I took one bite out of my cupcake and offered the rest to my friends. They looked at me in awe saying, ‘how can you only take one bite!?’ I responded, ‘I love myself too much to eat the whole thing.’ This was a miracle! I’d spent 26 years binge eating and now my self love shone brighter than my addiction.”

Okay, hold on for a second: eating a whole cupcake means I don’t love my body? I can appreciate this story as an experience that was transformative to Gabrielle given her past with binge eating, but it seems like a potentially dangerous message to put out there to young women who are already being told from every other angle in life, “don’t put those calories in your body!” Yeah, I get it – the body is a temple. Most of the time it feels right to give my body the nutrients it needs and be cognizant of not putting crap in it, but I’ll be honest: sometimes, I find spiritual enlightenment in a brownie. (Judge away!)

It seems as though, in this example, Gabrielle is listening to external cues of what is “healthy” or “unhealthy” rather than trusting her body’s intuition. (At least that’s my interpretation of it.) To me, however, one of the most important connections between spirituality and body acceptance is mindfulness and learning to truly listen to your body. In eating disorder recovery, for example, people have to completely relearn how to listen to their bodies for signals of hunger and fullness. Sadly, many people in Western society (and arguably elsewhere, too) have actually forgotten how to do this, even if they’ve never experienced serious problems with disordered eating. We have become accustomed to listening to our brains – not our bodies – to tell us when it’s time to eat and what we should/shouldn’t eat.  Once you start to become more mindful of the body’s hunger and fullness cues and eat accordingly, though, it can be very liberating and really does feel like a spiritual process. This is called “intuitive eating.” For many of us who have been listening only to our brains for so long, we have to unlearn previous habits before we can give our bodies what they intuitively want/need. And like I said before – sometimes, what my body wants is a brownie, and I will honor that!

Finally, I wanted to know what advice Gabrielle would give to those looking to find peace with themselves when they’re constantly bombarded with messages every day about not being sufficiently thin/beautiful/tall/busty/dark/light, etc. “We have to work very hard to combat the fears and projections of the world. We have years of fear-based illusions to recover from. Therefore we must be willing to do the work to reconnect with true self-love,” she explains. “When we commit to a daily practice of self-love, then we begin to have more faith in love than fear. This faith in love grows stronger one day at a time.” Sounds great, though Gabrielle admits that the path toward true self-love is not easy. “To be clear, it’s a full-time gig. My happiness maintenance comes in the form of daily prayer and meditation – a moment-to-moment practice of forgiveness and a daily inventory of my actions. I have also chosen a life of sobriety, which truly keeps me straight and connected to spirit. I no longer need drugs or alcohol to make me feel good. I just feel it.”

Since SPIRIT JUNKIE just officially hit the market this week, I should be clear that I haven’t yet read it, but was interested in a sneak peek into the woman behind the book. Based on my introduction to Gabrielle and SPIRIT JUNKIE, my bet is that it would be a great book for young adults who are interested in exploring their spiritual side and who also don’t mind (or are even drawn to) the marketing spin and buzzwords. Many people who feel truly at peace with their bodies cite spirituality as a strong force in their journey toward self-acceptance, and I definitely won’t argue with that. But if you’re looking for a great read that’s more directly related to body acceptance and also incorporates spirituality, I would check out Geneen Roth’s books, especially Breaking Free From Emotional Eating or Women, Food and God.

For more info about Gabrielle Bernstein and her latest book, visit Gabrielle’s website or check out SPIRIT JUNKIE on Amazon.

 

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The Naked Clam and Other Preposterous Pubic Hair Problems

July 28, 2011 By 16 Comments
http://flic.kr/p/a6TRRX

By Quinn Davis

Vaginas and vulvas are confusing enough without pubes. Even though we’ve all got them, we end up feeling like we have way more hair down there than we should. It’s easy to see why; in magazines, on MTV, and pretty much everywhere else in the world where it’s PC to show the bikini line, the mass waxification – and Photoshopification – of women has led us all to feel like we’re secret yetis.

There’s a reason we have pubic hair. It protects our genitals, which, considering how much crap they have to go through, it’s a legit job. And yet when the words “products for removing” are typed into Google, the first suggestion good ‘ole Google has for us is “products for removing pubic hair.”

Before I sound like judgemaster flex over here, I need to admit something: I am currently going through the process of laser hair removal. Yes I, feminist that I am, have gone thrice now to have some machine from the future suck at my skin and zap my evolutionarily fit bikini line.

