Soul Kadee

Looks like the media, which once promoted skinny girls as the epitome of beauty, is finally getting “real.”

According to this article, magazines are beginning to feature more young women with thick thighs and flabby abs to “reflect changing body types and to help self-conscious teens see that not everyone is perfect”. Seventeen, Teen People, CosmoGirl! and Teen Vogue have bathing suit sections with less-than-perfect figures and tips on maximizing assets and minimizing defects.

Unfortunately, Dove, which recently started an ad campaign featuring women from size 6 to 14, doesn’t quite seem to get it because the ads are designed to sell products from Dove’s firming collection € lotions and creams meant to reduce the appearance of cellulite, with the message, “Let’s face it, firming the thighs of a size 2 supermodel is no challenge.”

The message is to be comfortable with the cellulite, morons!

Then again, as Mary Pipher, author of a book about teen girls and body image states:

Anything that shows realistic women is a step in the right direction to help girls gain self-esteem. Presenting a broader range of beauty, even if it’s under the guise of selling cosmetics, gives girls more permission to think they too are attractive. The ideal message is you’re great just the way you are and you don’t have to spend any money, but of course they need to sell magazines.

Sharmila, a member of my single women’s network, posted this poem she found on the net.

Real Women Have Curves

© By Alexx A. McCoy

Real women have curves, wrinkles, and flaws.
Each one earned with experience, perseverance and determination.
There’s no computer to airbrush your mistakes.
Let them make you who you are.

Love every mark, every scar,
every extra curve you wished to go away,
Accept what you can’t learn to love,
Then let go of what you can’t accept.

Treasure them for their memories
Like a worn love letter or ratty old quilt from generations of old.
Each wrinkle comes with the wisdom only years of life can give.
And life is not to be hidden or covered up.

For life is how a girl grows into a woman
And real women have curves

I love my curves. Do you?

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