Becoming Famous Via YouTube

Being a student in school is always a struggle at some point in time.

One huge struggle is finding a certain someone who will maybe lighten the burden like this girl Carli Carter. After meeting through recruitment for going Greek, she and I began to hit it off nearly every day since we met each other. One brilliant idea that we came up with was to try and become famous by posting videos on youtube to get our names out there.

Seeming that she wanted to become a talk show host and I have always wanted to be an actress or a model, I figured, why not? So here you have it, one of our silly moments in the library while "studying" and unfortunately we never got famous off of this but it sure was fun while it lasted. 

This video explains a little about what we both think the library could do to make it a little better for all the students at the University of Utah. Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCGwmXBDKAw

Interviewing Markelle

This is my interview with the darling Markelle. She has recently gone through some very dramatic changes in her life. She has lost a huge amount of weight and is now living a very healthy lifestyle. I wanted to ask her some questions about her fitness journey and how her life is different now that her body has gone through such a dramatic change. She was so nice to agree to meet with me! Markelle is now working towards becoming a personal trainer to help others live a healthy life as well. Hope you enjoy!

Book Review

For my Book review his week I read the Book "How to be a Hepburn in a Hilton World" By Jordan Christy.  I loved this book. I was so fun to read, and I learned a few things along the way.  The book started out by stating that we need to respect ourselves as women first and foremost.  Before we can make any change we need to be happy with who we are inside.  In one of the first chapters Jordan talks about things that you can do that will have instant effect on how your self image and boost your self confidence.  She says that "one of the best ways to cultivate a healthy self-image is by celebrating your positive and unique qualities." And she goes on to list those ways that will help you.  They are things that I had never though of before, but they are easy to do and they really work.  After I read this chapter I implemented some of them in my life and they really did work. This book was an entertaining book that talked about how to be a classy woman, with a positive self-image.  She talks about how the world today is a different one than just 15 years ago.  The title of this book is what pulled me in.  I love Audrey Hepburn and think that she was one of the all time truly talented and beautiful movie stars of the past.  She was so classy and dignified.  And most importantly she was comfortable in her own skin.  It is apparent in how she acted and the things she said.  I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a good, easy read to help you see that you can make a change and gain a positive view of yourself!

to be or not to be

well, it's about that time again. another weekly post from us. another word trying to reach out to everyone in the world especially parents who have children struggling with body image. although these posts may seem redundant or unnecessary to some, it may be the saving grace for others.

"it only takes one person to make a difference."

i discovered this video online while scrolling through my facebook one day, i would say about a year ago. this really caught my attention and i had a loss for words after watching it. it literally changed my perspective about how models are portrayed in magazines, commercials, and everywhere throughout media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17j5QzF3kqE

this link was actually featured on many talk shows like the Ellen show and Oprah to spread the word and let it be known what this girl truly looked like and how she felt about the specific message that was meant to be sent by this. with over a staggering 10 million views on YouTube, this is something that has spoken to families all across the world.

i feel that many people can see the difference in things and learn to understand what issues are going on in the world if it is told to them. i mean literally, this ideal body image expectation for women that is help nowadays is nearly impossible as it shows in this video by the endless Photoshop done to this already beautiful woman. to go along with this video and the powerful message of how much a woman's appearance is valued, it is almost a staple that little girls learn starting at a very young age of how to act and what to wear and how to look a certain way to be accepted or popular.

i started to read this book called "butter" about a month ago, and man is it a read. you don't even have to be a regular book worm to really get into this book. it's all about a young boy who is morbidly obese and trying to get his point across that all he is really looking for is acceptance from those around him because he has always been patronized ever since he could remember. so, what better than to record his over-eating binge online and make it viral? he began to do this and of course it did attract attention from others, but it wasn't the fulfilling attention he intended for. it was a mocking type of attention but he still thought of it as becoming popular. it continued to escalate with no adult supervision over his live streaming website which in the end, still no one had told an adult about Butter’s website, the one where he claims he is going to eat himself to death on new year’s. Social institutions are woven to help with the flexibility of being able to hand certain situations throughout a child's life (pg. 114), however if it is not taken into the right hands and helped in the correct way it can lead to some very negative coping strategies.

so my conclusion comes down to whether to be the positive or not to be. it's almost vital that everyone should see the different types of media being put out for parents and children of all ages to prevent any more issues regarding body image. it's a serious issue that must be taken care of through educators, families, and through one's own knowledge.

until then, i'll leave it to you all to choose whether being the change or just letting the issue keep go on is the better decision.

