Don’t Compare

I have stumbled upon a provocative, time-suck Pinterest board that I felt I had to share with everyone this morning. Thank you Jen Yates from http://www.epbot.com.

http://pinterest.com/indyink/don-t-compare-yourself-to-celebrities/ is the place. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! It may be mildly NSFW, but I have yet to scroll to something that wasn’t. Just a lot of bikinis n’ such.

<rant>

See, I have a bone to pick with fashion magazines, and they don’t come into the house because of they image they project, not to mention the consumerism they promote. I generally have a hard time with all the images on the Internet of women who are “perfectly fit”, no flaws, skinny as a matchstick, and fake looking. Digitally altered women (and men!) are everywhere in the media now, and I have always maintained that it promotes poor body image, unrealisitc expectations, and a warped sense of what humans actually look like. It seems like it is normal to make people look so different than what they naturally look like. As if what they really look like is so abhorent, it won’t sell, and must be smoothed into oblivion.

&$#* that. Give me freckles, wrinkles, tan lines, pooches, scars and pores. Give me cellulite and jiggle and those little tiny hairs that cover the body. give me short, and tall, thick and thin.

Give me real.

Yes, it is up to me to promote good body image in my children, and ignore the images bombarded at us from everywhere. Yes, it is up to me to educate them on what a truly fit and healthy person looks like, bumps and all. But…

I do not appreciate the message all these ‘Shopped images send to our children (and to me!). I do not like that fashion and high-end catalog models have to look like they never eat, or female fitness models have their six packs erased because they look too “manly”. I truly dislike seeing waists with ribs removed, arms lengthened, necks stretched, and thigh gaps that look unnatural. I abhor seeing fashion models made to look skinnier than they already are.

So, this Pinterest board is kind of a YES! Don’t compare yourselves to the Photoshopped, altered and smoothed images you see. Just don’t.

</end rant>