Body Image

Supermodel Kate Moss

Mariah and I had the opportunity last night to attend a presentation on Body Image. I wish I would've invited every woman and girl I know to come. It was excellent! The girls who were presenting really focused on the "ideal body image" that we as a western culture celebrate. And this is it. It is the literally the body of a prepubescent 12 year old. And an undernourished one at that. On top of this, Kate Moss alone is not good enough. Nearly every picture of her and ALL models is photoshopped to the point that 99% of all the pictures you see in any magazine are pictures of unattainable fiction. The publishers of such magazines spend GOBS of money editing these pictures and putting them on the cover for you to see and feel WORSE about yourself, and that no matter what, you will never be good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Exactly the message that Satan wants you to get.

One message that they shared that really hit me was this: Depression in girls is never higher than when they are going through puberty. It is largely because their bodies are turning from this "ideal" into bodies of real women. Women's bodies, by nature, are built to have babies. We get breasts, (which, contrary to what the sexualized world would tell you, are for nourishing babies) our hips widen, we get extra fat stores so that our bodies are perfectly equipped to handle pregnancy. Our bodies are filled with hormones that are suited to help with this process. This is who we are as women. To go to the extreme measures it takes to TRY to fit into an ideal, (remember the ideal is pure fiction), is to really deny who we are as women. I would never trade my four awesome kids for any body out there, real or not. There is no ideal. It is also largely genetics. If you have a poodle mama and a poodle daddy, you won't grow up the be a German Shephard. As much as you want to and wish for it, you never will be. We should focus so much less on what size or shape our bodies are, and focus much more on all the AMAZING things our bodies can do. Like have babies. And help us nurture and love those babies and grandbabies. Boys are built differently. Their hormones help them stay lean and muscular so they can go slay animals and plow the fields and bring them home to feed those babies. :)

I want to right now stop wishing that my body is something that it's not. I want to be healthy and feel healthy and let my daughters know that they are beautiful and loved, no matter what. And most of all, I want to quit obsessing about the big pimple I have on my chin currently, and the fact that I still get pimples in my 30's... not cool.