Skinny and Healthy

I don't mean to be yet another voice to complain about the female celebrities and their body shapes, but I do want to lend my voice to the distinction between skinny/fat/curvy and HEALTHY.

I have no problem admitting that I'd like to lose weight (and am working on it) and be a smaller size. I have no problem saying that to anyone who bothered to ask. But I defend my choice to lose weight as becoming HEALTHY, not skinny. I was overweight in high school, and thanks to the prescription steroids used to treat my allergy break outs after graduation, I gained even more. I look around at the magazines and the department stores, with their cute jeans, shirts, and bikinis and wonder. I wonder about my life and the choices and circumstances I'm faced with. All those little things that have put me where I am today.

Mostly I wonder about those company CEO's and presidents, wonder about their choices to promote tiny, stick-figure, scantily girls as being healthy and the "ideal" model. I wonder who, in the long line of people to blame, really has the influence to stop the madness of this generation.

How is Mischa Barton healthy? Thanks to being called overweight at her size 6 during her time in the O.C., she dropped to a size 0 in 6 months! Losing that much weight leaves her body at risk of illness and infection due to malnutrition. Giving into peer pressure and criticism, and dieting unhealthily and unnecessarily. Is she a good role model for our children? Our kids have enough on their plate to deal with every day without having the media agree that they should be skinnier and look like their tiny classmates.




I just read an article about unhealthy celebrities and famous faces, with a small section about models. The article (found HERE) says that models are required to be so very skinny to focus viewers on the clothes they wear (if you ask me, it should be the lack of clothing they wear) instead of any curves they may have.

Is this model what our young girls should aspire to look and dress like? Should our girls look so frail and breakable while covering so little skin and flaunting their bodies? This model is no role model either! There is no possible way she is healthy at this size, and she is certainly not dressed in appropriate clothing to be in front of so many people.













Celebrity role models should not concentrate on what critics say about their bodies or their weight. They should focus on being healthy and a good model for young girls and boys to look up to. As Demi Lovato says in THIS article about when her breakdown occurred: “It was the time in the tabloids when very, very skinny girls were on the cover of every magazine and that’s what I was looking up to. That’s what I had to idolize.  I don't want that for young girls to idolize.”

This is a happy, healthy role model for our children to look up to. Demi Lovato is very open about her breakdown and health problems, as well as the reason she developed them. She is constantly working to overcome her health problems and continue to be healthy. Yes, she fell down and gave into the pressures to be skinny and "hip". But she's since then stood up stronger than ever, ready to promote health and happiness to the next generation.