I could give you all the reasons in the world why I’m doing this, but it doesn’t matter, does it? I was damned because I didn’t and now I’m damned because I’m doing. I was ashamed of the tiny red bumps from hell I got from shaving that trotted next to my underwear, and now I’m ashamed that I’m doing something about it to be more aesthetically pleasing and, well, less painful.

I think it must have started on the bus.

“Do you shave your beaver?” a greasy-yet-popular boy asked me on the bus. His friends, two other popular boys, sat a few seats back, giggling and waiting for my answer. I was 14.

As far as I knew, I didn’t even have a beaver, and I wasn’t sure why I would want to shave one in the first place. Aren’t their pelts waterproof?

After a few more questions of similar nature, I got the gist of their query and was completely horrified.

“No! Why, why would I do that?!” I asked. All I got back was a shrug and a look that told me that if I didn’t get rid of all of the hair I had down there, no boy would ever be interested. Besides, the thing probably smells like fish anyway.

At 14 years old, I highly doubt that these boys had ever really seen a vulva – at least not in real life. But you know what they did see? Porn, their moms’ Victoria’s Secret catalogs, and pretty much everything else you can think of that a pubescent boy would use to, um, squeak one out.

So, in ninth grade, it was suddenly my responsibility to become that image for them. I blame them for sexually harassing me, yes, but rape culture and the media’s presentation of a “normal” woman did the rest.

Dear World: 14 years old = child! It’s not cool for women to feel like they have to change the way their genitals look, let alone someone that is two years too young to get her driver’s license.

Later, in college, I had a boyfriend that requested that I shave the whole thing all the time, even though it made my vulva flame up like an irritated puffer fish. His interest in the idea was amazingly creeptastic. Um, isn’t it good enough that I have, y’know, the plumbing you like?

But of course, I didn’t think those things at the time. Instead of trusting my instinct (which would have provided him with a swift kick to the rest of his family tree – besides, evolutionarily fit men want bush!), I bought into the pressure, trying different razors, creams, gels, and waxing. It all hurt, it rarely looked good – and yet I still tried to please him.

Women are told every day that their genitals are disgusting, and the critics range from prepubescent boys and the media to female friends and our own mothers. You’re lucky if you get close enough to even see the thing before we snap our legs shut out of terror that you’ll see a hairport instead of, well, us.

Yes, both men and women should feel free to express their sexual wishes. However, we have to take into account whether or not those wishes would, or even might, be harmful to our significant others. The person I was with never considered the psychological repercussions that such a suggestion – nay, requirement – might have had on me, never mind the physical effects.

He also managed to gloss over the obvious pain I was in after my dupa pulled a Britney circa 2008. I mean really, what would you think was going on if your girlfriend was walking around like a bowlegged man waiting for his balls to drop? Newsflash: It means things are going pretty rough for the muff.

I’ve given up on the naked clam look (and that winner I was dating), choosing to laser my bikini line alone, but I still worry that the hair is too long, too thick, too short. There’s also the shame that surrounds even talking about it. I mean really, how many times have you sat down and had a conversation with another woman about what your pubic hair looks like?

If you have, congratulations. Now shut up and go get a Brazilian.

Related content:

Period Panties & Body Shame: An OCD Journey Through My Underwear Drawer

A Place for Me: Art, Porn, Feminism, and Race

Sex, My Body and Giving it Up

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Scale Back: It’s International No Diet Day!

May 6, 2011 By 15 Comments
SupporterUS

SupporterUS

By Sharon Haywood

“I worked out today so I can treat myself to a piece of cake.”

“When I lose these last ten pounds, I’ll go to the beach.”

“Next week I’ll eat more. I’ve got to fit into that dress this weekend.”

“I can’t eat that! It’ll go straight to my hips.”

Sound familiar? Have you put any thought into the actual quantity of time that you spend thinking about your body and/or food? Pay attention. You might surprise yourself at how much brain space is devoted to calculating calories, self-loathing, and deprivation. Have you ever imagined the relief you would feel if you could abandon the quest to obtain the ideal body? If you haven’t, it’s time to liberate yourself from the no-win game of dieting. May 6th is the perfect day to start.

