Go Figure
The Truth About "Ideal Beauty"
Eating Disorders are born, raised, and sustained by negativity.
Eating Disorders are also a form of keeping women focused on their bodies.
Would you ever bind your feet (or your daughter's feet), wrap them painfully tight with medical tape,to keep them from growing?
Would you allow yourself (or your daughter) to walk with a limp because your feet hurt from the binding- yet you would not take the binding off?
Would you allow your toes to curl under, the bones to break, all in an effort to keep your feet small and dainty? Would you give up your ability to walk if it meant you could have pretty feet?
Would you bind your daughter's feet, your friend's feet,no matter how they cried?
Foot Binding was common in China for centuries. Girls grew up deformed in an effort to have the smallest feet,this was the beauty ideal (small feet) and women (mothers to their daughters) did anything and everything to achieve UNNATURALLY small feet.
EATING DISORDERS ARE THE SAME THING.
Would you ever bind your waist? Strap on a corset so tight you had a hard time breathing? Would you tie up your daughter's waist, pulling the strings as tight as humanly possible, till she was nearly blue? Would you risk respiratory problems, bruised lungs, fainting spells so that your waist could be UNNATURALLY small? Corsets were used in this way, causing a ton of medical problems, for years in an effort to reach the beauty ideal.
What is going on???
EATING DISORDERS DO THE SAME THING.
We bind ourselves, suffocate ourselves, hurt ourselves for an UNOBTAINABLE beauty ideal that wasn't even created by us!!!
At any given time 1 out of 4 women are on a diet.
We MUST ask why.
(more importantly, we must look in our own mirrors and ask why)
The dieting industry is the ONLY business that has a 98% FAILURE rate
and is still in business (good business, too, 60 Billion dollars a year strong).
Why do we tolerate this?
Why do we turn it inwards and treat ourselves WORSE than the sexism that plagues our planet today??
What happened to worshipping the woman's figure,the beautiful round soft bodies that give birth the biggest miracle of all...
When did we lose ourselves in this mess of ideal beauty rules & restrictions? And why do we continue to pass it on to our daughters?
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I've studied the history of the beauty ideal (and if you are interested in reading more, the book The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf is a great place to start), and I've studied the ancient Goddess cultures, who honored the female form without question... and I understand now how much healing really needs to happen on this planet, and how all of us (YOU and me) need to try our best to be a part of it. A part of the HEALING rather than the DESTROYING of each other, ourselves, our sons and daughters. A part of the POSITIVITY rather than the NEGATIVITY that feeds eating disorders. I think we could take advantage of the new millennium and the stir it's causing and use the opportunity to re-examine our lives and the pattern of disordered eating that is unfortunately growing rapidly among us... maybe we could use this time to make changes in a new and positive direction.
Maybe we can help shape the future's beauty ideal... maybe this time the beauty ideal will be based on NATURAL beauty, not beauty you have to PAY for, HURT for, and ultimately DIE for...
with hope, Lisa
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I am not deliberately ignoring MEN. I am painfully aware that MEN have Eating Disorders, I've had the honor of working with many of them. The beauty ideal hurts men too, more so NOW than EVER. Male models are extremely thin, unrealistic and unnatural looking. The pressure to be strong and non-emotional ("Boys Don't Cry" is a great song and a great movie, but not a great concept at all, because boys/men NEED to cry and discouraging such a normal emotion is absurd) is very difficult, and the emphasis on looks for men is increasing. The culture's obsession with muscles has caused men to damage their bodies beyond repair, lifting weights more than they should, going through starving and bingeing cycles, and wrecking their self-esteem.
No joke- eating disorders do NOT discriminate, only the media does!
