Body Image and your Kids: Your body image plays a role in theirs

Body ImageLoving Your Body Inside and Out
Body Image and Your Kids: Your body image plays a role in theirs

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Body Image and Your Kids

"On a diet, you can't eat." This is what one five year-old girl had to say in a study on girls' ideas about dieting. This and other research has shown that daughters are more likely to have ideas about dieting when their mothers diet. Children pick up on comments about dieting concepts that may seem harmless, such as limiting high-fat foods or eating less. Yet, as girls enter their teen years, having ideas about dieting can lead to problems. Many things can spark weight concerns for girls and impact their eating habits in potentially unhealthy ways:

Having mothers concerned about their own weight
Having mothers who are overly concerned about their daughters' weight and looks
Natural weight gain and other body changes during puberty
Peer pressure to look a certain way
Struggles with self-esteem
Media images showing the ideal female body as thin

Many teenage girls of average weight think they are overweight and are not satisfied with their bodies. Having extreme weight concerns — and acting on those concerns — can harm girls' social, physical, and emotional growth. Actions such as skipping meals or taking diet pills can lead to poor nutrition and difficulty learning. For some, extreme efforts to lose weight can lead to eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. For others, the pressure to be thin can actually lead to binge eating disorder: overeating that is followed by extreme guilt. What's more, girls are more likely to further risk their health by trying to lose weight in unhealthy ways, such as smoking.
While not as common, boys are also at risk of developing unhealthy eating habits and eating disorders. Body image becomes an important issue for teenage boys as they struggle with body changes and pay more attention to media images of the "ideal" muscular male.

What you can do
Your children pay attention to what you say and do — even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes. If you are always complaining about your weight or feel pressure to change your body shape, your children may learn that these are important concerns. If you are attracted to new "miracle" diets, they may learn that restrictive dieting is better than making healthy lifestyle choices. If you tell your daughter that she would be prettier if she lost weight, she will learn that the goals of weight loss are to be attractive and accepted by others.
Parents are role models and should try to follow the healthy eating and physical activity patterns that you would like your children to follow — for your health and theirs. Extreme weight concerns and eating disorders, as well as obesity, are hard to treat. Yet, you can play an important role in preventing these problems for your children.
Follow these steps to help your child develop a positive body image and relate to food in a healthy way:
Make sure your child understands that weight gain is a normal part of development, especially during puberty.
Avoid negative statements about food, weight, and body size and shape.
Allow your child to make decisions about food, while making sure that plenty of healthy and nutritious meals and snacks are available.
Compliment your child on her or his efforts, talents, accomplishments, and personal values.
Restrict television viewing, and watch television with your child and discuss the media images you see.
Encourage your school to enact policies against size and sexual discrimination, harassment, teasing, and name-calling; support the elimination of public weigh-ins and fat measurements.
Keep the communication lines with your child open.

Taken from www.womenshealth.gov/bodyimage

Chasing Beauty

I stumbled across this story today & thought it was something that everyone needs to hear. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/34272772#34272772 I wanted to share this excerpt from the book written by Jamieson Dale (known as Laura Pillarella) called "Chasing Beauty"

