America the Beautiful??

On April 8th,  I went to see a movie called "America the Beautiful" through the Alberta Women's Health Resources at the new Alberta Children's Hospital. The subject matter was about America's (and perhaps even Canada could be included here) obsession with beauty and how comparing ourselves with unrealistic images of physical beauty affects our self-esteem. It was thought provoking and invoked feelings in me of anger, sadness, disgust and at times, laughter at the absurdity of it all. This is a "must see" movie for every woman and man, young and old.

As I sat there watching, a few scenes made me feel sad. In particular, there were some young girls being interviewed who said they didn't think they were pretty or beautiful.  In fact, they said out loud, that they thought they were "ugly". These were girls as young as eight, ten and twelve. Now, to me, looking at these girls, I personally thought they were pretty and beautiful. But they felt and thought the opposite. Why is this happening? What is going on here? It's a sad state of affairs and it's rampant in America (and somewhat in Canada too). What is it that we are teaching, not only girls and women, but the men and boys too?

Unfortunately, I come across this quite frequently when I'm teaching classes. Almost every woman I speak with has some kind of hatred or dislike in regard to their physical attributes, myself included. I still struggle with a couple things I don't like about my body (now it's more about how it doesn't "work" or do things like it used to). Funny thing though, when I was in the best shape of my life as a dancer, I still found something to complain about.  Now I look back at photos and say to myself: "What was I thinking?? I looked great!" And yet, here I am, like so many other women, still not completely loving myself 100%.  When is this going to stop?  I have worked on this issue with myself for what feels like forever. And it is getting better, but it's still challenging for me. Especially now that I'm getting older and things just start to change when a person gets older no matter how much we fight it.  And yet, I don't feel like working out as hard as I used to either.  So be it.  I just do the best I can every day.   At this stage of my life, it's about having fun, listening to my body and not pushing it to extremes (the whole "no pain no gain" theory).

I have stopped buying fashion magazines and we cancelled our cable last year but it's still difficult trying to cocoon myself away from the constant bombardment of "beautiful" images.  As a society, it's everywhere:  in magazines, movies, advertising, stores, television, the internet and more.  It's impossible at this point, to be completely away from it all, unless I go live in complete isolation in a cabin in the mountains away from everyone and everything (which is what I feel like doing from time to time).  It's madness and craziness.  Life is challenging enough without all these unrealistic expectations on top of it.

So what can we do? Well, there are some things you can do.  As I mentioned above, one thing you can start doing is stop supporting the magazines that perpetuate the images and support negative self-esteem. Now, I know what you may be thinking. "Really, Martina, do images and magazines really have that much power and influence over us?"  Yes, I believe they do.  First of all, those young girls that were interviewed in the movie were looking at "beautiful" images over and over again and they got their ideas of beauty from them. When they looked at the magazine and then back at themselves, they said: "Well, if this is the image of beauty and I don't look like that, I must be ugly then." It's damaging and it's toxic to us and to the beautiful young girls and women out there.

The thing about magazines and photography is: there is an incredible amount of manipulation that goes on in creating these images so they look "perfect".  So basically, what we see as the end product isn't real. 

Remember the Dove commercial of the before and after model?  Check it out below.  Double click for full screen.

If you still want to keep buying magazines, well, I can't stop you, it's your choice. But please take those kinds of magazines with a grain of salt and know where they are coming from. They are manipulated and unrealistic images so don't take them too seriously. I enjoy beauty as much as the next person but stop seeing those images as the "real thing" and allowing it to affect your self-esteem (if it is).  Beauty comes in all shapes, sizes and images.

By the way, the same magazines that will have an article about "How to increase your self-esteem" will have 10 or more advertisements for products about why you aren't beautiful enough the way you are so they can sell you their anti-wrinkle cream, anti-cellulite cream or anti-"god knows what else cream" (and what kinds of chemicals are in this stuff anyhow???).  Ironic, isn't it?


Don't get sucked into buying all these expensive and chemical laden products. In the movie it mentioned that 450 chemicals that were in cosmetic products were banned in Europe and yet only 6 have been banned in the last 10 years in the US.  What is going on here? All I know is cosmetic companies and magazines don't have your best interests at heart. They are there to take your money and self-esteem from you so it can keep them in business.  Stop supporting these companies and start reading labels (you may notice a lot of products aren't even labelled to begin with, hmmmm).

Another interesting study was done in Fiji which was talked about in the movie. Fiji didn't have television for a number of years. People have this debate all the time about violence in movies and does it affect us to the point of wanting to do it ourselves etc. The people selling the movies will of course say no, it doesn't, because they want you to spend your money and go see the movie. Other people would say, how could it not?  Nonetheless, it's always a debate.  But let's get back on track to our topic of beauty.

Case in point about Fiji.  As I mentioned, Fiji didn't have television for a number of years. They actually fought against bringing it into their country but it got passed and now they have TV. Well, three years later they did a study to see if watching images on TV affected young girls and it did. 11% of girls didn't feel as good about themselves as they did before.  Interesting.  So yes, I believe images do affect us. So again, watch TV, watch movies if you want, but remember: it's not based in reality (and that includes most "reality" shows).  Take it for what it is, but don't allow it to affect you and your self-esteem. Limit the amount of TV that you watch and spend your time taking care of yourself, having fun, spending time with family and friends and figuring out what your dreams and goals are and how you want to create your life instead.  It's your choice.

There were some horrifying stories and clips about plastic surgery.  I'm not going to get into this too much here because it was a pretty big subject, but I do want to talk about one scene in the movie. They are now doing plastic surgery so you can get a "Designer Vagina".  Yes, you read that right.  "DESIGNER VAGINA"!!

The director was in the plastic surgeon's office with the woman being interviewed. She saw images in a nude model magazine and liked how their vaginas looked apparently. She didn't like the fact that one of her labia was longer than the other and she wanted to get it "trimmed" so it would be equal in length.  Wait a minute! Isn't one foot or hand generally bigger than the other?  Maybe I should get my foot and hand trimmed down too while I'm at it so it's "equal". Are you kidding me?  What the hell?  By the way, they airbrush these magazines too so the vaginas look "socially acceptable" (whatever that means).  Don't do it!  Aren't we trying to stop genital mutilation in other countries?  Why is it okay to "mutilate" vaginas via plastic surgery?  We are born with what we have for a reason.  Have we gone completely bonkers? LOVE YOUR VAGINA the way it is!!  I understand if it's some kind of health issue but if it's purely for cosmetic purposes to look like someone else that's another thing.  It's another scheme to take your money from you.

I hope this has shone some light and got you thinking.  Sharing my thoughts for all of you to see and read is like peeling another layer off.  My wish is to get this message out to as many people as possible. 

Namaste, Martina