by patbarone
By now, you have heard that Mattel has tried to diversify its long-time bestselling doll, Barbie, in response to criticism her impossible proportions negatively affect young girls’ body images.
If you read my blog at all, you know I have linked the plastic doll to the super thin plastic “ideal” body seen in every Hollywood film, on the fashion runways, and in advertising.
Almost sixty years ago, Barbie was modeled literally from the original dollmaker’s 12-year-old son’s body – wide shoulders, narrow hips, otherworldly long legs and neck – and then a pair of large fake breasts were appended.
Mattel didn’t cave in and change Barbie because of the collateral damage to females. Instead, they changed the 57-year-old doll due to lowered sales in a world where women have effectively (finally!) rejected the anorexic ideal in favor of reflecting realistic shapes and sizes of females.
It can’t be argued many women have measured themselves against this superthin image, with disastrous results like food addiction, anorexia, disordered eating, bulimia. A recent study published in Psychology Today showed 91% of women were dissatisfied with their bodies, with almost 80% saying they were too heavy, when only about 60% of all women are overweight.
The focus on thin in media has been changing. Who cares if Angelina Jolie can subsist on 600 calories a day? No one is watching her movies, because they are seriously awful, which is why she has to do such outrageous things to get publicity these days.
The public is much more engaged with Amy Schumer, who is seriously funny, and hasn’t abandoned her body to Hollywood’s makeover artists. And with Kim Kardashian’s curvy derriere. And they are fascinated with the sexy new Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Ashley Graham. (Photo by James Macari/from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue on sale now.)
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by patbarone
The irrepressible comedienne Amy Schumer keeps getting in our faces. She likes getting in our faces and, let’s face it, that’s her job. But, this week, we got naked Amy Schumer, showing off her considerable healthy body image.
In an image-driven world, why do we need naked Amy Schumer?
As an entertainer selling her movies, performances and TV shows, she must get in front of us and get our attention. The difference with Amy is – she’s not just another sleek Hollywood body, a woman haunted by long days filled with cigarettes, coffee, maybe a few drugs and a stalk of celery, valiantly trying to measure up to Hollywood’s impossible standards for female artists.
She’s real and she’s real-sized.
She seems more interested in creating a persona that’s down-to-earth AND earthy. She’s VERY invested in being herself.
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by patbarone
I grew up in a cranky Southern female family that emphasized looks over achievement, the perfect body over brains, style over substance. I was ninja trained in the black arts of judgment, comparison and self-hatred by a mother who could eviscerate the toughest-skinned cowgirl with an evil look or a few words. In the face of unbearable beauty, her final clawing words were:
“Yeah, she’s pretty, but she knows it, so that cancels it right out.”
It wasn’t easy knowing you’d never be good enough, and, if you did have the luck to grow up pretty, you couldn’t even enjoy that knowledge without the dreaded cancellation effect occurring.
Talk about a lose-lose situation!
I was only ten when she put me on my first diet. Even though I wasn’t fat, there was fear I would be… because she was fat. Mama taught me to closet eat and to use food for every possible doubt, fear, delay or frustration. She also taught me to diet with a vengeance after days, weeks or months of channeling the power of food into bodyfat. (more…)
by patbarone
For someone who battled fat and won, long-term, I learned there are many misconceptions about how excess weight is lost. Unfortunately, what we don’t know can cause great harm, with long-term effects.
Naturally, we want quick results and, with no shortage of diets in the world, it’s very tempting to grab onto a diet for weight loss. Unfortunately, that leads to the condition we now see in our culture: DIETING FATTER every year.
But the human body is resourceful and intelligent, and it perceives a diet as an assault. Let me explain why.
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by patbarone
We hear a lot about “lifestyle change” today. In fact, most diets call themselves a “lifestyle change”, even the popular commercial ones that are nothing more than a prescribed food plan.
I guess it makes customers THINK they’re doing the big job, not the little (short-term) one.
My favorite “lifestyle change” quote came from a friend who dropped a lot of weight (temporarily) during the Phen-Fen pharmaceutical debacle.
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