Let’s face it people are obsessed with diets, after all it’s a billion dollar industry for a reason! We all want to look like these gorgeous Celebrities, and to do that we need to follow the awesome diets they are endorsing right? NO! Wrong, wrong, wrong! Did you know that some celebrities are paid up to 3 million dollars to endorse products and diets?! I know! Can you believe it?
I recently saw an add that drove me nuts! Picture this, a gorgeous slim woman probably in her 20’s, standing in front of her bedroom dresser holding up her skimpy bikini with a worried expression on her face, then flash to celebrity model, standing in front of a shelf of diet supplements, saying that if you want to feel good in your bikini and look amazing then take these pills!!! The next scene shows the 20’s girl poolside wearing her bikini looking and feeling totally fabulous, like these pills had suddenly and magically erased all her previous feelings of insecurity! Are you serious? I turned to my husband and said I don’t understand how any celebrity, or even non celebrity could endorse such a product, you couldn’t pay me anything to be in that ad. It is one thing to endorse healthy living and losing weight in a healthy way, but to depict this slim woman as someone who needs to loose weight and feel negative about her body image is just plain crazy, and irresponsible!
I am not a diet queen, frankly I am not even a diet princess, and it’s not because I have a model like figure, or even that I have a super healthy body image, in fact I could loose a few kilograms, but I am just not a fan of dieting.
Now when I was 15 that wasn’t the case, my best friend and I were always starting diets, I say starting because we would start and then stop, and do that all over again. To be honest looking back we didn’t actually need to loose weight. This obsession with diets actually lead to unhealthy choices, like stuffing our faces with chocolate the day before we would start our diet. Often my BFF would sleep over and we would stay up until midnight drinking Milo and eating treats, we can laugh about it now, but the fact is, it is sad that young girls think that they need to go on diets at all. Another friend and I shopped for diet pills, I have blogged previously about how insane it is that a chemist could sell diet pills to 16 year old girls who were already within a healthy weight range!
Young girls are extremely impressionable, but it’s not just young girls, it is young boys too and it often follows us into adulthood. People are constantly on diets and the media promotes it. Shows like The Biggest Loser and Bringing Sexy Back get great ratings because people are diet obsessed. I read an article once saying in America alone the weight loss industry is worth 20 Billion dollars a year, so it is no wonder they want to keep promoting diet pills, drinks and other products to people who don’t even need to lose weight.
It is not just advertising that promotes unhealthy dieting, I remember watching the television series Survivor and these contestants would come off the show with people commenting on their amazing weight loss, I have to wonder what was so amazing about it, yes it is great to be in the healthy weight range, but should we really be celebrating someone losing weight because they were starved for months living almost solely on a diet of rice!
There is a commercial for a show at the moment about weight loss with a women who I think looks fabulous already, saying she her husband, and father of her children, has never seen her naked, and so she needs to loose weight so she feels comfortable to be naked in from of him. To me this seems like a woman who is in need of self confidence, not weight loss. Yes getting fit and healthy will be great for her, but she clearly needs to work on her emotional issues first and foremost. Feeling comfortable in front of your life partner should not be about your weight, it should be about having a healthy body image, and love and respect for oneself.
It is virtually impossible to talk about diets without talking about women’s magazines, so I am going to give them a mention. I must confess as a young girl I loved Dolly, Cleo and Cosmopolitan magazines, I would read how these supermodels drank this, ate that, and worked out, there was always some new amazing diet and it was guaranteed to have you looking fabulous for Summer, or have you drop those dress sizes before the end of year dance, yeah right! I haven’t looked at those magazines in years, (I got side tracked with wedding, parenting, and house mags for quite a while, and now I love curling up with a great book). But standing in the supermarket I do like to have a cheeky flip through a trashy magazine (shh don’t tell anyone), I like to see the celeb’s with their cute newborn babies, or out with their pets, (too cute)! What I also notice though is diet this, diet that, and all the celebrity bashing if they gain or even lose weight! Oh yes, it’s not just the overweight that get ridiculed, it’s the underweight too! And beyond that it’s also the ones who have a perfectly healthy body! (Newsflash magazine editors! Some women are just naturally thin, it doesn’t mean they have anorexia or bulimia). And watch out if you’re in the healthy weight range because they’ll just zoom in on your cellulite instead!