"I think that I am finally pretty. I have a hard time writing that, and an even harder time saying it. I still feel ugly. It took fifteen cosmetic surgical procedures over ten years, costing a total of $61,000, to realize that average is okay, and certainly simpler. What began as my ordinary bad hair, bad skin, bad bone structure, bad teeth, and bad self-esteem was rearranged into surgical freakishness and finally into probably attractive. The bad self-confidence remains. To try to escape my common flaws, I have undergone repeat upper and lower "eye jobs"; a chin implant augmentation; a lip lift; collagen injections; several surgical lip augmentations; a nose job; a TCA chemical peel; laser peels; Alloderm cadaver implants; dental braces; jaw advancement; chin genioplasty augmentation; two cheek lifts; a mid-facelift; an eyelid canthopexy; and a lateral brow-lift. My Result is that I now know that scalpels, syringes and lasers are not beauty tools--or worse, toys--as I had once felt. They have each cut and injected into more than my skin, crafting with each painful healing a personal character from which I had wished that surgery would save me from developing. I had only wished to be one-dimensional by chasing beauty and its easy, breezy image. Far from that, I'm now something scarred: Wise. I am only 35 years old. ···························································My journey appears to be over. My eyes appear sloe instead of sleepy or "scooped out" as I was once told. My nose is smaller. Most of my acne scars have been burned away, and my skin has a healthier glow (or what I suppose "glow" looks like). I have a jawbone less subtly defined than before. The lips look poofy without manual poofing, but not too poofy. I step back from the mirror. My cheeks have been rescued from their steady slip into jowls (a distasteful word to match distasteful facial betrayal and one that my orthodontist misspelled as jowels on my initial visit chart and which I didn’t have the stomach to correct) and put back where cheeks should be. The legacy of my wayward chin is over; it has submitted into proportionate, finally getting along and blending with the rest of my features. Appearances are deceiving. Pretty is a poor cure for insecurity. I still obsess, out of habit or because I’ve compared myself with the ubiquitous teen model in my favorite magazine or watched magnified movie-star perfection or because I’m bloated or having a bad hair day or had a fight with my husband or just because. Today is one of those days. Moving closer to the glass now, I wonder: are those broken capillaries I see etched across my cheeks? Is that a double chin? I scrunch down my face, tucking my chin, trying to see my collarbone. The effect confirms the presence of ugly submental fat ("submental" being one of the many unfortunate technical terms attached to female fear that have assimilated into my own vocabulary over the years). Stretching my mouth into a grimace produces crow’s feet wrinkles around my eyes. I frown, making it worse. Where is the smooth brow of my youth? I wonder, as I tug my hair off my forehead. Didn’t my hairline used to be lower? Is everything where it should be?Despite my harsh surgical history, I still sometimes fall for the siren call of instant cosmetic gratification. Maybe just a little Botox? I think as my fingers mimic its smoothing paralysis effect on my facial muscles and skin. It looks so good on the media world, and good in imitation. Ooh, that’s better, I now see, feeling calmed by the effect.Quickly coming down, and closing the bathroom door behind me, I regret that good hygiene will bring me back in here, back before the mirror before long. I guess that it will take time for me to not only say that I’m pretty…but to actually believe it. Without Botox. I at least know that I’ll never again ask a cosmetic surgeon if I am. Ten years of cosmetic surgery - ten years of swelling and distortion and bruising and financial deceit and high anxiety and downtime and pain and disappointment and marital strain - haven’t answered my question: Who am I? It has only prolonged the search for it.I may finally look okay, but I feel worked over, and I still don’t know the answer.This book is the way that I remember asking."

Let's all remember to take a good, hard look at ourselves in the mirror & learn to love what it reflects! We are all beautiful in our own special way!!!

Changing Paradigms of Beauty

It's been a while since I have posted! Life has been busy but great!! I found this article through a pageant email that I receive every week & thought it was very interesting. It seems that although beauty is defined differently by everyone, one thing we all can agree on is that mostly beauty comes from within. It's kind of along article but very well worth it.

Go here: http://mag.cmhmag.com/featured/360-discussion-changing-paradigms-of-beauty/

Butterfly

Butterfly~
Once upon a time in a land far far away.There was a wonderful old man who loved everything. Animals, spiders, insects....
One day while walking through the woods the nice old man found a cocoon. Feeling lonely he decided to take the cocoon home to watch its beautiful transformation froma funny little cocoon to a beautiful butterfly.
He gently placed the cocoon on his kitchen table, and watched over it for days
Suddenly on the seventh day the cocoon started to move. It moved frantically! The old man felt sorry for the little butterfly inside the cocoon.He watched it struggle and struggle and struggle!
Finally the old man feeling so sorry for the cocooned butterfly rushed to its aide with a surgical scalpel and gently slit the cocoon so the butterfly could emerge.

Just one slice was all it took,and the butterfly broke free from its cocoon only to wilt over in a completely motionless state. The old man did not know what to think.Had he accidentally killed the little butterfly? No, it's still moving a little bit.! Maybe it's sick! Who the heck would know? He was dumbfounded, and quite perplexed! What should I do, he said. Well he felt so sorry for the little creature that he decided the best thing he coulddo for the butterfly was to place it gently back into its cocoon.
He did so, and placed a drop of honey on it to seal the cocoon, leaving the butterfly to nestle in its natural state. Well the next day he noticed that the cocoon was moving again. Wow, he said! It moved and moved and struggled and struggled.Finally the butterfly broke free from its cocoon and stretched its wings out far and wide. Big time yawn! Its beautiful wings were filled with wonderful colors! It looked around and took off! It was flying! Its so beautiful! The old man was jumping with joy! Wow!
Go Baby, Go! And that wonderful butterfly did that just that, it flew and flew till it was almost out of the old mans sight. What a joy, he exclaimed!But then he started to think. What did I do wrong by trying to help that beautiful little butterfly out at first?
The old man went into town. Found the library, and read every book he could on butterflies and cocoons. Finally the answer appeared.The butterfly has to struggle and struggle while inside the cocoon. That's how it gets its strength. That's just what they are designed to overcome in order to be strong and beautiful.
Well needless to say the old man was shocked, saddened, and somewhat relieved.
Now he knows the reason why they do what they do. It was only his perception that made it appear that the butterfly was having a hard time. Well from then on the old man knew that loving something sometimes means to pray for it and cheer it on!
He realized that God was wonderful, and that sometimes appearances aren't what they seem to be. That we all are beautiful butterflies, even though we have our apparent struggles in life...
Author Unknown
Taken from www.cuttyhunkroseinspirations.com

I don't think I need to expound anymore on what the moral of the story is. I bolded it & italicised it so it would pop out. Because appearances really aren't what they seem are they?

