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Real Girls Eat Food

I have to admit, when I sat down to do this  post I had nothin'. My mind was a complete blank. It happens quite a bit, actually. That's when my beautiful daughter walked in and asked me if I thought she looked fat.

"Why would you ask that?" I said.  I assumed her answer would be that someone at school called her a name, but that wasn't what she told me.  My beautiful, smart, athletic, funny daughter proceeded to list all of her faults starting with her calves and working her way up.

After much prodding she admitted this was not brought about by something that was said to or about her, but simply a realization she'd had on her own. This answer, to me, was so much worse.

I'd always made a conscious effort to tell her how wonderful and amazing she was, hadn't I? Was this somehow my fault? Had I made some comment about her without realizing it?  I tried to assure her that she was perfect just the way she was, but after she rolled her eyes when I said it, I knew I needed some new material. Luckily, I found this wonderful video on the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty website that we watched together:

Evolution

Of course this one video may not rid her of those negative thoughts about herself, but maybe if she sees enough of the truth, she will begin to discover nobody really looks like the models you see in magazines, not even the models.

4 comments:

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Lisa Potts said...

Thanks so much, Maryam!

PT Dilloway said...

It's always annoying when I watch TV/movies that take place in high school or college and you see all these really smoking hot girls and I think, "Jeez, why didn't MY school look like that?" Then there's always the funny thing in TV shows/movies that if a girl wears glasses she's instantly undateable by everyone until she takes the glasses off. It's no wonder then kids see that stuff and develop self-esteem issues. (Then some, like me, had valid reasons to have self-esteem issues.)

Lisa Potts said...

You're right, Rogue. Girls who look "perfect" are the minority and always have been.

I blame Clark Kent for the glasses thing.

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