So clearly I am not a diet queen, but it doesn’t mean I am an eat whatever you want, whenever you feel like it advocate either. We all have different body shapes and metabolism rates. And the fact is even if someone is within the healthy weight range it doesn’t mean they are healthy. High Cholesterol and other health issues related to bad eating habits do not always equal being overweight, so just because you can eat whatever you like without gaining weight doesn’t mean you should! We need to be concious of what we put in our mouths, Heart disease is the single biggest killer of women in Australia, and according to ‘Live Science” Coronary Heart Disease is the biggest killer in the world.
Let’s face it pretty much anything is OK in moderation, at least that’s my policy. I must be honest as much as I love my broccoli, I am also a lover of chocolate, the darker the better, and my morning coffee is often accompanied by a slice of chocolate pumpkin loaf on a Friday from my local cafe (as the mums from school know). I refuse to starve myself, or eat no carbs, I start everyday with a healthy breakfast of 1 Weetbix, a scoop of Allbran and a sprinkling of psyllium husk, soy milk on top. Coffee at around 10 am (with naughty treat), Lunch varies, a sandwich, soup, salad, pasta with tuna and some peas and carrots, or sushi if I am out. Dinner is some variety of vegetables or salad, and a cup of tea to finish the day, (and the more stressed I feel the more chocolate that finds its way into my mouth, I still don’t know how that happens? Oh yes I put it there).
I try to keep most of my food healthy, but it is not a diet, if I want something I have it, and I guess it’s the snacking that sometimes goes too far. I just want to enjoy my life, and enjoy my food, I want to go out with a girlfriend and enjoy sharing a piece of cake, but I also need to keep in mind that if I do that everyday I will be unhealthy. I also have to remember that I have 3 little children watching me, so I don’t want to be dieting in front of them. My eldest daughter Aspen is 12, almost a teen and her body is slowly changing, she is becoming more self concious, so the last thing I want to do is set an example of unhealthy eating, or dieting. Even if I am having a day where I feel yuck, or negative about my body I still parade around the house like I have the most awesome body, because I am proud of my body, and I want my children to be proud of their shape, and make healthy choices throughout their lives.
My advice rock the body you’ve got!
Thanks for joining me, love Mackenzie xx
It wasn’t me who ate all the broccoli
17 comments
you’re already so skinny!
I really love this post.
I have to say that I am not a diet queen anymore. It’s enough in my life… I was dieting since the age of 10…!! Can you imagine??…
Now, I try to eat moderate and keeping my weight (yes it is still too high!) constantly.
It can be done so wrong with all this dieting, all these pills and all the other stuff….!
It’s important to find the balance and to accept the own body and its metabolism…that’s all…
That is such a sane post and I needed to read this. Even now sometimes I behave like a teen when it comes to diet. There are phases when I get it completely right – I eat sensibly and I exercise and my weight behaves itself. But once I lose that balance it’s a struggle to get back to the ‘good’ routine. That’s the dangerous part – that’s when I am tempted to try out various diets though I’ve never taken pills of any kind. But you’re right about eating sensibly, about eating everything in moderation and I envy you your levelheadedness.
This is such sensible advice. We’re so careful about what we say to the Tubblet about eating and food as well as encouraging her to be secure in herself. There’s so much pressure on young people now – and most of it is totally unrealistic.
Back again from #mg * Waves *
I love the way you eat healthy and indulge once in a while. Very commendable indeed. I have phases, currently I’m bingeing on sweets. Have a sweet tooth yes and it’s been on an over drive last few months. I’m trying to find that balance wherein I can eat them in moderation.