Since 1992, May 6th has been designated International No Diet Day (INDD). This body-loving campaign is associated with combating eating disorders and honoring the people who have suffered because of one. For this day, we can thank Mary Evans Young, a UK feminist, the founder of the British anti-diet movement, Diet Breakers, and author of the best-selling book, Diet Breaking: Having It All Without Having To Diet (Hodder & Stoughton, 1995).  She started INDD after recovering from anorexia, although the day isn’t just about eating disorders. This movement draws attention to the fact that a great many of us suffer from disordered thinking regarding food and our bodies, not just those afflicted with anorexia and bulimia.

INDD is more about not depriving yourself for a 24-hour period. It beckons you to make peace with your body and your relationship with food. And not only for your mental health. Various studies show that yo-yo dieting has been found to be damaging to one’s physical health in conditions such as congestive heart failure, hypertension, and clogged arteries.[1] What’s more is that investigators have evidence that illustrate a significant correlation between thinness and shorter lives.[2]

As you savor in the freedom and pleasure of eating exactly what you please this May 6th, contemplate that every single day could be diet-free. Easier said than done. Chances are, if you diet you’ve been counting calories for a long time. Abandoning the habit isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s a process – one that leads to greater self-acceptance. Start small. If you need some help, choose one of the following actions to start creating a new diet-free reality:

  • If you regularly weigh yourself, cut down how often you do with the goal of getting rid of your scale completely. Celebrate by throwing a scale-smashing party.
  • Stop asking, “Do I look fat in this?” Make the commitment to stop questioning your friends, your lover, and especially yourself for a full week. Then, at the end of that week, commit for another week and then another, until you have deprogrammed that question out of your awareness.
  • Listen to your body. If it asks for a brownie, don’t give it a carrot. You’ll just end up eating a bag of veggies before succumbing to your true craving. If you deprive yourself, you’ll probably eat not just one brownie, but rather, a plateful. Your body knows what it needs. Learn to respect its innate wisdom.
  • Eliminate one diet food from your grocery list. Anything labeled fat-free and light falls into this category. Choose another low-calorie item to phase out of your food choices until your fridge is filled with exactly what your body wants, not products that you think will get you thinner.
  • Do at least one thing that you’ve been postponing until you have lost weight: Buy that new outfit, sign up for dance class, or ask your crush out on a date.

Although May 6th helps raise awareness regarding eating disorders, use it to take a look at your own body and your relationship with it. Take the INDD pledge and spread the word. The more of us that reject the pressure to diet, the less it will be touted as the norm. And that will translate to a happier – and healthier – society.

[1] Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth (New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2004, 33.

[2] Crespo et al., “The Relationship of Physical Activity and Body Weight with All-Cause Mortality: Results from the Puerto Rico Heart Health Program,” AEP 12, (2002): 543-52.

Related Content:

Girls and Dieting: Then and Now

How Diets Decrease Your Self-Esteem and Not Your Size!

Three Steps to Transform the National Weight Debate

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The Truth About Celebrity Weight Loss

March 22, 2011 By 8 Comments
jennifer-hudson-before-after-photos1

By Claire Mysko

In Hollywood, female stars who shed pounds get glamorous photo shoots and breathless “How She Did It!” cover stories. But not all slimmed-down celebrities are falling over themselves to shout their new stats from the rooftops and share their diet and exercise tips with the world. Their reluctance to do so points to the reality that weight loss is not the unequivocal triumph the diet industry would have us believe it is.

Sure, smaller numbers on the scale get validated and celebrated in our thin-obsessed culture. But all the fanfare can be overwhelming. Suddenly, it’s The Weight Loss that takes center stage. The red carpet pictures are everywhere. The new form-fitting outfits become big news. Never mind that the person wearing them has a lot more to offer the world than a thinner body.

Three stars recently opened up about the complexities of losing weight under the spotlight.

Jennifer Hudson

As a spokesperson for Weight Watchers, Hudson is being paid to talk a big game about her smaller size. Yet she didn’t seem entirely comfortable in this role judging by her Oprah appearance last week. She (and her WW leader) tried to avoid the question of exactly how many pounds she had lost, but relented* after Oprah rejected the idea that a fixation on pounds might not be healthiest approach, insisting that she claim her number as a “victory.” Because we’re all waging war with our bodies, naturally.

