Show and Tell

Hey Girlies!

I know, I’ve gotta get these posts up earlier! But I am sticking to my “one-a-day” guideline, so work with me for now? Ok. So yesterday I mentioned to you that I helped create a magazine when I was 16  that was supposed to celebrate the beauty of all types of diversity right? Well, that idea came about because of some work I did with a group called Teen Women in Action (TWA). Every week, during the school year, we would meet after school and talk about issues that were important to teen girls and think of ways to help. My year,  we did what was called a “needs assessment,” – that is, we had to figure out what kind of help girls needed, so we went around our school and conducted individual interviews, group interviews and surveyed other girls to find out what were the biggest problems they faced in their lives- violence, grades, self-esteem, family, dating, sex, drugs, pregnancy etc. We found out that one of the things that most concerned the girls we talked to was body image (another big one was pregnancy). That summer, we went to work for The Young Woman’s Project (the organization that runs TWA) and worked in groups- the body image team, the pregnancy team, etc- to come up with projects that could help make a difference. I was on the body image team and we created this magazine. Good work if you can get it, no?

Anyway, years later it doesn’t seem like things have really changed. I could bore you with the details of an article I read about a new body image survey, but it’s fairly standard stuff- kids start worrying about body image before they become teenagers and these attitudes about their bodies affect their lives for years after. Girls feel extreme pressure to be thin (and were happier when they were thinner) and unhappiness can lead to eating disorders. This being Fashion Week in New York and the U.S. being the land of obese children and all, it got me to thinking about one of the exercises we had to do to encourage us to love all of ourselves. First, we had to think of the part of our bodies that we loved the most and the part that we hated the most. Then we had to- get this- write love letters to both. The idea was to force us to think about what we loved about our bodies, even the parts that we tend to hate. Well I found my old letters and, in addition to having a little laugh, I was kind of proud of myself.

My question to you is- what part of your body do you love the most and which part do you hate? What would you say if you had to write  a love letter to both? And would you be honest enough to tell the truth?

See, looking back at my letters, I see a half truth. The body part I said I loved, I really did love; but the body part I said I hated wasn’t the one I hated the most…it was just the one that I felt most comfortable admitting that I hated- and there is a big difference, trust me.

So, what say you ladies?

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…