I have been on a diet twice and it helps for those few months and then one ends up gaining weight again. I personally feel diets are a fallacy. It all boils down to eating healthy which is more like a lifestyle change- low sugar, carbs in moderation etc.
These days the media is overloaded with information about dairy being harmful, sugar the new cocaine and so on so forth.
My take – eat everything but in moderation. Though easier said than done always, for a foodie like me. I do wish to knock of a few kilos and look tad more toned, but then I don’t over obsess about my weight too much either and celebrate who I am.
Hugs xoxo
A very important topic .I hAve secretly shopped go diet pills when I was 17 fallen I’ll and suffered an eating disorder before finally realizing I was beautiful .Self image and healthy body weight both needs to be celebrated. Great post.
This is such a great post, and such an important message. I could definitely do with losing a few kilos but more because my clothes don’t fit and I know I’ve slipped into a lot of unhealthy snacking. I won’t diet though. I need to be more active and cut down on the snacks. Apart from being pregnant I am the heaviest I have ever been but I’m actually more body confident now than when I was dieting and exercising constantly before my wedding. It’s a recent thing and I think it’s something that comes with age as we appreciate what our body has brought us in terms of our children. I also try to be body confident in front of the children. We teach them about healthy foods and being active but also that there are no bad foods, it’s a case of everything in moderation. My son likes to think of the body like a car, food is the fuel, the better the fuel the better it runs, also if you don’t move a car for a while, it doesn’t matter what’s in it, the battery will run out x
#Mg
This is a great post. I am all for healthy eating. At my age I know I could do with losing a few kilos but I wouldn’t try to ever go on a diet because that can be a treacherous journey with plenty of pitfalls. I have a teen at home and I always encourage him to go for healthy snacking and eating everything, but in moderation. Staying fit, eating heathy and exercising regularly should be the pillars on which to create a balanced life.
I’m with you, everything in moderation. I can’t imagine how cranky I would be if I tried to starve myself or cut something that I love out completely. Whenever I start getting bigger than I’d like to be I cut back on my portions. I know that its harder for some people than others, but health should always be the biggest concern, not appearance #mg
Diets don’t work anyway. As soon as you deprive yourself something, you will crave it and this isn’t a long term fix. So I’m with you. It’s all about moderation, the occasional blow out, keeping food fun and sociable and trying to be happy with what we’ve got after all of this! I’m happiest when my body feels strong. It’s not about the scales for me. Alison x #mg
I love this post. For far too many years I battled with anorexia, and I look back on those wasted years with sadness and regret. I try very hard to have a healthy attitude towards food these days and I refuse to diet. I worry so much about my children as they grow, with so much pressure on them to meet the stereotypical model figures. #mg
Great advice!
Your advise is spot-on Mac! I’m concerned about our 7 year old seeing adverts for things like ‘miracle’ spot stuff and all these leggy actresses. I try to distract her when the ads are on for htis reason. In my opinion some of the stuff she watches is actually pretty moral (thanks to Disney in the main). I’m very fortunate that I’ve never really had to watch what I eat due to my metabolism and at a health check last year, I was told I was very low risk of heart disease. Though when I hit 40 my metabolism definitely slowed down. Love the body you’re in! Thanks for hosting #mg
Totally agree with you that your health should always come first and foremost. The transition of magazine reading is what I’ve been through except for the interior mags….I’m still on the mother and baby ones. #mg
Mac, body image is a subject very close to my heart and particularly the way the marketing industry influences young people and their view of themselves. It is important to keep a balanced perspective, every body is a different shape and size and the key is to maintain a healthy diet and exercise regime. Positivity is a big part of that too, even if we are feeling a bit fed up at times with the way we look as the way we behave in relation to the way we look will impact upon our children. Thanks for hosting again. #mg
LOVE this post. I completely agree that dieting really isn’t the best thing to do if you want to be happy and healthy. I have tried cutting out treats/cards before and it just made me so miserable..I am definitely in the ‘everything in moderation’ camp. The pressure to look perfect it crazy, we’re all beautiful in our own way.xx #mg
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