As a result of this week, body image has been largely on my mind. I had an interesting conversation with my brother's friend about body image and more specifically what the world and media shows women and men what they need to look like to be considered beautiful or attractive. He presented the idea that he is against the movement of promoting people to feel happy with how their body is because it causes them to become complacent and lazy. He continued to explain that the high standard of beauty and how one's body is portrayed in the media is a good thing because it pushes people to work harder to obtain a healthier lifestyle.
While I believe that it is important to progress and always work to become a better person, I did not agree with my friend on what he had said. To me, this extreme standard of how a woman's body should look can be very inhibiting and even dangerous in some cases as girls especially struggle with different kinds of eating disorders or mental health problems. He felt that the idea to be comfortable with who you are promoted unhealthy living where people stop caring about how they look and eat excessive amounts of junk food. OF COURSE I BELIEVE THAT WE SHOULD EAT HEALTHY. DUH. But I don't believe an extreme standard of being skinny or curvy in just the right spots promotes healthiness either. Of course it can. Just like promoting comfort with one's body type can promote healthy lifestyle choices as well. The standard does not need to be "eat whatever you want and be happy" nor "eat nothing and be happy" but instead "eat healthy and be happy with whatever you are given as a result of being healthy." That was a long sentence, but I hope readers understand what I'm trying to say.
Beauty is all around us and encompasses so many different aspects. I believe strongly that it comes from within and that we all have beauty within us. As Dr. Coyne said, "You are not your body." Those words are so true.
We were just talking in Marriage Prep yesterday about how the danger is in the extremes. I can see how your brother's friend was concerned about people going to far to the other extreme, but the media extreme is just as dangerous. We need to learn how to find a happy balance.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't agree with the laziness idea either. I'll admit that he has a point in a motivation sense, but the fact is that the high standard of beauty in the media isn't just high, it is literally impossible, as clearly evidenced by the photo-shopping of even the thinnest and most attractive movie stars.
ReplyDeleteI think it comes down to one's motivation. Someone can exercise because they want to be healthy, and as a natural consequence, they're going to look healthy. Or someone can exercise because they want to look like society tells them they should look. And, even though they might? be physically healthy, it is a very unhealthy mindset. When we talk about being healthy, we have to remember that health covers all domains-spiritual, emotional, mental, etc. Health isn't limited to being physically fit.
ReplyDeleteI think the media-and it's efforts to sell us things-influence our definition of "being healthy" almost as much as it influences our definition of beauty/attractiveness.
DeleteI completely agree. Well said.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who knows SO MANY wonderful people who have struggled with body issues and SO MANY that continue to do so after years and years of working to become happy with themselves, the extremity that is portrayed in the media is ridiculous. Just ridiculous. I have only ever seen America's Next Top Model once, but in it there was this girl, and she was trying to be a plus size model I guess, and she was told she was not plus size enough... Why can't we just be happy with whatever we are given? Celebrate how we look, and not be trying to fit into these classes or types of beauty. Striving to be healthy is so important, but every individual might land in a different place.
I loved your "long sentence" as it is exactly what I think should be our focus.
Thanks for the great post.