Body Image, Pinterest, Fad Diets, LIES!

Pinterest: I'm sorry that I bash Pinterest all the time, but man. There are so many things on there that just drive me crazy! Many of you, like me, have seen pictures on Pinterest with captions like this, "I did this exercise program for a week and now I have a six pack," or "Try this diet of (insert type of lettuce or juice fast here) and you will lose 30 pounds in a week!" 

Many of us watch commercials or advertisements and think to ourselves, "Ok. Scooby Doo isn't really going to show up if I eat this fruit snack," or "I guess I better go find that Trix bunny and share my Trix with him because those kids just won't share it with the Silly Rabbit." We don't buy it. We critically think about what we are being told and then we don't buy into it...unless it's about diets. 

It is my opinion that women buy into the diet stuff all too much! I have many good friends that pin things on Pinterest about losing weight. Most of them do not talk about being healthy. It's all about SKINNY. The pins on Pinterest mostly portray anorexic models and my friends have captions under these pictures that read, "When I see pictures like this, I just wish that I could look better and actually stick to a diet. I can't believe that I have let myself go." In my head I'm thinking, "YOU CAN SEE THE MODEL'S RIBS! Not only are the model's clothes transparent (or non existent) but you can see through her skin to her ribs! No one healthy looks like that!"

Here is a quote from Elder Jeffery R. Holland that I just want to add to those pins every time I see stuff like that. It is from a talk called, "To Young Women." (I would suggest reading the whole thing if you ever get the chance.)

"Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women. And if you are obsessing over being a size 2, you won’t be very surprised when your daughter or the Mia Maid in your class does the same and makes herself physically ill trying to accomplish it. We should all be as fit as we can be—that’s good Word of Wisdom doctrine. That means eating right and exercising and helping our bodies function at their optimum strength. We could probably all do better in that regard. But I speak here of optimum health; there is no universal optimum size.

Frankly, the world has been brutal with you in this regard. You are bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and advertisements with the message that looks are everything! The pitch is, “If your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular.” That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, to say nothing of later womanhood. In too many cases too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional (to say nothing of superficial) standard. As one Hollywood actress is reported to have said recently: “We’ve become obsessed with beauty and the fountain of youth. … I’m really saddened by the way women mutilate [themselves] in search of that. I see women [including young women] … pulling this up and tucking that back. It’s like a slippery slope. [You can’t get off of it.] … It’s really insane … what society is doing to women.”^"

With this quote in mind, I would like to challenge all of us to be less attracted to this:

WE SHOULD HAVE MORE OF THIS: