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.