“You have never looked better in your life, I think…Do you feel like this is the best you’ve ever been in your life?” Oprah asked giddily [emphasis mine]. Whoa, see how that happened? The weight loss quickly got conflated with who Hudson is on some existential level? Let’s keep in mind that this is a woman who experienced a family tragedy just two years ago, when her mother, brother and nephew were murdered. She’s also a new mother. To say that she’s faced some life-altering emotional upheaval in recent years would be quite the understatement. But back to The Weight Loss! Hudson sheepishly answered that yes, she believes this is the best she’s ever been, although it’s not easy getting used to the body changes. She admitted that sometimes she doesn’t recognize herself and feels conflicted about the attention she’s getting.

“I’m like, ‘Don’t look at me—listen to me. I want you to hear me sing because that’s all that ever really mattered to me,’” she said.

*My episode cut to the breaking news of Mubarak’s speech at the precise moment that Hudson was about to cave and reveal how much weight she’s lost, so I missed the big moment. Nothing like a history-making revolution to put the diet talk in perspective.

Raven Symone

The expectation that any star who loses weight must be just bursting with more confidence than ever before also ignores the fact that said star might have been feeling just fine about herself all along, thank you very much. Raven Symone has been on top of her game since she was a wee little one stealing laughs on The Cosby Show. She went on to star in her own mega-hit show, That’s So Raven!

Symone has built a hugely successful career on her talent, so she’s not thrilled that everyone’s focus has now shifted to her size. The gushing praise of her new look stings like a backhanded compliment. She has never lacked confidence in her appearance. However, it’s clear to her now that others obviously had issues with her weight.

“I thought I looked fabulous before and nobody else did,” she told People magazine. “So, whatever… Actually, now I wear bigger clothes because I don’t like the way people stare at me,” she says. “I liked it before. Now, you’re just looking at me for the wrong reasons. Before, you were actually looking at me for a real reason.”

Crystal Renn

Model Crystal Renn has a different kind of problem. Her recent weight loss has actually sparked some pretty harsh criticism. Renn made a name for herself as the leading plus-size models in America (she used the term “plus-size” to describe herself in the bio included in her book, Hungry: A Model’s Story of Appetite, Ambition, and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves), but it’s pretty hard to find her curves these days.

She first signed with a modeling agency at the age of sixteen and developed anorexia and exercise bulimia with the words of a modeling scout echoing in her head: You could be a supermodel. But you’ll have to lose a little weight. Her disordered eating went on for years, she writes in Hungry: 

“Until one day I realized that if I wanted to live, I could no longer starve. I had to get off the crazy-making treadmill. I had to nourish my body and feed my soul. So I ate and ate. And I returned to my natural size 12—the size of the average American and the size I was when I really made it big.”

Now that she’s considerably slimmer than a size 12, Renn is rejecting categorization altogether. In an interview posted on the Ford Models website, she details her frustration with people’s need to have her conform to the image they want her to be.

“I feel pressure from, more than anyplace…the public, and the media. I think by placing a title on my head, which is “plus size,” and then the picture that these people have created in their mind about what plus size actually is, I basically fail you. I couldn’t possibly live up to that.”

Of course Renn is not likely to admit to feeling any industry pressure in a video produced and distributed by the modeling agency that cuts her checks, but the fact remains that speculating about the motivations for her weight loss won’t get us very far. At the end of the day, Renn is the only one who can shed light on that question. And as she correctly points out, it’s impossible to get the full picture of her physical and emotional health just by sizing her up.

Body changes of any kind can bring up complicated feelings. When what we see in the mirror looks different than it did before (even if those changes move us closer to some “ideal”), accepting a new reflection requires some work–the kind of work that can take a minute. And that just does not compute with the glossy media formula: thinness = instant happiness, no strings attached.

* * *

Claire Mysko is the author of You’re Amazing! A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self and the co-author of Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat? The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby.

Related content:

Margaret Cho on Drop Dead Diva and the Power of Reclaiming Beauty

Three Cheers for Kate!

‘Sex and the City’ and Body Image

Annoying Trend: Celebs Play Dumb About Body Image

Michael Jackson: Another Victim of the Fame Game

Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”: Racist or Revolutionary?

Body image gets animated: What The Simpsons and Family Guy say about beauty

Music’s New Bold and Bountiful

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Discrimination and EDNOS: One Woman’s Story

February 9, 2011 By 29 Comments
© Jakub Cejpek | Dreamstime.com

By Kath at Fat Heffalump

© Jakub Cejpek | Dreamstime.com

© Jakub Cejpek | Dreamstime.com

My name is Kath and I suffer from an eating disorder.

