Body Image?

So there are lots of blogs and youtube videos and resources avaliable to help young girls and women feel more positive about their body image. And this is hardly suprising given the way that the media, fashion industry and all the usual suspects portray the ideal female body.

Whilst I think that promoting positive female body image is extremely important to the emotional well being and health of young girls and women- I can't help but think something is missing. What about male body image? That's a whopping 50% of the populations body image issues going pretty much ignored.

here's a few interesting articles:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/06/body-image-concerns-men-more-than-women
http://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/view.cgi?section=bodyimage&page=fastfacts
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21864312
http://www.mirror-mirror.org/body-image-of-women.htm

Lots of studies have shown that eating disorders such as annorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are on the rise in young men. Are the same sources to blame as for the problems with body image in women? Are they even comparable? Almost every single headline on this magazine cover is about how men look. Problem? Yes. Why? Because people, regardless of their sex and/or gender are not just bodies. People are people. People are waaaay more complex than anything you can stick on the front cover of a maagzine. You can't see what a person is thinking or feeling. You have to actually ask them- and even then, there is a lot more to them.

Not being a young male person, I decided to ask someone who was what they thought. My brother is 18. He told me that he thinks that the pressures on young men for the 'ideal body' are increasing, although they were not nearly as pressured as women of the same age. 

I thought this was a perfectly sensible response. But he didn't say anything about how things could be changed. So I guess people have to change it- because its gonna be a long time before the industry changes.

And I'm not saying we need to ignore women's body image issues or put them on the back burner because they are still important- I'm saying we need to look at everyone's body image and try to build a culture where everyone is happy, and health, and likes themselves and the way the look. Perhaps if appearance was not linked so closely to self-esteem, it might be more common to find people who feel good about themselves.


What do you think? Let me know in the comments :)

Today, this is me:

See you tomorrow,
-Rosa
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