Improved
6112 HealthChanged
3786 LivesSaved
3568 Lives0 lives impacted in the last 24 hrs Learn More
The pressure on girls to be thin and beautiful is real and fashion magazines set impossible standards of beauty. Parents need to help nurture a healthy body image in girls. Here’s advice from Carol Weston, advice columnist for Girls' Life magazine.
DENISE: I'm Denise Richardson and this is howdini.com. With us now is Carol Weston who's author of many books including Girltalk, but most importantly for us she's been the Girl's Life columnist since 1994. We're talking body image here and let's talk about the letters that you receive because they're really important. What are these young women, and maybe boys, what are they saying about body image?
CAROL: Boys worry about their bodies, but girls worry even more. And I get, I would say about one in four of my letters probably is about body issues. A lot of girls, um, you know my--I already have breasts and I don't even want them, or I'm so flat and I wish I had breasts. That's just a big one. And also, um, I'm so fat, I know I'm fat, everyone teases me for being fat. That's a really sad and a really common letter. Some girls tell me, you know, how much they weigh and how much, you know, they're not sure how they look. It's almost like they have no idea how they look. So they're very--there's a lot of confusion out there, and I think it would be so healthy if parents could just help their kids get as fit as possible and feel good about it.
DENISE: Yeah, but there's emotional wear and tear in not knowing and feeling confident with your body. What's the level of emotion that you hear in the letters?
CAROL: Many girls write me and say they want to lose weight, but I don't want to barf. They really don't know how to lose weight. So on the one hand if your girl looks great, we want her, we want you Mom, Dad, to help that daughter feel great. But if in fact she has a weight problem, you want to help her with that. If she had pimples all over her face you wouldn't say you look great, you'd take her to a dermatologist. So if you have a girl who's size extra extra extra large and she's thirteen, she's about to have a miserable time in school. So you owe it to her to help her.
DENISE: What's even more excruciating is to look at magazine cover no matter where you go and to think that you're supposed to look like that cover. They kind of know air brushing, but they don't get air brushing.
CAROL: Right and you say no, no, nobody in real life looks like that. Let's go outside and walk around today. Okay you tell me if you see anybody who looks like that. She's a model because that is how she looks, that's what she does best is look good. You have so many strengths, honey, I'm so proud of you. It's all about in adolescence, at some point, looking in the mirror and saying my height is my height. You know, I am 5'2; I can't wish myself any taller, and now I'm fine with that. That's the whole point. You know tall is fine, you know petite is fine. Flat is fine, buxom is fine. You're helping your son and your daughter feel good with how they look. And if they've got, you know, pimples or too much weight or something that you can help them with, then help them with that.
DENISE: You know there are parents who don't realize this. But they're exasperating the kid's problem with their body image, and they're doing it how. And you must hear that in you mail as well.
CAROL: Well I'm not sure that my uh, my letter writers are aware that Mom's triggering this, but you are absolutely right. A lot of moms who are so, and some dads, who are so careful about what they eat--oh no, not this dressing on the salad, oh on not dessert, never dessert--that suddenly they have a kid who would never maybe have dessert in their house, but goes to the best friend's house and has three cupcakes. So really I hope for the parents' sake that you've made peace with food. Food should be a very happy and important part of everybody's life, but if you know that you're a little compulsive about it, try not to pass that on to your kid. The easiest way is just to keep the junk food out of your house. I'm telling you if I had chocolate chip cookies in my house everyday I would eat them. So the solution is, don't have them there. You know?
DENISE: You have some S's in your lifestyle.
CAROL: Oh I always say my S rule. Cut back on snacks, sweets, seconds, and soda.
DENISE: What advice would you give to a parent whose child comes to them and says I want a breast reduction, breast enhancement, or want a nose job.
CAROL: In most cases I would say to the parent to say to the kid, honey you look great. You have a beautiful body, you're healthy, enjoy your body for what it does not just how it looks. By the way you look great. If you believe that your daughter looks great just uh, she's going to believe she looks great too. And there's no such thing as perfect, but if you want to be perfect it ain't going to happen. So just want to look good. You probably already look good, you know, so...
DENISE: And perfection is more often where you're at right now. Carol Weston thank you very much for being with us.
CAROL: Thank you.
