Tag: image

"Anythin fo' half-price is a bargain, irregardless o' what ya pay fo' it." ~ Mammy Yokum

A person's possessions speak volumes on what that individual regards as important. The advertising industry, devoted to identifying what the citizen considers significant, manipulates the market to create those choices. With massive sums to be spent, the competition is as fierce as it is grotesque.

In this age of early sexualization, lookism, perfectionism, and materialism, it’s easy to worry about how our daughters can stand up to all the unhealthy messages and conditioning rampant in the culture. There are four types of girls that seem to cause us to lay awake at night the most, so let’s meet them and see if we can reframe how we look at them.

1. My daughter is so sweet, naive, and innocent that I am afraid she will be eaten alive in middle school and beyond.

For most Americans, the weeks between now and New Year’s are some of the busiest of the year. When we’re not shopping, cooking or decorating, we’re socializing, eating or traveling to the next event on the calendar. Yes, we mean well when we cram our time so full of activities and obligations: We want to have fun. We want to spend time with loved ones. We want to celebrate, eat good food and look our best while doing it.

But often, we end up overdoing it. Instead of savoring seasonal cheer, we find ourselves irritable, stressed and exhausted as we fall more and more behind on our to-do lists.

Have you ever noticed how Elmo always looks a little better in print: a little thinner, a little more buff and cut in the chest and abs? It’s the digital airbrush. Well, not really, but almost every picture you come across in print has been manipulated in some form, and the images your kids see can influence the way they see themselves and believe it or not, the issue of how ads are manipulated affects us all—especially our kids.

Body image issues—that are precursors to eating disorders—develop earlier than you think. In my dissertation 20 years ago, I looked at how kids from sixth grade through college were comparing various body images through media and found that in both boys and girls there were very defined ways of comparing their bodies to what they saw as acceptable in the media.

How do you men put up with this? Brian, what can I say to women about their body image that hasn’t been said a thousand times before? Women have been there, done that, worn the t-shirt.

Women resonate when Joy Davidson, author of Fearless Sex writes, "Eighty percent of women are dissatisfied with their bodies. Five to ten million adolescent girls and adult women struggle with eating disorders in the United States alone. Almost half of all American women are on a diet any day of the week."