Statistics show that magazine covers highlighting weight loss articles or features like "best and worst bodies" sell more copies. Although men aren't exempt, female targeted magazines are littered with these your-body-isn't-good-enough messages and we, as women, snatch them off the shelves with the hopes that this issue holds the magical answer to the ever-elusive body-happiness we are constantly in search for.
We thumb through the pages, read the article, see the same diets of weighed and measured out bits of boring foods, see pictures of smiling women who have found bliss after losing such and such amount of weight and wonder what the heck is wrong with us that after one week, the scale hasn't budged, much less shown a decrease of 20 pounds.
It won't be our smiling faces in those perfectly sculpted "after" pictures. Nope. We're perpetually stuck in the "before" frame. But, clearly, we're at fault here.
I call shenanigans!
How can we possibly begin to start feeling good about ourselves as long as the media tells us we are in need of change in order to be whole?
It's unfortunate that because of the numbers, the sales driven media will continue to plaster their glossy pages with the same negatively charged message hidden as secrets to happiness over and over. After all, they are businesses and need to give their readers what they want.
Unfortunately, "Lose 20lbs By Friday" sells more copies than "Don't Change, You're Perfect."
Yes, I'm a nutrition counselor and a personal trainer. Yes, I am in the industry of reshaping bodies and a great deal of my clients have weight loss in the forefront of their minds.
But, I always start with reshaping the mind.
Only when the mind is healed, the negative self-talk stops, and external messages are filtered out can real change begin. Otherwise, any attempted work is superficial, literally and figuratively, and it won't last.
In my practice, I always preach self-love and self-acceptance.
Because we are all whole, complete and perfect, just as we are.
And no amount of weight gained or lost will ever change that.
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