Fat Talk Free Week

♥ BODY IMAGE

Every day millions of women lose time, money, energy, creativity, self-esteem and emotional connectedness to their loved ones. Why?

They lose these to an endless pursuit of an unattainable, unrealistic standard of female beauty — the thin ideal. Fashion is about fantasy, but somewhere along the way we forgot that. Instead, we began to think that every girl and every woman in our world was supposed to achieve this unreasonable and unhealthy ideal. As a result we all lose. We all lose when 50% of our population is distracted from more meaningful and fulfilling pursuits that make life full and worth living. And when 50% of our population is raised to hate their bodies, we all lose because research shows that body dissatisfaction is associated with poor health behaviors.

Pursuit of the healthy ideal — which looks different for different women — requires us to take care of our bodies. The healthy ideal happens when we simultaneously maximize our physical health, mental health and quality of life. For better or worse, however, our bodies are no different than any other object or living being in our care. Hate them and we are likely to abuse them. Love them and we will finally begin down the road to health. So give up Fat Talk, which reinforces the thin ideal, and join us in the pursuit of the healthy ideal.