J...it must be Jelly cause Jam don't shake like that! (women's body image in the media)

i decided to write this blog article because many of my best friends are women, most of the people i interact with are women, i have two sisters, and i guess you can say i am surrounded by women!

i often hear the women in my life make little cracks about their weight, their height, their hair, or their overall general appearance and i wonder to myself if they know just how beautiful they really are?

then i see all of the commercials, celebrities, and magazine ads imposing these standards of "beauty"on women and the reality becomes clear.

the thing that disturbs me most is that for the most part, the media images of female "beauty" are unattainable for all but a very small number of women.

in reality, many women are curvy, some have grey hairs, some are are short, have wrinkles or stretch marks but does that not make them beautiful?

when did this become the ideal body?

the bizarre thing, is that if we saw a dog this skinny we would not think it was appropriate. so why do our women want this for themselves?

every day in the media, women are subjected to images suggesting that if they just took this pill and lost 20 lbs they would be thinner and happier, if they would only buy this cream their skin would be smoother and wrinkle free and they would be happier, if they buy these clothes, this lipstick, this hair care product then they would be...happier. :/

some startling statistics about female body image:

1. The average American woman is 5’4” tall and weighs 140 pounds. The average American model is 5’11” tall and weighs 117 pounds.

2. The average size of the “ideal” woman, as portrayed by models, has become progressively thinner over the years and has stabilized at around 20% below the average weight. This thin ideal is unachievable for most women. A 1995 study found that three minutes spent looking at models in a fashion magazine caused 70% of women to feel depressed, guilty, and ashamed.

3. It is estimated that 40-50% of American women are trying to lose weight at any point in time.

4. One out of every four college aged women has an eating disorder.

5. Almost half of all women smokers smoke because they see it as the best way to control their weight. Of these women, 25% will die of a disease caused by smoking.

6. At age thirteen, 53% of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen.

7. In a sample of male and female high school students, girls had higher body dissatisfaction scores than boys on all measures. Girls reported magazines as their primary source of information regarding diet and health. Boys reported their parents as their primary source of information. These are the typical messages girls can expect to get from women's magazines.

8. A majority of girls in a 1999 study (59 percent) reported dissatisfaction with their body shape, and 66 percent expressed a desire to lose weight. Only 29 percent of the girls were overweight.

9. At 5’9” tall and weighing 110 lbs, Barbie would have a BMI of 16.24 which is considered severely underweight. Because of her ridiculous proportions (39” bust, 18” waist, 33” thighs and a size 3 shoes!), if she was a real woman, she wouldn’t be able to walk upright – she would have to walk on all fours. Note that the target market for Barbie Doll sales are girls ages 3 to 12.

10. Nearly 11.7 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2007. Women had nearly 10.6 million cosmetic procedures, 91% percent of the total

even sadder still is that even our images of perfection are not so perfect:

Love Your Curves! i've always been a fan of women who were shaped like Marilyn Monroe. she was drop dead gorgeous and wore a size 16 jeans! who would have thought that a woman so beautiful and confident could be rockin' the double digits? it's all in how you feel about you :)

Real Women Have Curves

© By Anonymous
Real women have curves, wrinkles, and flaws.
Each one earned with experience, perseverance and determination.
There's no computer to airbrush your mistakes.
Let them make you who you are.
Love every mark, every scar,

every extra curve you wished to go away, Accept what you can't learn to love,

Then let go of what you can't accept.
Treasure them for their memories
Like a worn love letter or ratty old quilt from generations of old.
Each wrinkle comes with the wisdom only years of life can give.
And life is not to be hidden or covered up.
For life is how a girl grows into a woman
And real women have curves.