No Wonder We're All Neurotic About Our Looks

Take a look at this video about how the advertising agencies "beautify" women for ads & billboards.

The model in this film said she didn't even recognize herself in the finished product. Little wonder! It looks nothing like her, or any flesh & blood woman out there. We read magazines or see billboards & actually believe these models are real people, but they are a computer simulation, a creation of a warped & twisted mind. Then we get depressed when we don't measure up!

It's no surprise that there is an estimated 8% of women in the USA who suffer from anorexia nervous or bulimia, & 27% of Ontario girls aged 12-18 are reported to be engaged in severely problematic food & weight behaviour. {Source: NEDIC homepage}. How many people do you know that are "watching their weight" that don't need to? How many women have you heard openly consider a trip to a plastic surgeon? I know several & I just want to shake them whenever they talk about losing a couple pounds or worrying about a little fat deposit on their thighs or laugh lines near their eyes.

These freakin' celebrities that we all look up to & devour tidbits about do nothing to help the mindset of the public at large {no pun intended}. According to the Sympatico Entertainment News page:

Jennifer Garner refused to appear in a bikini in her new film Catch and
Release because she was still shedding some of the baby weight she gained
from being pregnant with her daughter Violet, who was born December 2005. "I
can't get ready for a bikini that quickly; take it out," she told the
filmmakers.

In the January issue of Elle, Jen said that she was in the "worst shape ever," having ballooned to a--gasp!--size 8. "My trainer just shakes her head and says, 'This is a disaster'," she told the magazine. Size eights everywhere would like to offer their sympathy. Their sympathetic slaps across the face.

I can't imagine anyone being aghast at 'ballooning' up to a size 8, unless perhaps they were 4 feet tall.

Giselle Bundchen also had some equally intellectual comments to make:

"I never suffered from this problem (anorexia) because I had a very strong
family base. Parents are responsible, not the fashion industry," she said in the
Friday edition of O Globo newspaper. "Everybody knows that the norm in fashion is thin. But excuse me, there are people born with the right genes for this profession." Gisele said that as a child her peers teased her for being skinny with names like Olive Oil, the character from the Popeye cartoon. "In fashion I felt accepted ... I never felt lonely because I always relied on my family."

Yes, & 95 years ago, the norm was that women couldn't vote. 50 years ago, women didn't work outside of the home. Norms change! So let's change them!

My friends, my girls, I lurve you all. I lurve you all as you are. Let's not talk about the wrinkles you want botoxed, or the bump on your nose you want shaved down, or the 3 pounds you think you need to lose. We all have things we'd change if there was a magic wand. The point is ~ & you know I have one ~ why do we think we need to change these things in the first place? It's the crap drilled into us ~ from society, from TV, from adverts, from friends, from family & it's ALL CRAP!

Let's concentrate on being self-confident, strong women who can love ourselves for the whole person that we are, not just the shell that carries us around. Because let's face it, the shell doesn't go with us when we die, & if that's all you are, if that's all you can see yourself to be, those are issues that no plastic surgeon in the world can fix.

UPDATE:

Apparently, appologies are in order to one Jennifer Garner. According to this webpage, "Catch & Release" was filmed during the summer of 2005, while she was pregnant with her daughter who was born in December 2005. So obviously, the above story about her refusing to wear a bikini in the film because of unlost baby weight must be false, since she was pregnant at the time. Unless it is true. With LaLaLand, who the hell knows anymore?

I've learned my lesson. No more commenting on celebs. I'll leave that to the professionals like PerezHilton & Janet Charlton.