I put on MTV and low and behold, Real World, Key West. Yup, the Anorexic chic is on right now. Damn, that chick looks depressed. And hungry.
I can relate.
See, I have some eating issues as well. I was kind of... chubby long time ago. Ok, I was dead on fat. And when I was this way, it was the 90's. I mean... Damn. It was hell. Those were the years of those sick models you know by name: Christy Turlington, the cokehead Kate Moss... and the one everybody loves to hate even more: Cindy Perfect Crawford. I wanted to die. I wanted so bad to be thin, it depressed the hell out of me. It became an obsession.
So one day, I decided to do something about it. I started a diet. Started excersising. It took me a year or so, but I made it. From 175 to 100. I was... 27, I think. Perfect, I nailed it, I thought. I felt beautiful, sexy. But... everybody around me told me I looked sick. I didn't get it. I looked at my body and still I felt fat. I thought I had to had a flat as hell tummy. Kept the diet going. Dropped to 98 pounds. Mom had a fit. You have to eat, she told me. I didn't want to. But one day, at the hospital, almost putting myself to sleep for a long time, I decided to live rather than to fight everysingle day with my body. I'm much happier now. Besides, all the men I have dated told me I was beautiful just as I was, so there.
I think eating disorders are our fault. Ad people. Have you noticed that we put slim as hell women on our ads? Why do we do that, anyway? Beauty is so relative! For us women, we will forever be on a diet, but it's because of stupid advertising. But if we started featuring normal chicks or guys... maybe more people could relate. A perfect body isn't supposed to be aspirational. It's the product that should be.
One day, while driving to work from a meeting, I see the Dove Campaign on a billboard. I gasp. Whoa, those women are like me! They don't have a perfect body! And... they look nice!I finally got it. We are not supposed to be perfect. It is impossible. I am who I am, and somewhere out there, there is a guy who will love me and find me hot as hell. Just like Billy Joel sang it. Just the way you are.
So, stop retouching guys and gals. Let the true beauty show. You will do the world a favor. And girls? Eat up. Men like meat on their bones!!!
2 comments:
Advertisement and family. I love my mother but one of the worse things my mom ever did to me was telling me this not once but many times "Nobody would ever love you if you are fat." At college I learned that even with my rounded belly and big thights I could be sexy. And yes I've been loved and told how beautiful I am, proving my mother and advertising wrong. :P
I like where their head was at when they first got the idea for the Real Women/Real Beauty campaign: Let’s celebrate the way woman’s bodies really are, not the way they’re being portrayed in the media. But then they fell asleep at the wheel. Dove’s agency (Ogilvy?) simply slaps images of somewhat buxom women onto their ads and calls it a day. There is no story there. There is no idea. There is nothing to capture the imagination. The message, that they are using real women with real bodies, is too blunt and self-congratulatory to make any real impact. It’s a flash in the pan, as they say. I'm glad they did it. But I wish they did it right.
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