A Confused Society

After reading recent entertainment headlines, I began to understand the mixed messages that are being fed to children today. Whether we like it or not, kids will always look up to celebrities. And honestly, that isn't such a bad thing. What is a bad thing is how these celebrities are portrayed by the media. We all know that those trashy magazines we all secretly read are not full of the truth...more fiction made to look like the truth!

Lately I have been disturbed by the headlines and accompanying photos of Lindsay Lohan. Pictures showing her in a dress with her ribs showing through her back. No one should be that thin. And really, it isn't up to us to judge why she is that thin. We all know thru the media that her life isn't picture perfect and it appears she tries to deal with it partially through eating or the lack of. Now, what shocked me was the headline I saw this morning. I turned on my computer only to discover, Lindsay is in Hawaii showing off her "sexy bikini body". Wait a minute! So last week, the girl we though was dangerously thin is now, this week, looking sexy in a bikini! No wonder teens of today have such trouble with body image! Look how it is portrayed in the media. They are constantly flip flopping their ideas of a beautiful body from one week to the next.

The other night, I was watching Britain's Next Top Model...I don't know if I should admit to watching it, but it was entertaining. One thing that caught my attention was this cute little skinny girl. She kept talking about how she hated how skinny she was (even said this to the judges) and that no girl should ever be as skinny as she is (that's what really got my attention). Wait! People actually understand that no one in their right mind should be as skinny as models?!?

I really do hope that some day the media will be able to portray a healthy body image to the world. That we will learn to understand that a size zero is not healthy or natural for most people. That being 5'10" generally only happens to models and being 5'4" is okay. That eating more than 1000 calories a day is a must. That children will grow up in a world with a healthy body image, rather than being told one week that 85 pounds is too thin, and being told the next week that it is sexy. Oh, I can only hope!