You are BEAUTIFUL!!

 

“You can’t live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]”


Julia DeVillers, Teen People, Sept. 2005, 104.

These girls are some of my most favorite people in the world.  I loved how they are so confident in who they are at such young ages.  I hope that they never lose that and that they never forget to listen to their inner self.  When I found this quote, I instantly thought of them.  I hope that I can bottle the confidence and joy that they have in them and sell it to those who are lacking in those areas.  If we could bottle up up confidence and love for themselves we could change the world.  That would be impossible to do so instead, why don't we teach our young girls to love themselves and be happy with who they are.

I recently read a book titled “Does This Book Make Me Look Fat? Stories about loving- and loathing- your body” edited by Marissa Walsh, and written by many different authors. In fact, the entire book is a collection of stories from different people who have gone through struggles with the way their body looked and how they dealt with it. Some of the stories I loved, and some I hated.  Some are filled with comedy while others are extremely sad. The great thing about this book is that it really helped me understand what people with certain body image issues are going through.

The very beginning of the book starts with a statistic that states that about 90% of all women worldwide ages 15-64 want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance- body weight ranking the highest (Walsh, 2). The stories compiled in this book tell of struggles with many body image issues including: feeling self conscious about being overweight, anorexia and other eating disorders, hating the size of their rear-end, and even stories about being uncomfortable with bust size. It has such a wide variety of things that these women have struggled with throughout their lives.

In all honesty, I wouldn’t recommend this book to researchers or practitioners who are trying to help people cope with some of these problems; it’s really not very research based.  However, I would recommend it to parents of teens that may be struggling with some of these issues, and even to the teens themselves. It might help parents understand what their children are going through, and it would definitely help the teens feel like they weren’t so alone in their problems; that there are other people out there who have dealt with the same things.

One great lesson that I got out of the book was to never judge anyone else based on appearances. Many of these women developed their insecurities because of a judgment that someone else made about them. There’s really never a good reason to make someone else feel bad about themselves, and there’s certainly never a good reason to make someone feel bad about something that is completely beyond their own control.  We really have no idea what struggles other people are going through and let’s be honest, we’re all plenty self-conscious without the help of anybody else.

My very favorite quote from the entire book comes from right inside the front cover. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye” – Miss Piggy (disclaimer: I do not actually want to promote giving anyone a black eye).

Reference:

Walsh, M. (2). Take another look. In M. Walsh ,Does This Book Make Me Look Fat?: Stories About Loving and Loathing your Body (p. 2). New York: Harcourt Publishing Company.

Reader's Question

Hey fellow bloggers!

Monica, one of our followers had a question that I was very curious to know as well. She asked, "I'm curious as to if there's any research on the new beauty campaigns such as the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, that are trying to promote feeling beautiful in your own body. Are those have any effect to counter the traditional media? How has this impacted women's perceptions of themselves?"

These are a great set of questions, seriously. For those of you all who are not aware of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty with the video that had real sketches of women that was going viral for a while on Facebook, I felt as though this video had a very powerful, underlying message. It is also very well known that women already have a very HIGH standard of what they should look like, but how often is this reality? Here, I'll let you all see for yourself.

http://realbeautysketches.dove.us 

This should open your eyes to a new horizon. Make sure to read the little prologue to this video at the top of the website, it's worth it.

