Reminded yet again, as I am, by my two teenage nieces of the perils of being young women in a society with values based on self-promotion, celebrity culture, instant self gratification and a pre-occupation with self-image determined by fashion and so-called 'beauty' industries; my mind is taken back to my response to a superb blog by Natasha Devon from Body Gossip.
Many will know of their team of young women campaigners as they have featured on Gok Wan's TV series Gok’s Teens: The Naked Truth.
Co-founder of the Body Gossip organisation which promotes positive body image and, amongst other things, regularly lectures on body image to teenagers at schools; Natasha wrote last week in her blog entitled, The Real Beauty Debate, about eating disorders, and the assumption, amongst others, that bullying in itself is a cause.
A rather fitting blog given that it was also Eating Disorder Awareness Week.
Her blog can be read here http://bit.ly/xiRfEJ and my comment to her blog forms the basis of mine today:
We are all a product of our environment. From the moment we open ours eyes after our birth we start to take in everything we see, hear, touch, taste and emotionally experience. It forms us.
This fact is not in dispute. From an early age babies are able to do astounding things like load up a video tape, press the correct button on a DVD player etc. All done as a result of copying those around us based on what we see.
Again these facts are obvious to all and not disputed.
So it is with astonishment, frustration and not a little anger, with which I react when I hear adults claiming that the media has nothing to do with individual feelings about our bodies.
Further the bleating of the advertising and fashion industries that they have nothing to do with shaping individual and society's views on body shape and beauty; and that they are merely 'reflecting' tastes, pisses me off to the point of explosion!
The fashion industry, in the main, is misogynistic, bullying, parasitical, brain washing and carcinogenic to a mainly material and capitalist based society.
They and the fast food industries are responsible, in my view, for the majority of emotional and physical problems experienced by people suffering from eating disorders and body dysmorphia. They are also responsible for a lot of the child-hood bullying that goes on around body shape and size.
The cosmetic industry, adds further to the misery of modern life, claiming as it does, that to make the best of oneself, body modifying surgery is the only answer. It in effect is a catalyst to the emergence of body dysmorphia as a major problem in today's society and throughout that of the western world.
I am lucky that because of shit in my childhood, (and thanks to my strong Mother); my need to rebel, challenge and question in order to survive has resulted in an attitude that I don't give a damn about how I am perceived in terms of my body, (or much else to be frank) and have therefore had the strength to say, "If you don't like how I look, then that's your problem, not mine".
"I am me and proud of being me, and so those who don’t like me can go and....."
Fortunately, I also don't have the arrogance, ignorance and insensitivity to accuse those with body image problems as not having a real problem.
My heart goes out to all those suffering in this way, because the issue of self worth is the most potentially damaging thing to our collective humanity, and individual quality of life.
Body Gossip and Gok Wan are modern day heroes as far as I am concerned, and I am sure they have even saved one or two lives in their campaign to address what I consider to be a modern day evil - weight problems and body dysmorphia in all its many forms and symptoms.
