The one thing that disturbs me the most to this very day, although we are making great strides to change this thanks to (and I hate to admit this) certain celebrities (hey, as long as we get the message out there, I’ll deal with the egos!) is the Western ideal of a beautiful body being either unnaturally thin or, if you aren’t genetically disposed, skinny as the ideal body type. This of course being mostly imposed, almost always, on women. What then happens is it forces women, of all ages, into fad diets, grueling workout routines and a self-image that is at best critical and at worst, dangerous even deadly.
I have had friends, family members, schoolmates and colleagues punish themselves — through food self-depravation, marathon workouts, constant fault-finding and fat shaming anyone who doesn’t agree with them (even if the other person is actually of normal weight for their age and height). There are many factors to blame for this: I’ve done a bit of research and, although I am no scientist by any stretch, I’ve been in the fashion & beauty industry for 30 years and, if you look throughout history, you’ll see that up until the 1950s a woman’s body was, well, womanly. It all began to change in the 1960s when the waif thin model became all the rage and thus became, unfortunately, the new norm. This new normal has remained with us for 50 or so years now but at a terrible cost to the ideal of beauty. Thankfully, with the enormous popularity of celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and Kim Kardashian (yep, even I’m grateful!) has forced advertisers, fashion designers, popular brands and the like to take notice. What I’ve noticed is a new shift to a more “normal” read: healthy, body type ;)
Let me just say for the record, I am all for being health-conscious: eating the correct types and amount of food, keeping fit in mind, body and spirit, and encouraging others to do the same. What I will not tolerate, and neither should anyone, is an artificially-induced image of “beauty” that the very same industry that’s attempting to change is also sill promoting. Real women have curves!
And don’t even get me started on beauty and ageism…