Disturbing statistics

"

• The average American woman is 5'4" tall and weighs 140 pounds. [with in a healthy weight range]
  
• The average American model is 5'11" tall and weighs 117 pounds. [far below the healthy weight range]
  
• Most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women.
• Four out of five American women say they're dissatisfied with the way they look.
• On any given day, almost half of the women in the United States are on a diet.

• Almost half of American children between first and third grades say they want to be thinner.
• Four out of five ten-year-old children are afraid of being fat.
• On any given day, one in four men are on a diet.
• Half of our nine and ten-year-old girls say that being on a diet makes them feel better about themselves.
• More than one out of three "normal dieters" progress to pathological dieting. One fourth of those will suffer from partial or full syndrome eating disorders.
• Americans spend over forty billion dollars a year on dieting and diet related products.
• Between five and ten million women and girls in the United States struggle with eating disorders and borderline conditions.

Sources: Crowther et al., 1992; Fairburn et al., 1993; Gordon, 1990; Hoek, 1995; Shisslak et al., 1995., US Department of Health and Human Services, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report 1998, Treatment Advocacy Center, 1999, Smolak, 1996., Mellin et al., 1991., Collins, 1991., Shisslak & Crago, 1995."

What I find most disturbing are the statistics involving children, though none of it is comforting. As a first grader I don't remember even considering how much I weighed. I never even considered dieting at 9 or 10. And that is what I want for my children. I want them to feel good about themselves and how they look.

"Your mother, or other family member, may have done the same thing while your were growing up by making constant comments about her own weight (or yours) and enforcing lots of food restrictions on herself (or you). Early on, you may have gotten the message that you need to be thin in order to be accepted and loved by your parents." source

I think this quote explains some of why our children are having such problems. If parents can't love their bodies and accept them as they are not as they think they should be, if I can't love my body, what am I teaching my children? Luckily I am not one of the 5-10 million women battling an eating disorder. Though this isn't really luck, except that I am lucky to have the parents, husband and friends that I have. My husband loves me and thinks that I am attractive and sexy just the way I am. My mother and father didn't constantly comment on their own weight or mine. I always knew they loved me and as a child, as a teenager and now I would have laughed (and still would) if someone told me I had to be skinny for them to love me. Now I need to do the same for my children.

"With these media images and body ideals, it’s little wonder that women and men feel inadequate, ashamed, and dissatisfied with how they look. Only about 5% of women have the genetic make up to ever achieve the ultra-long and thin model body type so pervasive in the media. Yet that is the only body type that women see and can compare themselves to. Similarly, all boys see is a body ideal that for most men is impossible to achieve without illegal anabolic steroids. There is a physiological limit to how much muscle a man can attain naturally, given his height, frame, and body fat percentage. Unfortunately, however, the action figure heroes on toy store shelves and male fitness models on magazine covers and ads suggest otherwise."

Of course even if I manage to to my part and love me for who I am I still have a lot of work ahead of me. This is why we don't have cable TV. This is why I don't read celebrity magazines. Even though I know that I can never have Uma Thurman's body and that the expectations they create for women are ridiculous it is still hard to look at women that are the epitome of beauty and desirability and not want to be them. I don't need pressure to be what I can never be. I know that I am not as healthy as I can be, I could use some more exercise (and more sleep) but that I can change. I can go for walks, exercise, get in shape. I can't drop 80 lbs to look like a movie star, they are paid to look good, that is their job, I am not. The less TV I watch, magazines I read and time I spend brooding about my "fatness" the more I can believe this rather than just know it. But as a parent I have no clue how to accomplish this for my children.

Sorry for ranting, I know this post has no cute baby pictures or stories about Layden. This, for some reason is an issue that really bothers me. Maybe it is because I see women who I know are beautiful inside and out (my mother, my sister, my family, my friends) but because they don't starve themselves til they lose enough weight they are risking their health, society does all it can to make them feel bad about themselves and how they look.