Yesterday while my morning commute I heard this piece on NPR -
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/07/229164585/for-boys-with-eating-disorders-finding-treatment-can-be-hard
I invite you to listen to the piece, it's enlightening and frightening.
Once upon a time, it was thought that women didn't get "men's" diseases, like heart disease or lung cancer. And then women entered the work place and it became acceptable for them to smoke tobacco and suddenly, women were diagnosed with heart disease and lung cancer. Even now medical studies tend to exclude women from test groups because of hormonal differences. Men have hormone cycles too, they just cycle every 24 hours. Research has shown that medications work differently on men and women, so studies have broadened their scope to actually look at those differences so medical professionals can treat accordingly.
Now, the problem of body image crosses the gender gap in the opposite direction. While listening to the piece on the radio all I could think about is how this is so like the small number of men who get breast cancer. How hard it must be for them to have to go through a disease process that no one has really conceived as being a "guy" problem.
Body image issues have been a topic of conversation for many years which provoked mock ups of what Barbie would look like if she were "real", long, dangerously thin women who would not have enough room for all internal organs or able to stand up right; side by side images of celebrities in before and after airbrushing; even actress Keira Knightley was outraged at being given a bigger bosom for ads for movie "King Arthur".
I confess, I did not consider that the ever increasing photos of ripped men might begin to prey upon the minds and bodies of young men. As a women who is not by any stretch the "ideal" female, I have had to come to terms with my own imperfections, which I will not list here, I came to terms with them. I am going to share how I came to terms with them though.
I struggled with my weight throughout school, until one day I hit High School. My activity level went up and my eating went down because I found theater. I was on stage crew, which led to friends that I could hang out with and do things with. I began to lose weight without any true effort on my part because my metabolism cranked into high gear, as most teens' metabolisms do, who hasn't heard about the legendary appetites of growing children?
One evening at a music event, a young man that I had gone to school with earlier and I met up again, after he went to a different high school. He was astonished. At first he wasn't sure I was who he thought I was and then he said to me, "Wow, you lost a ton of weight. You're hot now."
In that crystal moment I realized that I was the very same person he knew a couple of years earlier and treated like crap and now he wanted to be my friend. The only thing that had changed was how I looked to him, on my outside. My inside still found him repulsive because of how he had treated me and I knew he had not changed on the inside either. I thanked him for the compliment and went forward in my life never giving much concern again to what my bathroom scale said.
This is not to say that I am saying anyone should eat until they cannot get out of their homes. My weight has taken it's toll on me physically, leading to medications for hypertension and surgeries for things that might have otherwise been unnecessary if I had not been overweight. But I have never hung my happiness on my waistline, it is what I carry in my heart and share with those I love.
I am sorry to see men fall into the same traps that women have been falling into regarding where they put their self worth. I hope that the broadening epidemic of poor self image is the slap in the face manufacturers, marketers and the population at large needs. We cannot continue to hate ourselves to death.
This week I challenge you to compliment someone every day for something other than how they look. I also challenge you to compliment yourself everyday for something wonderful about you.
Enjoy Maximized Empowerment!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/07/229164585/for-boys-with-eating-disorders-finding-treatment-can-be-hard
I invite you to listen to the piece, it's enlightening and frightening.
Once upon a time, it was thought that women didn't get "men's" diseases, like heart disease or lung cancer. And then women entered the work place and it became acceptable for them to smoke tobacco and suddenly, women were diagnosed with heart disease and lung cancer. Even now medical studies tend to exclude women from test groups because of hormonal differences. Men have hormone cycles too, they just cycle every 24 hours. Research has shown that medications work differently on men and women, so studies have broadened their scope to actually look at those differences so medical professionals can treat accordingly.
Now, the problem of body image crosses the gender gap in the opposite direction. While listening to the piece on the radio all I could think about is how this is so like the small number of men who get breast cancer. How hard it must be for them to have to go through a disease process that no one has really conceived as being a "guy" problem.
Body image issues have been a topic of conversation for many years which provoked mock ups of what Barbie would look like if she were "real", long, dangerously thin women who would not have enough room for all internal organs or able to stand up right; side by side images of celebrities in before and after airbrushing; even actress Keira Knightley was outraged at being given a bigger bosom for ads for movie "King Arthur".
I confess, I did not consider that the ever increasing photos of ripped men might begin to prey upon the minds and bodies of young men. As a women who is not by any stretch the "ideal" female, I have had to come to terms with my own imperfections, which I will not list here, I came to terms with them. I am going to share how I came to terms with them though.
I struggled with my weight throughout school, until one day I hit High School. My activity level went up and my eating went down because I found theater. I was on stage crew, which led to friends that I could hang out with and do things with. I began to lose weight without any true effort on my part because my metabolism cranked into high gear, as most teens' metabolisms do, who hasn't heard about the legendary appetites of growing children?
One evening at a music event, a young man that I had gone to school with earlier and I met up again, after he went to a different high school. He was astonished. At first he wasn't sure I was who he thought I was and then he said to me, "Wow, you lost a ton of weight. You're hot now."
In that crystal moment I realized that I was the very same person he knew a couple of years earlier and treated like crap and now he wanted to be my friend. The only thing that had changed was how I looked to him, on my outside. My inside still found him repulsive because of how he had treated me and I knew he had not changed on the inside either. I thanked him for the compliment and went forward in my life never giving much concern again to what my bathroom scale said.
This is not to say that I am saying anyone should eat until they cannot get out of their homes. My weight has taken it's toll on me physically, leading to medications for hypertension and surgeries for things that might have otherwise been unnecessary if I had not been overweight. But I have never hung my happiness on my waistline, it is what I carry in my heart and share with those I love.
I am sorry to see men fall into the same traps that women have been falling into regarding where they put their self worth. I hope that the broadening epidemic of poor self image is the slap in the face manufacturers, marketers and the population at large needs. We cannot continue to hate ourselves to death.
This week I challenge you to compliment someone every day for something other than how they look. I also challenge you to compliment yourself everyday for something wonderful about you.
Enjoy Maximized Empowerment!
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