Body Issues
Earlier I shared that twenty-one percent of the participants
expressed fears about physical deterioration that comes with age. I
also asked them if they had concerns about their bodies other than
aging. Sixty-eight percent of the participants said they did have issues
with their bodies. We live in a weight obsessed culture. You can’t
turn on the news without some story about obesity in adults or children.
Additionally there have been a recent rash of reality show about
how parents are making their kids fat or people are competing to lose
weight. How is anyone supposed to feel comfortable in their own skin
with all this negative imagery?
Tara explained, “Of course I have issues with my weight, with
current society and anorexic supermodels, self assurance about weight
is down. But I’ve decided I’m not gonna make myself miserable to
be a size ten or whatever, I’d rather be fat and happy. Notice how all
those sayings are fat and sassy not thin and sassy?”17 While I love her
attitude and can agree most of the time, body confidence is still a problem
I struggle with. There was a time when I was one of the skinniest
kids in school. I was also one of the smallest at 5’2”. I never thought
about weight until I was about twenty-five when my body morphed
into something I didn’t recognize.
Women’s bodies curve; there is no way to avoid it. It happens at
different ages for each woman. For some pregnancy brings on voluptuousness,
for others time is the culprit.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Is TV getting you down?
One thing that motivated me to write about turning 30 was the observation that the media and pop culture drive a lot of negative feelings in our lives. For most women, the constant comparisons to ads, magazines and celebrities where the average woman comes out as less than, tends to encourage us to feel insecure about our bodies and our age.
Few women will look like supermodels or celebs at 30 so why would anyone use this standard of beauty? When I first started thinking about the project I came across a few other books about turning 30 and all of them included stories from women who were celebrities or otherwise extraordinary in their fields (such as Olympic athletes, prima ballerinas, etc.). When I started writing I wanted another approach, one based in the real life where I live, not fantasy land.
Recently I began reading an ebook, The Vice-Busting Diet Book by Julia Griggs Havey. In this book, Ms. Havey considers television watching to be one of the most significant diet vices of the modern age. After reading, I decided that television isn't just impacting our waistlines; it's corroding our sense of self and self esteem.
"Television takes away our ability to effectively communicate with our spouse, our children, our family, and friends—all in the name of entertainment." (Julia Griggs Havey, p. 19 in the ebook version)
This entertainment she talks about is really eating away at who we are. Our strength as individuals might be eroded by the constant images of beautiful people in overly dramatized lives. TV is all about visual representation and the constant reinforcement might just be influencing any tension you feel about getting older.
Few women will look like supermodels or celebs at 30 so why would anyone use this standard of beauty? When I first started thinking about the project I came across a few other books about turning 30 and all of them included stories from women who were celebrities or otherwise extraordinary in their fields (such as Olympic athletes, prima ballerinas, etc.). When I started writing I wanted another approach, one based in the real life where I live, not fantasy land.
Recently I began reading an ebook, The Vice-Busting Diet Book by Julia Griggs Havey. In this book, Ms. Havey considers television watching to be one of the most significant diet vices of the modern age. After reading, I decided that television isn't just impacting our waistlines; it's corroding our sense of self and self esteem.
"Television takes away our ability to effectively communicate with our spouse, our children, our family, and friends—all in the name of entertainment." (Julia Griggs Havey, p. 19 in the ebook version)
This entertainment she talks about is really eating away at who we are. Our strength as individuals might be eroded by the constant images of beautiful people in overly dramatized lives. TV is all about visual representation and the constant reinforcement might just be influencing any tension you feel about getting older.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Excerpt: Popular media and our 30s
Please enjoy this excerpt from the Introduction to 30 Isn’t Old.
Popular media and a celebrity obsessed culture imply that movie
star standards apply to the rest of the nation. Since celebrity culture can
be in our homes every day through television, computers and even our
phones, there is an assumption that they represent the norm. Waiting in
line to check out at the supermarket there are racks of magazines that
tell who is doing what with whom and what they were wearing when
they did it. These magazines are not full of educational or entertaining
articles. Instead they are full of pictures, images to show us celebrities
from multiple angles, in various wardrobe and states of embrace.
Celebrities influence women’s hairstyles, clothing and our notions of
beauty.
Hollywood is a place of youth. There the most cutting edge treatments
are available to protect youth – from personal training and crazy
cabbage diets to toxic injections and face lifts. There is little about the
human body that cannot be changed by a skilled plastic surgeon. With
the plastic bodies and beauty obsession Hollywood is the only place in
this country where thirty is considered old.
