STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Drew · Gucci

Have You Seen the Special K (lose weight) Commercial?

Bastet · Kate Spade

I agree with you, it's ridiculous.

On a side note, does it also bother you that almost every single magazine aimed at women has to have at least one large headline on the cover about losing weight? I feel like society/the media wants to make every woman have losing weight as a goal. Bleh.

Drew · Gucci

Bastet wrote:

I agree with you, it's ridiculous.

On a side note, does it also bother you that almost every single magazine aimed at women has to have at least one large headline on the cover about losing weight? I feel like society/the media wants to make every woman have losing weight as a goal. Bleh.

Yes, I have noticed how every magazine has one article or another about how to lose weight. Weight is a definate issue in this country, but I would think by now that everyone should know dieting doesn't work! Lifestyle changes do. I suffer from body image issues and everyone that knows me calls me skinny (some days I agree, others I feel fat), and I have tried for over a decade to resolve my body image issues. I feel like ads like that and all the hype to look so grossly skinny becomes almost subliminal because of the sheer quantity of these types of promotions.

I love JCrew, because they show normal, healthy women. Sometimes the fashion mags show normal women too, but they always call them curvy. Uh, women are curvy, remember? Why do they have to make it seem like a thing that isn't the norm? But, then the same fashion mags also have more of an abundance of too skinny models. Such a contradiction.

It has gotten worse since I was a teen and I feel so bad for young women growing up in this atmosphere.

ILoveChoo · Hermes

Drew wrote:

Bastet wrote:

Sometimes the fashion mags show normal women too, but they always call them curvy. Uh, women are curvy, remember? Why do they have to make it seem like a thing that isn't the norm?

omg, I HATE that! Or when they'll claim to have an iddue that will cover all body types, but then its really still only the extremes- super skinny/heavier, tall/short....and no middle ground for a normal height-normal sized person.

lynnie · Chanel

Bastet wrote:

I agree with you, it's ridiculous.

On a side note, does it also bother you that almost every single magazine aimed at women has to have at least one large headline on the cover about losing weight? I feel like society/the media wants to make every woman have losing weight as a goal. Bleh.

I read this article in my womens studies class in college about something along these lines. Basically, we're distracted. We (very general we, not necessarily ladies on this board) worry more about how we look and how to lose weight than making the world a better place and setting REAL goals and aspirations for ourselves. And men continue to make more money, get better jobs, are taken more seriously- etc. I think they want it to stay this way.

Kelly · Hermes

I usually despise anything that reeks of self-help book, but I just borrowed a book from the library called "appetites" and starting reading it the other day. I really like it - it talks a lot about the drive every woman is encouraged to have to suppress their appetities (for anything - food, goals, happiness, etc.) and it makes a lot of good points. Yes, more than a handful of people in this nation have a weight problem. But I don't think it's right to assume that every woman is supposed to be unhappy with the way she looks just because she's a woman!

Bastet · Kate Spade

ttara123 wrote:

I usually despise anything that reeks of self-help book, but I just borrowed a book from the library called "appetites" and starting reading it the other day. I really like it - it talks a lot about the drive every woman is encouraged to have to suppress their appetities (for anything - food, goals, happiness, etc.) and it makes a lot of good points. Yes, more than a handful of people in this nation have a weight problem. But I don't think it's right to assume that every woman is supposed to be unhappy with the way she looks just because she's a woman!

It isn't right. But, society wants us to be unhappy with the way we look! And it works. So many teenagers complain that they're unhappy because they don't look like Whatever Random Celebrity. There is a serious disconnect between reality and what the media saturates us with. Women are being conditioned to think they're fat, that their hair color is wrong, that they arent toned enough, etc. And then once they're past a certain age, that they're old and not sexy anymore. And God forbid if you become a mom. (Watch any diet commercials with moms: in the "before" picture, she's holding the baby. In the "after" picture, no baby!) The more I think about it, the more angry it makes me. furious

XtinaStyles · Marc Jacobs

I think the commercial depicted a reality - there are so many healthy-looking women who are thin but still say "OMG I cant have that, I'll get fat!" or skip meals frequently and are always dieting.

It disturbs me more so that every teen magazine (Seventeen, Teen Vogue, Cosmo Teen) always have a NUMBER of articles including workout guides, diet guides, blaming school food for making them fat, etc. The last one I read showed what they called "naturally thin" models who looked 6' tall and 120 lbs. The media is so hypocritical about the situation.

We see people like America Ferrera and Jennifer Hudson, sensationalized for their sizes then when they get famous they drop weight rapidly and aren't really what they used to be! America has to be a size 6 now and maybe Jennifer is at a 10. So what lesson does that really show us?

blink · Coach

Our pop culture standards are out of control. Just the other day, DH and I were watching a few minutes of The Girls Next Door. He had the nerve to say that one of them was kind of overweight (Bridget). I called his opinion ridiculous, he said, "well, compared to the other two..." PLEASE!! They are all three very skinny.

squishy · Coach

i agree with what everyone's said. thought this might be appropriate: beth ditto posed nude on the cover of NME (probably not suitable for work).