How often do you come up with health goals that often have a lot to do with how you look and little to do with real health and happiness? Profit-driven companies are busy bombarding us with slimy weight-loss slogans like Cheerios’ “More Grains, Less You” and Special K’s “What Will You Gain When You Lose?” They promise that losing weight will bring you health and happiness, but all they really do is replace a well-balanced meal with a 150-calorie serving of cereal. Not a health and wellness breakthrough, guys.
These magic ladies’ cereals and all the other “time for a new you!” marketing schemes are NOT the key to health, happiness or love! In fact, those fear tactics scaring you about all you are missing out on by being your current size are only benefiting companies, not individuals. It is time to push back against the degrading weight-loss marketing with REAL health and confidence-boosting resolutions, like the ones we’re recommending below. Today, we want MORE you and for you to WIN, not lose! Take that, Special K and Cheerios!
If you’re like us, our “health” goals used to revolve around clothing sizes, weight and measurements, and little to do with actual health or happiness. We know we’re not alone in realizing that even if the number got smaller, it had little to do with our actual health or happiness.
Lindsay and I can look back in old journals and see that sometimes we resorted to extremes in eating and exercising to get to that random number we thought would bring with it all the joy we could imagine: “If I can just lose this much weight, I’ll be SO happy!” or “I’ll love myself and someone else can love me if I can just lose this many inches.” But personal experience, academic research and body image advocacy have taught us something very different: An arbitrary number is never EVER the key to happiness, confidence or even health and fitness.
We spend a lot of time writing and researching about the ways media objectifies females and asks us to view ourselves as objects to be fixed, judged, and looked at above all else. We are told we are parts to be ogled by those around us, perfected and shaped by surgeons, judged by each other, and constantly in need of repair with the help of makeup, waxing, tanning, bleaching, plucking and posing — and now cereal. Because of that, our health goals often reflect our self-objectifying views that often don’t get us to real health and happiness and don’t last too long (ex: “Fit into my jeans from 2003″ or “Lose 20 lbs.”). They actually hurt our health and happiness. Have you ever reached one of those goals and then realized you still weren’t happy with where you were? It’s because the ideals we see in media and set for ourselves are designed to be unattainable — we’ll work forever trying to reach them, but they’re forever out of reach, so we’ll spend all our money, time and energy working toward them! Have you ever reached one of those arbitrary weight or size goals by resorting to any extreme necessary – surgery, unsafe diet pills, starvation, purging? Those unhealthy extremes take you much further from health and fitness than you were before you lost the weight.
We challenge you to join us in pledging to fight toward reaching goals that have little to do with the way we look and everything to do with what we can accomplish. We urge you to pledge resolutions that reflect how valuable, capable and powerful you are. Here are 15 empowering, achievable goals for 2015, and we’d LOVE for you to renew your efforts this year or make a fresh start with these resolutions as your guide! What will you gain when you lose (your scale/your fixation on random numbers/your unhealthy ideals/etc.)? You’ll gain more than you could ever fathom.
Forget your number: If you tend to fixate on your weight, measurements or clothing sizes, pledging to leave those numbers behind is your key to freedom! Make a goal to stop or limit the number of times you weigh or measure yourself. Start judging your health through your activity level by setting a fitness goal (see No. 3) instead of a meaningless number, and you’ll get somewhere great! This post will give you all the motivation you need!
Leave your keys at home: If you drive or take public transportation to work, school, or elsewhere when you could be walking or biking instead, why not give it a try? Increasing activity is a beautiful way to release endorphins to feel happier, get your heart pumping and enjoy the outside world!
Set a true fitness goal: If you’ve held yourself back from running, biking, swimming, etc., because you felt self-conscious about what to wear, how red your face gets from the workout, sweating in public, (the list goes on), it’s time to set a goal and fight to achieve it! Make this goal about your abilities and you’ll be much less inclined to care about what you look like doing it. Run a certain distance without stopping. Swim 10 laps faster than ever before. Do a certain number of crunches, push-ups, pull-ups, new dance moves – any fitness achievement measured in actions and not numbers on a scale, measuring tape or clothing tag. This post will give you ideas on how to use your body as an instrument instead of an ornament.