So, after watching this video, if you are a woman, how do you feel? Can you relate to this video even to the slightest bit? If your a man, how do you think a woman you are close to such as a sister, mom, friend, or coworker feels everytime you talk about the "hottest girl ever" on the newest magazine in the grocery store and how perfect her body is. Women, comparison is the thief of joy. I learned that this was so true because I myself even had an issue with constantly being my very worst critic and never knowing how to be grateful and praise myself for the good things about me. It wasn't until just a few weeks ago, I got to start talking to some older friends and family members that I have always looked up to and went to them for some advice. I also found some things to occupy my time in a different way. In a positive way. I began to start reading more books about how to live your life in a positive way and what to do when you are struggling with self confidence.

As far as research goes for the specific Dove Campaign, they used the Action Assembly Theory which basically means that in order to understand behavior you have to first understand how people think. This theory seeks to understand human behavior through their mental process. There are three main factors of attaining full knowledge of this: congitive structure, content, and cognitive process (Greene, 1989). Dove has been notoriously known to promote the natural beauty in ALL women. Of course, the ladies that are in the video above aren't super models or by any means the most perfect people in the whole world, but their imperfections make each and every individual perfect. This video towards the end once the reveal happens, all of the women come to the realization and conclusion that it's okay to finally accept yourself for who you are.

Greene, J. (1989). Action assembly theory. (Master's thesis), Available from McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0073385026/228359/action.pdf

Stacie asked the question: What suggestions do you have for parents raising daughters today, when everything is airbrushed and it is advertised that being perfect is possible.. you see it... it has to be real! And it is believable, right? Part of what I’m wondering is how to teach loving yourself in just the way you are created, when teenagers today are exposed to so much?

Stacie, thank you, great question! Oh man, where to begin?! Let’s start by talking with your kids.  Make sure that they understand that much of what the media is portraying is unrealistic and often extremely edited.  Parents also need to set an example for their children. If teenage Suzie is constantly watching her mom obsess about her own body image (how many calories she’s eating, spending obscene amounts of money shopping for clothes, spending hours putting on make-up and doing her hair, etc.), Suzie is probably going to end up with many of the same habits and concerns about her own image as her mom. For the record, I’m a big advocate of taking care of your body… having good hygiene, looking nice, exercising, all that jazz. With that being said, I do think that we, as a society, tend to take it a bit too far.

Parents should do what they can to instill healthy habits in their teenagers. Keep healthy foods around the house, prepare healthy meals, plan activities to exercise together as a family, things along these lines. In fact, according to one study, helping your teen to develop healthy eating habits can be beneficial in more than one way. The book titled I’m, like, SO fat!: Helping your Teen Make Healthy Choices about Eating and Exercise in a weight obsessed world talks about a study with which they discovered the following: “In our society, dieting is so common as to seem normal. But that doesn’t mean it’s harmless, particularly in children and teens. For some teens, the feelings of hunger and deprivation that often accompany dieting often lead to binge eating and, somewhat ironically, to weight gain” (Neumark-Sztainer, 2005). Clearly, this isn’t going to help any teen feel better about herself.

Honestly, it’s inevitable that our teens will sometimes feel self-conscious.  Heck, even before all of the editing and retouching that we are able to do now, teens felt awkward and insecure about the way they looked. As parents I think that it is important to teach healthy habits, teach proper hygiene, and talk to your teens about the unrealistic supermodels that they are seeing. In my opinion, one of the very best things that you can teach your teen is that the way that they look DOES NOT define who they are as a person. Yes, I do think that it is important to teach them to look presentable and nice. They just need to know that they are valued for something other than the way they look. Make sure that your teens know that they are loved and cared about even on the days that they might be feeling self-conscious about their weight, or about the zit that just showed up on their chin. Just let them know that they are loved and eventually, they will hopefully learn to love themselves.

References:

Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2005). I'm, like, so fat!: Helping your teen make healthy choices about eating and exercise in a weight-obsessed world. (p. 10). New York: Guilford Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=HqB71qmG5tYC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=Parenting teens with eating disorders&ots=2IuzmgBFCi&sig=8557hrKDZl5Ao7XE6s8rIKpwe3A

Reader Question:

What suggestions do you have for parents raising daughters today, when everything is airbrushed and advertised that being perfect is possible,....you see it...it has to be real! and it is believable...right?

