Healthy Is The New Skinny

Love this message from Healthy is the New Skinny. Check them out if you haven’t already!

 

 

Check out their new promo piece HERE! It’s awesome! Or watch it below!

Even a real life Cinderella didn’t meet their body image standard . . .

I think she's beautiful . . . even before photoshop!

I have my own opinions about marriage and I don’t think it’s for everyone. But surprisingly, I found myself really into the Royal Wedding. Usually, I’d be repulsed by the abusrdity of some of the traditions (like when the priest asked “who givith this woman” and Kate Middleton’s dad physically gave her hand to the priest, who gave it to Prince William. *gag* Please, she’s almost 30 years old, I’m pretty sure her daddy doesn’t make her decisions for her any more). On the other hand, I have a lot of respect for her for taking the word “obey” out of their vows. I can only imagine that she didn’t have too much say over how it went, so the fact that she had “obey” removed deserves so much credit. I think it shows she really is a modern woman.

As I was watching the whole thing go down I realized that Kate looked SO incredibly happy. I guess I was expecting her to be nervous or some royal version of bridezilla, but instead I found her to be incredibly enchanting. I thought her dress (as well as her sisters) was the perfect mix of class and sex, modern and tradition. I was completely captivated by her.

I read in a couple different places that she went from a size 6 to a size 2 for her wedding. This is a common thing for most brides so I wasn’t too surprised to hear that. However, yesterday at the Huffington Post I read an article about how the magazine Grazia had photoshopped Kate Middleton’s wedding photo for the cover image to make her waist look much slimmer than it already was. Grazia told the Huffington Post:

 “Grazia did not make any changes to the image of the Duchess of Cambridge to make her look or appear slimmer than she is.”

Do they think we’re stupid? All you have to do is look at the two pictures to see they did a good squeeze job on her waist. This is so discouraging! Kate Middleton looked so stunning and sexy and classy and happy on her wedding day. She’s a real life modern Cinderella story! She’s a size TWO! How much skinnier did she have to be for the media to consider her skinny enough? I guess in today’s world, even Cinderella isn’t skinny enough to escape the devastation of photoshop. Maybe she should have tried for Barbie instead of Cinderella . . .

Here’s the photo:

Turning Women into Meat . . . Literally

I realize that this HUSTLER cover is really outdated (June 1978), but I think it’s important to talk about. This was the cover of a HUSTLER magazine form 32 years ago. Yet, I still feel like it’s relevant to how women are viewed in the gentleman’s magazines of today.

Yesterday started reading the book Pornland: How porn has hijacked our sexuality. So far I’m loving the book! I’ll be sure to post some updates about it!

Any thoughts on this image? 

When we Said we Wanted Equality, we Didn’t Mean This

I swear this is the real image from the Man Spanx home page!

 

My boyfriend and I were at a men’s dress clothing store today called The Shirt Box. While he was trying on clothes, I was browsing around the store and I couldn’t believe what I saw on one of the shelves. Mixed in with the bow ties, tie pins, and cuff links were . . . . SPANX FOR MEN!! I was shocked when I saw them.! I might have believed they were a product that sat on the shelf for a long time that men just laughed at, but As I was having this conversation with myself, trying to comprehend the tragic-ness of the situation, I realized that a man in the store was trying the man Spanx on!

The Spanx website features undershirts and underwear for men with the catch phrase,

“Expect more from your underwear!”

The website claims, “These physique-improving, game-changing undershirts feature powerful compression zones that comfortably transform the torso and chest! He’ll look sharper, stand taller and feel stronger in his clothes!” Another style claims, “These chest-firming, back-supporting shirts will narrow his waist line, flatten his stomach and leave him looking and feeling his best!” Because we all know your true self is never your best, right? This is the same bullshit that these companies have been feeding women for years!

We have been fighting the toxic body culture that we (mostly women) live in for years. We have been fighting for equal rights with men for so long. But, when we said we wanted equality, we didn’t mean we wanted men to hate their bodies as much as we do! How sad. There can’t be much hope for women if the toxic body-hate is spilling over to the male gender too.

From Seed magazine:

Every bit as unattainable as Barbie-doll proportions and the heroin chic look are the broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, fat-free, and muscle-sheathed male physiques littering today’s media.

Men in advertising and media are no long hairy, sweaty men who don’t care what they look like. They are now shaved, buff, fat free dudes who put a lot of thought in to their appearance. I don’t have too much expertise on this subject, but I sense that this is creating some sort of conflict in the male world. Our culture is telling men to be “men,” but at the same time the media is teaching them to hate their bodies. I feel like these are two very conflicting messages.

Seed Magazine says:

Whether “real-body” discomfort in men is truly new or something that’s only now being noticed is impossible to say, but sociologists and psychologists say that images of hairless, sweatless, pseudo-perfect men are more common than ever before.

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, there are about 1 million men with serious eating disorders and tens of millions who have some form of eating disorders.

Again, this is sad. Not only do we have to worry about protecting our young girls from the body-hate culture, but now we also have to protect our boys.