Can the tan: Studies show the first time you set foot in a tanning bed, you increase your chances of skin cancer by as much as 75%! This stat alone is good enough reason to set a goal to limit the time you spend tanning or stop it entirely. The tan skin ideal is fleeting, leads to other “beauty” problems like wrinkles and skin spots, and is achievable through much less harmful means if it’s a look you just have to have. Read this post about Lexie’s skin cancer diagnosis this year and how she is fighting to make sure fewer people have to have surgery to remove melanoma and lymph nodes like she did.
Stop negative self-talk: Too many girls and women have a constant script of mean thoughts about themselves running through their minds. Recent studies show us that girls who don’t like their bodies become more sedentary over time and pay less attention to having a healthy diet. If you think you’re gross and worthless, why would you take care of yourself? Set a goal to stop saying negative things about yourself. Start with a day, a week, a month, whatever you can do, and make it a permanent practice!
Check out our new See More Be More T-shirts!
Think nice thoughts instead: On the flipside of the last study, research has found that girls who respect their bodies are more likely to be physically active and eat healthy. They are less likely to lead sedentary lifestyles and they make healthy lifestyle choices way into the future. Since what we THINK about our bodies has a strong connection to how we TREAT our bodies, set a goal to shut out negative thoughts as they come and replace them with positive truths!
Put your $ where your mouth is: Make a goal to only shop at stores that treat females respectfully in their advertising and products. Speaking up with your pocketbook is one of the most powerful ways you can show retailers what you will and will not put up with.
Speak up: When you see a media message that goes against what you believe about girls and women, let your voice be heard. Make a resolution to write to companies that produce and distribute offensive messages, as well as those that you appreciate for showing females as valuable for more than being looked at. We’ve seen major companies pull advertising and products that were offensive because girls and women speak up! If nothing else, slap one of our uplifting sticky notes on that magazine or ad and give somebody else a positive reminder!
Go on a media fast: Choose a day, a week, a month or longer to steer clear of as much media as you can. That way, you can see how your life is different without all those messages and images, and when you return to viewing and reading popular media, you will be more sensitive to the messages that hurt you and those that are unrealistic. This post will give you all the info you need.
Just say “no”: Set a goal to cancel out any media choices you view or read that tell you lies about what it means to be a female. Cancel subscriptions, throw away crappy things you already own, find a new TV show to love. You’ll thank yourself!
Picture perfect: If you are a photographer or like to take pictures, set a goal to steer clear of any Photoshopping or image manipulation that Photoshops those in your pictures out of reality. Signs of life are important and we need to see reality!
Mother knows best: If you are a mother, set a goal to never speak negatively about your appearance in front of your children – especially daughters. Your kids are listening whether you like it or not, and they will learn how to view themselves from your example.
Check out our “mirror mantra” decals here!
Mirror, mirror: Critically analyze how much time you spend in front of the mirror. Could any of that time be better spent? This post talks about a woman who didn’t look in a mirror for a month and what she learned. It’s fab.
Be an advocate: If you teach or lead a youth group of any sort, set a goal to integrate body-positive messages, media literacy and real health goals into your curriculum. You can do this casually in your everyday life and work/family/church capacities, or in a more formal sense as a teacher or counselor. We offer a Group Leader Kit to guide anyone through in-depth lesson plans, discussion questions, and activities, along with merchandise for participants!
Fight for Positive Body Image: Developing positive body image — or feeling positively about your body, regardless of what it looks like at the moment — is key to health, happiness, progress and empowerment. When you’re feeling especially self-conscious, it’s hard to focus on much else or make healthy choices for yourself. With the vast majority of women feeling negatively about their bodies and regularly preoccupied with their appearance, we have some serious work to do on this front. You could tackle hundreds of pages of our doctoral research to gather our findings, or you could read our short summary of more than a decade of body image research right here! Check out our five steps to better body image.
We are committed to teaching media literacy — the ability to critically understand and analyze the power of inescapable media messages in our lives. We speak, write, research and do interviews about learning to recognize harmful messages and reject them so we can grasp our beautiful realities. You can have a powerful influence in your own life by taking on these resolutions! You can also support us financially this year by donating to our 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the Beauty Redefined Foundation. You could also buy uplifting merchandise like our T-shirts, famous sticky notes, etc. to spread the truth!
The post What Will You Gain When You Lose (Your Scale)? appeared first on BEAUTY REDEFINED.