Part of what I am wondering is how to teach loving yourself in just the way you are created when teenagers today are exposed to so much?

That question is a hard one to answer. I think that some of the best things that mothers can do is watching what they say about themselves in front of their children(especially their daughters).  All I know is that from my personal experience my Mom was a great example to me.  She never complained about her weight, and I NEVER heard her talk negatively about her body. She ate healthy and exercised, but she also ate treats every now and then :) I saw how she treated her body and I patterned my life after her.  I'm sure she wasn't always happy with her body but she never showed it.  I think that because of that I grew up having a very positive view of my body.  Don't ever call yourself fat, or skinny, don't joke about it excessively, and always talk positive!!

Today I saw this quote on Instagram @beauty_redefined

I read in a research article Parenting and the child's world; Influences on academic, intellectual, and social-emotional development  I read that parents are the strongest influences in their child's lives (Borkowski, 2001). I feel like most parents don't fully realize this.  I also feel like when your child is a teenager this can be more true than we sometimes like to think it is. I don't have teenagers so I don't know how to suggest you teach them. But from what I have observed with friends, and family, teenagers learn more from watching what we say and do than from what we tell them to say and do.  

Borkowski JG, Ramey SL, & Bristol-Power M, Parenting and the child's world; Influences on academic, intellectual, and social-emotional development. Mahwah, NJ: Psychology Press, 2001.

But Who? & Why?

When the term ‘eating disorder’ is announced, it’s safe to say that the majority of the audience are automatically linking the term, categorizing it with females more so than males. Thus, causing a problem in terms of attentiveness to the subject of male eating disorders and it’s increasing growth. People need to be more aware overall of male eating disorders. The level of awareness compared to the ratio of the rising level of male eating disorders is not balanced.

            Interestingly enough, not only do people and their surroundings refine what his/her thought is of him/herself, but the demographics can as well. Every 1 in 25 males in England reported to being anorexic (Maine, 2001). In the sense of the fashion realm London, England is a fashion capital. The bar for social standards is set high because of that, making the reason to look a certain way justified in the fashion society. However, it doesn’t make the act of extreme diet restrictions just. Males in London, many of which are part of the homosexual community, especially feel it is almost as if their life depends on the way that one looks because of the aura that the fashion world puts off. Homosexuality and it’s relevance to appeal eating disorders as an easier way to fit in with the mainstream. 

The average idea of an eating disorder usually is associated with mainstream disorders. In fact, many go unnoticed because the categorization has such a narrow path. Many times, it only allows a select few of disorders and the population that account for it. PhD Ousley, PhD Cordero, and MA White demonstrates the comparison of males and females that had eating disorders. The outcome of the test show the men who were diagnosed with an eating disorder weren’t projected just towards the desire to lose weight, but having a more masculine shape (Ousley et al., 2008). Ousley’s observation verify the idea that these males are influenced by media and exposure athletes that are exalted as superior because of their bodily figure. Geographic factors also place a role in the minds of males that reside in. 20,000 random participants conducted in an experiment that was in Southern California at a university located on the beach, where levels of eating patterns and body dissatisfaction in both men and women may be elevated as a result of the environment and lifestyle of students who live in warm climates (Ousley et al., 2008). This is one of the many factors when it comes to male eating disorders.

Maine, M. (2001). Altering Women’s Relationship with Food: A Relational,            Developmental Approach. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Session, 57, 1301-1310.      Academic Search Premier. Web 31 Oct. 2011.

 “Most say Homosexuality Should Be Accepted by Society.”Pew Research Center for the People            & the Press. 13 May 2011. Pew Research Center. Web. 

Ousley, Louise, Elizabeth Diane Cordero, and Sabina White. "Eating Disorders and Body Image

            of Undergraduate Men." Journal of American College Health 56.6 (2008): 617-622.           Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web.