For the rest of the nation, this concept is ludicrous. Sometimes it
can be easy to get coerced into feeling lacking when bombarded by
celebrity images and concepts of beauty. Stick thin, big breasted and
perfectly symmetrical faces are hard to come by outside of celebrity
magazines and plastic surgeon waiting rooms. Once you step away
from the television and put down the magazines to look at the women
living in reality, the view changes. Real women in Atlanta and Minneapolis
are not all size zero or perpetually twenty-five.
So I’m suggesting we toss out media and celebrity views of thirty.
As women we have an expected lifespan of eighty plus years and
plenty are left after thirty. We can continue to have children for about
a decade, depending on health and medical circumstances. For working
women there are at least thirty-five more years of expected work
before retirement. If you choose you can be as active at thirty as you
were at twenty, possibly even more so.
There is nothing about thirty that makes a woman old or used
up. Such a notion was only valid in past centuries when the average
lifespan was less than forty years and by the age of thirty women
had given birth multiple times. Then, childbearing was an exhaustive
and wearing activity that aged women quickly. Medical science
and modern convenience have slowed our aging process so the antiquated
notions are irrelevant. For the average American woman,
thirty is far from old.
Popular media and a celebrity obsessed culture imply that movie
star standards apply to the rest of the nation. Since celebrity culture can
be in our homes every day through television, computers and even our
phones, there is an assumption that they represent the norm. Waiting in
line to check out at the supermarket there are racks of magazines that
tell who is doing what with whom and what they were wearing when
they did it. These magazines are not full of educational or entertaining
articles. Instead they are full of pictures, images to show us celebrities
from multiple angles, in various wardrobe and states of embrace.
Celebrities influence women’s hairstyles, clothing and our notions of
beauty.
Hollywood is a place of youth. There the most cutting edge treatments
are available to protect youth – from personal training and crazy
cabbage diets to toxic injections and face lifts. There is little about the
human body that cannot be changed by a skilled plastic surgeon. With
the plastic bodies and beauty obsession Hollywood is the only place in
this country where thirty is considered old.
For the rest of the nation, this concept is ludicrous. Sometimes it
can be easy to get coerced into feeling lacking when bombarded by
celebrity images and concepts of beauty. Stick thin, big breasted and
perfectly symmetrical faces are hard to come by outside of celebrity
magazines and plastic surgeon waiting rooms. Once you step away
from the television and put down the magazines to look at the women
living in reality, the view changes. Real women in Atlanta and Minneapolis
are not all size zero or perpetually twenty-five.
So I’m suggesting we toss out media and celebrity views of thirty.
As women we have an expected lifespan of eighty plus years and
plenty are left after thirty. We can continue to have children for about
a decade, depending on health and medical circumstances. For working
women there are at least thirty-five more years of expected work
before retirement. If you choose you can be as active at thirty as you
were at twenty, possibly even more so.
There is nothing about thirty that makes a woman old or used
up. Such a notion was only valid in past centuries when the average
lifespan was less than forty years and by the age of thirty women
had given birth multiple times. Then, childbearing was an exhaustive
and wearing activity that aged women quickly. Medical science
and modern convenience have slowed our aging process so the antiquated
notions are irrelevant. For the average American woman,
thirty is far from old.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
How to Celebrate: Return to childhood
If you're thinking about how to celebrate 30 and have hit a road block, consider taking a page from parties of your past.
Consider a Theme Party from your favorite TV show, cartoon or hobby. Have you ever shopped the party store with a child under the age of 10? If so, you'll recall the variety of choices from Transformers and Sponge Bob to Princess, Rock Star, Cowboy, Racing and Barbie style decorations and themes.
Make your party a retro celebration of your earliest years. Remember the ages when you looked forward to every birthday? You probably even counted your age by 1/2 or 1/4 years just to take advantage of growing up. Embrace those same emotions with a party reminiscent of those fun filled days.
Head to the party store and choose your favorite childhood theme. Pack candy bags for your friends. Paper cups can be used for adult beverages in the form of sugary punch or spiked lemonade.
For those living in warm climates, consider a pool or yard party complete with pool games, a slip n' slide or running through sprinklers.
Remember: the goal is to capture the joy of those younger birthday celebrations.