Officially, I have what is known as an Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Diagnosed (EDNOS). This means that I do not have Anorexia or Bulimia, but another set of behaviors that do not have a name. An unspecified eating disorder if you please.

I am mostly in recovery at this point in my life, but I still have issues with food, and behaviors and thoughts regarding my body.

I have an eating disorder and I am fat. Very fat. I am what in medical terms is known as “morbidly obese.” I personally prefer the term Super Fat. It means I get to wear underpants on the outside.

I wasn’t fat until I was about 11 or 12, and then it happened very quickly with puberty. However, my parents had told me that I was fat for as long as I could remember.

On learning that I am fat, most people assume that my eating disorder is binge eating or overeating because I must have been gorging myself to get this way.

Until a few years ago, every single doctor or medical professional I went to diagnosed me with overeating, often without ever asking me what I eat, or if they did and I told them, they didn’t believe me. They said I must be cheating, or lying, or not counting some things that I ate. I simply had to be an overeater to have “let myself get that fat.”

However, my disordered behavior was all about starvation. Restriction. Purging. Punishing. I started when I was about 13 or 14. Some bullies (girls) forced me to stick my fingers down my throat and make myself vomit because, “That’s what fat ugly bitches like you should do.” A year or so before this incident I had actually been shown what to do by another slightly older girl. I worked with her at an after-school job, and she thought she was being kind to the fat kid. She did it and it kept her slim, so she showed me how to stick my fingers down my throat and how to disguise that I was doing it. But it really wasn’t until the bullies forced me and humiliated me that I attempted to actually do it regularly myself.

I got very good at it. Nobody knew. I could vomit almost soundlessly. I could find reasons to disappear to the far corners of our yard to vomit behind trees. I started stealing laxatives from the medicine cabinet. I would take lots of Sudafed (a sinus decongestant that used to contain pseudoephedrine) because it made me manic and I could go through bursts of exercise. I learnt to “chew and spit” when I was eating in company. Sometimes I would stop for a while, particularly if I had spent time away from home and school where the pressure was always on.

However, I stayed fat. In fact, I got fatter.

The behavior continued after I left school. I became an obsessive vegetarian for several years as another way to exert control over my eating. I moved out of home at an early age and the independence afforded me a whole new range of opportunities for restriction, purging, and exercise binges. I lost some considerable weight at 18, only to have it come back with a vengeance some later, despite continuing my eating disorder. In hindsight, the weight loss was an indicator of severe illness.

I struggled with depression and anxiety all this time. I went to doctor after doctor, with both physical and emotional issues, but was repeatedly put on diets, usually without the doctor doing nothing more than looking at me and deciding I was too fat. If they did ask me to keep food/exercise diaries I would usually lie on them and say I was eating more and exercising less than I usually did. Even then, they didn’t believe me. If I told the truth they didn’t believe me either.

Remember, I was fat. I *must* have been overeating.

For 20 years, I kept presenting doctors with the same physical issues: An irregular menstrual cycle that manifested itself as constant bleeding, amenorrhea (absence of menstrual cycle), or dysmenorrhea (pain during menstrual cycle). In my early 30s, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS); I discovered I had been showing symptoms and characteristics of it since I was 12. I was told yet again that the way to “cure” PCOS is to lose weight.

By the time I was 33, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I had been put on Duramine, an amphetamine-based appetite suppressant, which made me cycle between mania and depression, and stopped me from sleeping or consuming anything, including water for days at a time. I was exercising between six and eight hours per day. I had lost over 50lbs (about 25kg) and dropped five dress sizes. I was desperately unhappy and my physical health was failing. I was not coping at work and it was suggested that I should see the counseling service through the employee assistance program. I saw a few different psychologists—they all focused on my weight. Eventually, out of desperation I begged one of them to help me, told him of my suicidal thoughts and explained my obsession with diet and exercising. His response was to suggest that I add another half hour to the six to eight hours I told him I was already doing, “To get you over the plateau.”

That night, I attempted suicide, only to be halted by a dear friend contacting me because he was worried.

On the recommendation of another friend, I went back to a doctor I had liked (even though she had previously suggested weight loss), and told her how I was feeling. Thankfully, she listened and recognized I needed further help. She helped me get the medical support I needed, both physically and mentally. She referred me to a psychologist whom I clicked with almost immediately. Through cognitive behavioral therapy, I began to work on my self-esteem and self-worth. In 2008, I decided I was not going to diet anymore. Soon after I found the Fat Acceptance movement, and discovered that I could be healthy, and that I know my own body if I only take the time to listen to it.

