Nowadays teen girls watch TV and see models and actresses who are skinny to the point its unhealthy. Yet the rest of society still calls these women beautiful and the girls think the way to be beautiful like these women is to be skinny and they develop eating disorders or severe dieting. This image that being skinny is beautiful is dangerous. People are dying from this, anorexia and bulimia can severely damage you. Girls hurt each other and are cruel to each other because they are always competing. They compete to be skinny because that's what they think beautiful is because society doesn't teach them otherwise. What happened to remembering that beautiful comes in all shapes and sized and people can be beautiful and not be gauntly skinny.
This image is destroying teenagers nation wide, we are destroying these girls by not empowering them. Its not even only teens, grown women want to look like the celebs and they do all this stuff to make themselves look like them. The girls look for a role model who can be strong for them and be proud to be who they are. Sadly they can't find it or they think they do in celebs.
We need to teach the next generation and maybe even the older generations need a lesson, that you can't but one vision on beauty. You can't label it like that.

I put this in health because honestly this is a major health issue. These girls starve themselves to conform with an issue and its wrong.
Also depression and self harm can come from a girl who is told by her peers she is ugly because she isn't thin. The effects of this image are ghastly. Lets wake up before its too late!

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Listening to the moon, a ghost of the sky.
I hear the call of freedom, upon this starry night.
A song that beats in my heart, and sings in my feet.
But I don't know how to get from here to being free.

Good post. Really pertinent yes it is a health issue in all senses as well as an issue that calls for media/magazine/fashion industry accountability. The internet is flooded with pro ana/mia stuff.

Its a real issue and its bothered me for awhile. Not exactly sure how to go at this but here it goes:

1. I still think this is a parent issue mainly, although it is a lot tougher these days, than it was not so long back for me. (I'm 28, I try to think it wasn't so long ago.) It is still the parents responsibility to guide their children and place responsibility in them. Unfortunately, kids don't know reality the way we do. Ultimately it comes down to the parents to monitor and enforce, and the key word being enforce. One thing I've started noticing more often is that parents try and be their kids friends, more so than parents. There is a time for this, its when they are 25 years old. This is something I've recently learned and understood well now.

2. Hollywood is a major problem. Many youngsters look up to these people today because of the expanded media attention that they receive. They think its cool, so thats what they try and do. This is bad, I blame E television, Entertainment Tonight, Star Mag etc for that

3. Internet doesn't help kids access this for sure, so this has to be looked at and limited no doubt (at least to a certain age.)

In all honesty, I could never really understand why anyone would find these skeletal women attractive. And a large part of it is the media glorifying these girls who look more like a walking advertisement for a summer vacation in Dachau than anything glamourous.

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"Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!" -- Genghis Khan, Bukhara 1220

I find women with curves and a healthy body to be by far the most beautiful. Why anyone is attracted to a super-thin, boney woman is something I'll never understand.

That said, I think the trends in the media and society are slowly starting to rebel against the wafe-like, emaciated appearance.

I believe it is very, very, very slowly starting to shift. Dove has a campaign specifically targeting this subject.

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i think guys are more pressed to have good in-shape forms these days.

Excellent post Freedom seeker. In my years as a psychiatric nurse, I worked with young girls who suffered from anorexia and bulimia and other eating disorders, and the problems are certainly not only physical.

I blame not only the stick insect models and celebrities though, the models merely wear the clobber which is designed and therefore clothes designers must take a share of the blame for this horrible illness.
Lord but some of the late great screen godesses were size 16 (GB sizing) and all were curvy and gorgeous and female in the extreme.

"More" than in the past perhaps but not "more" than females. Not even close.

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The models aren't to blame. I mean.... to be honest, the majority of them that appear in magazines are photoshopped/altered in some way. It is a media projection of what is "beautiful". It keeps women dieting, eating, exercising, and buying, buying, buying.

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