I am DIVINE

I Am Divine
I looked in the mirror the other day--"You are divine" I heard a voice sayMy eyes were wide with much surprise,"Oh no I'm not, just see my eyes.They're much too small, I wish they were blue."The voice came again, "You are joyful and true."
I looked at my neighbor with such a sigh,"You are so thin!" was my weak cry.She seemed quite stunned, then said to me"Things aren't always what you see,I'd give anything if I were youFor you are righteous and truthful too."
I picked a book up off the shelf,Then knew I couldn't live with myselfI promptly put it in its place,then felt the Spirit taking place,"I knew you'd pick the one you shouldYou thirst for knowledge--That is good!"
I told my brother, "It's not funny,You are so rich with money!"He said, "I'm rich, that much is trueBut I would rather be like you.You're honest, good and always kind.People like you are hard to find."
It took a while but I caught on,And soon my list of wishes was gone.How blessed I am from up aboveWith God and friends and joy and love.No money can buy these gifts of mineI'm a daughter of God, and I'm divine!
(Author Unknown, from "Very Valuable Values for Young Women", Vol. 2, pg.17

Thought of the day

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes that it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” ~Maya Angelou

Just like the caterpillar goes through major changes within the surroundings of the Chrysalis before she becomes the beautiful butterfly, we also go through changes within ourselves throughout the course of our life. It is sometimes hard for us to see or admit the changes that we have gone through to achieve our own beauty. Those changes may have come about as a result of negative behavior whether brought on by ourselves or the effects of someone elses negative behavior. Or they may have come about from failing a test or losing a race. Each experience that we have helps us achieve the beauty that lies within. The way we view that beauty all depends on our attitudes.

A Woman's Lifeline

Age 3: She looks at herself and sees a Queen
Age 8: She looks at herself and sees Cinderella
Age 15: She looks at herself and sees an "ugly duckling" ("Mom I can't go to school looking like this today!")
Age 20: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly" but decides she's going out anyway.
Age 30: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly" but decides she doesn't have time to fix it so she's going out anyway.
Age 40: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too think, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly" but says, "At least I am clean", and goes out anyway.
Age 50: She looks at herself and sees "I am what I am" and goes wherever she wants to go.
Age 60: she looks at herslef and reminds herself of all the people who can't even see themselves in the mirror anymore. Goes out and conquers the world.
Age 70: She looks at herslef and see wisdom, laughter, and ability and goes out and enjoys life.
Age 80: Doesn't bother to look, just puts on a purple hat and goes out to have fun with the worldl

Moral: Maybe we should all grab that purple hat a little earlier.

Taken from the book "Daughters of God" M. Russell Ballard

The WOMAN Challenge/Legacy Walk for Beauty Kick off event

(If you would please add this post to your blogs, that would be very helpful!!!)

I have joined with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's Health in celebrating National Women's Health Week. On May 9, 2009 at 9:30 A.M. The Beauty Within Foundation will hold The Legacy Walk for Beauty where women in the community will be able to kick off The WOMAN Challenge and walk their way to better health both inside and out.

National Women's Health Week is a nationwide initiative that calls attention to the importance of women's health. The theme for National Women's Health Week 2009 is "It's Your Time." During the week, families, health organizations, businesses, communities, the government and individuals come together to raise awareness about women's health issues and educate women about simple steps they can take for a longer, healthier and happier life.

The Legacy Walk for Beauty will kick off The WOMAN Challenge, an eight week online physical activity program. It will be held along the Legacy walkway that borders the Legacy highway starting at the Farmington frontrunner station. This event is free to the public!

I am also still collecting items to go in wellness bags for cancer patients at The Huntsman Cancer Institute. I am looking for donations of the following items: Travel size hand sanitizer, Travel size lotion, nail clippers, Clear nail polish & any other pampering items. Hope to see you there!

Does anybody read this blog?

I am reevalutating a few things and since I rarely see any comments just want to find out how many this site actually affects. Just as a reminder: comments are very helpful, even if just to say you enjoyed the post. But I am always up for suggestions of things you would like to see more of. If you would be so helpful to leave comments so I know what I need to change & update, that would be so appreciative!

Onslaught

Check this link out from Dove! http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/dsef07/t5.aspx?id=7985&filmno=0