Hello Sparklers!
Last week, we were prepping to give a presentation at the University of Wyoming for a
conference their “Real Women Real Bodies” club is hosting. We
felt very honored to be asked to take part in such a conference,
because we have never done something like this before. The first task
at hand was picking a topic matter to discuss, because self-worth as
a whole is way too vast to cover in 30 minutes. We also had to
remember that we are addressing an older audience, as compared to our
normal age range of 8-13 year olds.
After much thought we decided to focus
on our Comfort in Your Own Skin station. At this station we focus on
how we were put in our bodies for a reason. Our body doesn't need to
grow into us, we need to grow into it. Why waste our time and energy
on fixing something that can't be fixed when you can spend your time
and energy on embracing who you are. For example, instead of trying
to look like models or others portrayed in the media, focus on
changing how the world/media portrays a real women. Photoshop doesn't
reside in our pockets to warp our presence like those in the
magazines.
For the conference we developed a
presentation with visual examples on how drastic the changes can be
with photo manipulation programs, such as Photoshop. The presentation
also addresses ways we cannot allow ourselves to be fooled by the
unrealistic images they create. While prepping for this I came across
starting statics about the effects of unrealistic media
representation and the role it has on young girls.
- 42% of girls in grades 1-3 want to be thinner. (Huffington Post)
- 53% of 13-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies. (Huffington Post)
- 7 million girls and women under 25 suffer from eating disorders (myNEDA.org)
- 80% of women feel worse about themselves after seeing a beauty ad. (myNEDA.org)
- $20B is spent on beauty marketing in the US annually. That’s a lot of money being spent making women feel worse about themselves. (myNEDA.org)
This statics are crazy to me! To think
that 42% of girls in first through third grade want to be thinner is
crazy to me. At that age, their bodies are not even half way towards
being fully grown. With young girls being exposed to so many beauty
commercials, no wonder why they are starting to believe what they see
and use those images as a point of aspiration.
I would like to challenge all my
sparklers, of any age, to not fall for the unrealistic standard of
beauty. Don’t allow yourself to be part of the 80% that feels worse
about themselves after seeing a beauty ad. Remember that you are a
real kind of beautiful, and a kind of beautiful that cannot be
compared to any other beauty.
With Love, Ciara
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