Recent Posts
Howdini is life’s little instruction manual, in HD. We’re all about bringing together the top, most respected experts in their fields to help us be the best we can be at all of the little and not-so-little challenges of our complicated lives. Howdini is the place to be for the know-how you want, when you need it. Or maybe it’s the know-how you need, when you want it. Whatever. We’re here to help. So come in and look around, won’t you?
We think you’ll love finding everything you want to learn about in one convenient place, and as we grow and add more categories and more Howdinis, you’ll be doing less surfing and more learning right here. And unlike television, Howdinis aren’t limited by time—we don’t have to break for commercials, and we’re always on.
Who is Howdini?
People often ask us, is there an actual person who is Howdini? And the answer is, it’s kind of like Lassie. Just as there were many Lassies, there are many individuals who are called Howdini. In fact, each of our experts is a Howdini, and, like all those Lassies, they really know their tricks. (Although so far there is no ‘How to tell your master that Timmy is trapped in the old abandoned mine’ segment)
Our gurus are people you know and trust because you’ve been getting advice from them for years, at places like Good Morning America, The Today Show, Money, Prevention, and Food and Wine (to name just a few). Many are best-selling authors. Others, like our medical experts, are respected leaders in their fields.
Howdini History
The first Howdini was Joanna Breen, who left a comfortable career at ABC’s 20/20 to create a how to video website after one too many frustrating experiences with handymen who weren’t that handy. Joanna had traveled the world reporting with Barbara Walters and others on injustice, outrage, and tragedy, but now it was time to turn her talents to dealing with crises closer to home, like what do you do if you drop your diamond ring down the drain. Joanna is the quintessential can-do girl, so she didn’t find the prospect of launching a gigantic website the least bit daunting. (Ok, that last part isn’t entirely true.)
Joanna convinced an old ABC News buddy, Shelley Lewis, to join her. Shelley had supervised roughly 9.7 million helpful how to segments during a long career executive producing television shows like Good Morning America and CNN’s American Morning. A self-described “info-pig” who loves all kinds of information programming, she is never happier than when she’s learning an amazing new tip that she can annoy share with everyone she knows. Needless to say, Howdini was a dream gig for her. A career woman, a wife, a mother, and author of two books, Shelley considers herself equally challenged by all the facets of her life.
Joanna and Shelley were introduced to marketing executive Alison Provost by a mutual friend who knew that Alison had what they needed - entrepreneurial experience, patience, and a checkbook that still had checks in it. Joanna and Shelley could see right away that Alison should join Howdini. They figured that they would take care of the programming, and Alison would bring trustworthy sponsors to help pay the bills. It took Alison significantly longer to be convinced, maybe because she was crazy busy running a marketing firm called PowerPact, which she continues to oversee while serving as the biggest of big cheeses at Howdini. But whether it’s playing Suduko or launching a new business in a field she knows little about, Alison loves the challenge of a good puzzle, It wasn’t long before she began dropping obscure internet terms like “user-interface” and “googlebot” into casual conversation.
What’s Next for Howdini?
Our goals are modest. Complete and total domination of the internet, crushing Google, Microsoft, and any other punks who get in our way. (Hey, it’s a just a goal.) But until then, we will content ourselves making the best, most professional, most credible how to videos you can find anywhere. We want to help you solve your career issues, your parenting problems, your money troubles. We want you to be more glamorous, healthier, and less stressed out. We want you to check Howdini every day for fun, interesting, useful advice from experts you know and trust.
We want to make Howdini the community you love to be part of every day, To do that, we need to hear from you. Please share your suggestions, rate and comment on the Howdini videos, and the blog, (The Howdini blog). Tell us what you’d like us to create for you.
And then, when we’ve achieved that, it’s back to working on complete and total domination of the internet.
Add a Comment1 Comments
Great points except many fashion models are suffering with body image issues and eating disorders themselves, possibly the majority. Models don't look like that because it is their job, they are often under intense pressure to be skinnier and disordered eating is rampant in the industry. It is not a natural look and saying it is doesn't help effect change. We must be honest with our girls about the images that surround them and that they have good reason to feel insecure when they are bombarded by unrealistic images.
I like what she says about looking around your school, and neighbourhood, at your friends and their moms to see what girls and women really look like on average. However, this must be coupled with education about media and advertising imagery and the way it uses altered and perfected images of women to sell things to us.
June 6, 2012 - 1:03pmThis Comment