My GP, psychologist, and I work together on my physical and mental health. They both accept that I know my own body better than anyone else, and trust that I will tell them if I feel something is not right. I trust them to guide me through any medical issues that arise with the best professional advice. I have an agreement with them that they will not focus on my weight, but instead on my health, and I have introduced them to a Health at Every Size method.

It is important to me to talk about having an eating disorder as a fat person. Where thin or normal weight patients often get sympathy and understanding, and even simple recognition of their disorders, fat patients are ignored, considered lying or “cheating” somehow. So often disordered behavior is sanctioned in fat people simply because there is a belief that fat people must have got that way through inactivity and gluttony.

How many people have to suffer, or even die, because of the belief that no matter what the cost, thinner is always healthier?

Related content:

EDNOS: The Eating Disorder You Haven’t Heard Of

Expressing Disorder: Art Therapies for Eating Disorder Treatment

Celebrating Eating Disorder Recovery: Inaugural NEDA Walk in Texas

Study: Black Girls 50% More Likely to be Bulimic than Whites

Multicultural Women & Body Image

You Don’t Have to Have an Eating Disorder to be Image Obsessed

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Self-Esteem Boosting Tips for Teens

January 27, 2011 By 7 Comments
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As Adios Barbie continues to evolve, we have decided to expand our site to include voices of various ages and it starts with today’s post. We would like to introduce you to Becca Wertheim, the 19-year-old author of Live High on Life for Teens, which she wrote during her junior year of high school at 16 years of age. Currently, she lives in North Carolina, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains and attends UNC-Asheville, where is studying to become a school teacher. Aside from teaching, she has big dreams for the future. She plans on speaking at events and conferences to empower more teens, expanding her organization, and writing more books. The young author hopes to impact teens around the world by sharing simple ways to live a life full of happiness.

* * *

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By Becca Wertheim

Feeling confident and beautiful 100% of the time is far from easy. Words, actions, and opinions of others constantly contribute to the way we shape our personal perspective of our appearance. Friends, family, peers, and people in the media may make us feel as though we have to look a certain way or strive to have a certain body. But when it really comes down to it, we’re the ones who ultimately determine how we feel about ourselves. We can’t let others negatively impact our self-esteem! You may be thinking, “Wow, that’s so much easier said than done.” I totally agree. It’s not always easy to be at peace with our body and appearance, but there are several things we can do to make it a little bit easier. Here are three ways to boost your self-esteem and happiness.

 

1. Don’t compare yourself to others!

Every single day, we are bombarded with images, videos, advertisements, and messages that try to define and describe the “perfect” look. We live in a society where appearance is a top priority for many, and sometimes it’s easy to get sucked into the whole “looks are everything” mentality. As if having high self-esteem isn’t hard enough, the media makes it even harder for us to feel good about our bodies. Photo editing and computer alterations make it pretty simple for the media to create whatever body type and image they’d like. In addition to being tempted to compare ourselves to our peers, friends, and family, it’s also really tempting to compare ourselves to people in the media. We may think, “OMG, she’s so much prettier than me” or “I really wish I looked like her!” But if we repeatedly wish to change the way we look, we lose touch with who we truly are and end up harming the relationship we have with ourselves.

When we stop comparing our appearance to others, we come to love and appreciate all the things that make each and every one of us uniquely beautiful. One quote I really like is, “Be yourself; who else is better qualified?” Not only does this quote apply to personality and character, but it applies to body image as well. No one will ever look exactly like you. You’re beautiful in your own way and it’s important to embrace the things that make you unique! So the next time you catch yourself comparing your body or appearance to someone else, stop and think, “Wow she’s pretty. But I’m pretty too! I’m not comparable. I’m uniquely beautiful in my own way.”

2. Surround yourself with people who raise your self-esteem!

I have a friend who used to date a guy who repeatedly told her that she was ugly. When she first told me about the things he’d said to her, I was so angry! I couldn’t believe that a boyfriend would ever say those things to his girlfriend, and the saddest part was that she actually began to believe him. She is such a beautiful person, inside and out, but she was surrounded by someone who made her feel otherwise, and eventually, those cruel words started going to her head and her self-esteem dropped. She was spending all her time with someone who was constantly putting her down, and in turn, she began putting herself down, too.