Consider a Theme Party from your favorite TV show, cartoon or hobby. Have you ever shopped the party store with a child under the age of 10? If so, you'll recall the variety of choices from Transformers and Sponge Bob to Princess, Rock Star, Cowboy, Racing and Barbie style decorations and themes.
Make your party a retro celebration of your earliest years. Remember the ages when you looked forward to every birthday? You probably even counted your age by 1/2 or 1/4 years just to take advantage of growing up. Embrace those same emotions with a party reminiscent of those fun filled days.
Head to the party store and choose your favorite childhood theme. Pack candy bags for your friends. Paper cups can be used for adult beverages in the form of sugary punch or spiked lemonade.
For those living in warm climates, consider a pool or yard party complete with pool games, a slip n' slide or running through sprinklers.
Remember: the goal is to capture the joy of those younger birthday celebrations.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Where the time GOES
This morning over my coffee and croissant I read an article in Redbook magazine called "A to-do list do-over." This is one of those articles where a busy and disorganized mom gets help from an organizational expert in order to streamline her schedule to get things done. In the case of this article, the organization expert was Julie Morgenstern, one of the most known professional organizers around. The desperate woman was a teacher with three kids, one husband and parents who live in the area.
Whenever I read this type of article, I feel a little guilty. If these women with their many and varied priorities can manage to get things done plus have time to exercise and take care of themselves, then I really have no excuse for not getting things done. I'm a single gal with a time consuming job and high maintenance family but since that family lives 1200 miles away and the job is fun, there really shouldn't be problems with getting it all done.
And yet, there are.
I spend many nights sitting in hotel rooms exhausted and curled up in front of the TV with room service. I know this sounds like the life, free and easy, and most of the time it suits me just fine.
But there are times when I just can't get done all the things I want to. Maybe I'm too ambitious – I want to exercise, eat healthy, learn to run a marathon (I run zero steps at the moment), write a novel, revise my website, keep in touch with friends – and many other things. Work tends to be all that gets done. Enough so that my manager recently asked me if I know how to have a life.
I am quite certain that I know how to be lazy and waste time with the best of them. I've been inspired by the article and decided to do my own personal time study. I've participated in a few of these at work where I documented every step and action I take through the day. The purpose of such studies is normally to determine where there is waste and redundancy. A personal time study might have similar results. For a change, I've decided to diagnose the cause of my problem before I try to motivate or plan to fix it.
I'm taking the logical route this time, wish me luck.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Excerpt: What do your children mean to you?
At the end of each chapter of the book I included quotes from the participants. These were the participants' responses during the interview to some of the questions. I'm sharing the excerpt from Chapter 5 and some answers to the question, "What do your children mean to you?"
“I wish I could bottle up the feeling I feel whenever I hear mom. I
always knew I wanted to have children. I’ve always loved being with
children; I love working with children.” Heather
“Everything. They bring every emotion under the sun, anger and
happiness and bring out the little kid in me all over again. My life
right now is taking care of them.” Jessica M.
“It means a lot of responsibility. It is the most fantastic thing I have
ever experienced in my life but it is the scariest thing that I have
ever experienced in my life because I think that I am responsible for
another human being and what they learn and how they act and what
they believe.” Amanda
These 3 moms were willing to talk about the joy and awe of motherhood. But they also shared some of the stress, worry and anxiety that comes with being a mom while trying to navigate our 30s. For more of their stories, please read 30 Isn't Old.
If you're a mom in your 30s, take 2 minutes today to think about what your children mean to you. You might just remember to take a break and have some fun with your bundles of joy.
“I wish I could bottle up the feeling I feel whenever I hear mom. I
always knew I wanted to have children. I’ve always loved being with
children; I love working with children.” Heather
“Everything. They bring every emotion under the sun, anger and
happiness and bring out the little kid in me all over again. My life
right now is taking care of them.” Jessica M.
“It means a lot of responsibility. It is the most fantastic thing I have
ever experienced in my life but it is the scariest thing that I have
ever experienced in my life because I think that I am responsible for
another human being and what they learn and how they act and what
they believe.” Amanda
These 3 moms were willing to talk about the joy and awe of motherhood. But they also shared some of the stress, worry and anxiety that comes with being a mom while trying to navigate our 30s. For more of their stories, please read 30 Isn't Old.
If you're a mom in your 30s, take 2 minutes today to think about what your children mean to you. You might just remember to take a break and have some fun with your bundles of joy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