They aren’t dating anymore, but I’ll never forget how much his words impacted and shaped the way she viewed her body and herself. When we hang around people like that — people who make negative comments, or say hurtful things – we’re hurting ourselves. Remember, people who truly care about us are going to want to lift us higher and make us feel better about ourselves. So, surround yourself with positive people.

If you have someone in your life that brings you down, talk to them and tell them how you feel. Let them know that you don’t appreciate being around their negative comments and constant put-downs. If it’s not someone that you feel comfortable talking to, or if you do talk to them and things don’t seem to get better, then start spending time with others who actually lift you up, remind you that you’re beautiful, and contribute to your positive self-esteem. Always remember that you should never settle for less. You deserve the best! Block out negativity. Any time someone says or does something that brings you down, ignore it. You are the one who ultimately decides how you feel about your body – not anybody else! Remember that you deserve to live a life full of confidence and happiness, surrounded by people who make you feel good about being you!

3. Go beyond just thinking that you’re beautiful … believe it!

Being able to tell yourself “I’m beautiful” or “I’m happy with my body” is such a positive thing. When you’re able to make confident, positive statements like that, it’s something to be proud of. But just saying them to yourself isn’t always enough – it’s important to actually believe them. When you believe that you’re beautiful, negative thoughts have a difficult time of sneaking into your head. Believing is so much more powerful than simply thinking. So how can you do that? How can you truly believe that you’re amazing just by being you?

Well, it’s not always easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It may take time, but eventually you’ll become a believer in your own beauty. Every single time you look in the mirror or think about the way you look, say to yourself, “I’m beautiful. I am unique and I’m happy with who I am. I am beautiful in my own way. And I believe that.”

Because you are.

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For more tips on how to truly love yourself and raise your self-esteem, check out Becca’s new book, Live High on Life for Teens. To learn more about her mission behind inspiring others, visit www.livehighonlife.com

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3 Ways to Be the Reason for the Season

December 24, 2010 By 1 Comment
jumpforjoy

jumpforjoy

By Pia Guerrero

Well it’s that time of the year. The holidays are here and whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, or festivus for the rest of us it can be exhausting. Without notice, running around turns your festive feelings into a frumpy Scrooge. With to-do lists piling up, the season of giving morphs into the season of, “I can’t give anymore”.

Life happens. And sometimes when it gets hectic we forget what it’s really all about. So to help you love yourself, your life and your loved ones during this time we thought we set you up with some:

JOY

“There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.” -  Kahlil Gibran

Joy is the most powerful experience. I find when I am truly cheerful, the people around me magically hop on my happy horse. And that is the real gift–looking into the eyes of others that I have made smile just by being joyful myself. It’s infectious! You don’t have to bounce off the walls to be joyful. You can be it simply by getting present to it. What are some things that really make you feel happy? Is it your child’s laugh, your dog’s snore, or your extended family gathered around a meal? What do you feel when you think of these things? I bet it’s joy. In the end all anyone really wants for you is happiness. Be generous with yourself, spread your wealth, and be joy to the world!

PEACE

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

By being peaceful we create peace in our lives. Notice when you’re feeling caught up in the moments around you. Are you adding to the chaos by your reactions? Are you trying to fix or change something that probably would be fine if left alone? There is a saying, “In acceptance there is peace”. By accepting yourself, others, and situations as they are, you become calm. Have you ever seen a Zen monk get overwhelmed and frazzled? You don’t have to live in a monastery to feel peaceful, you just have to stop, accept, and breathe. Try it, I promise you’ll like it and others will be more peaceful because of it.

GRATITUDE

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things, which he has not, but rejoices for those, which he has.  ~Epictetus

Our friends at Tiny Buddha recently shared that,

Everyone likes to be appreciated, yet research shows we are collectively quicker to place blame than offer praise. Perhaps it’s because we’re wired to seek solutions to problems, which means we need to recognize things that aren’t working.

Gratitude at times can take some effort. Especially when you are at the airport in line to receive an invasive body search on our way to celebrate the holidays with loved ones. But even in the worst of times, gratitude is something that we can easily conjure up. I had a friend who before she took on the town and rocked the nite away would say, “I’m going to go put my fierce on”. Like a coat, we can put on any kind of attitude we choose.  After all, gratitude is the best attitude especially when shared with others.

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