Real Beauty

Exactly! People should look natural. I for one, believe that people who are naturally beautiful are so much more gorgeous then the fake, blonde hair, big boobed pretty that so many models seem to have.

I'm not overweight, I've always been really tiny but it's not because I don't eat. I LOVE food and eat all the time. I think I am a natural weight, not too skinny but not too heavy either. Whatever weight I am happy and healthy at I think is great! :)

The truth is, other people are more attracted to personality then looks. If you are exciting and happy and confident in yourself then you are going to have lots of friends. We just have to remember that everyone is worried about the way they look, we aren't alone!

For example just read the stories on that Dove website, lots and lots of girls are struggling over the same issues!
 
I guess my take on the media's treatment of body image is "Don't get me started..." :lol:

Kudos to Dove for breaking the paradigm. Also, hats off to that fashion show in Spain that disallowed models who were too thin. Thank you for showing some sense - those "fashions" are ridiculous enough, but when they make them for women whose body types are completely out of reach for normal, healthy women? Please.

As I've gotten older I've realized, beauty is 90% from within. Being healthy is the greatest part of it. You might be naturally thin, naturally heavy, or right in the middle - fine. Go with it! Just give that wonderful body you have the things it needs with a healthy, balanced diet, enough exercise, and enough sleep. Believe me - I wish I'd gotten that through my head in my teens!! I'd have a lot less health problems now. But better late than never. And beyond just giving your body what it needs, attitude has a LOT to do with it. Confidence, positive outlook, sense of humor, the ability to reach out to others...it goes a LONG way. I've been in situations where, maybe, I was dancing with my husband at a party, or singing at an open-mic night at a club, and a woman friend or acquaintance would come up to me - women I considered far more physically attractive than me - and they'd say something like "How do you do it? How can you have the self-confidence to just go up there and do that? I wish I could, but the way I look..." I don't know, maybe being a musician nearly all my life has helped. Age and experience haven't hurt. ;) But I'm far from skinny, I have short legs and a turned-up nose...but with all that, what makes me any less worthwhile than the next person? We all have a place, baby. And, by the way, at age 50, I still get hit on. :D

And yes, guys have similar problems - they're just indoctrinated at an early age by society not to talk about these issues. A shame. Men are victimized quietly in so many ways, because they feel they have no recourse. And even the attractive, both male and female, have their own issues with body image and self-worth. When people learn to look past the outside "wrapping" is when the problems start to fade.
 
The Dove Campaign keeps coming up with new ads and ideas to get this "beauty" thing back on track.

Check this out!

**By the way: I am in no way advertising for Dove or trying to make you buy their products. I just like their ideas in these commercials and the campaign they are trying to promote!
 
This thread makes me happy. Hollywood seems to imply that the perfect woman is not too tall with big, blue eyes, blond straight hair, big boobs & a waist the size of the pinky. I find that absurd since beauty is unique. I mean, I have frizzy brown hair, dark brown eyes, a nose that isn't tiny & hips that don't lie :lol:. I'm also 5'9" which isn't the average height in the land of Hollywood. The world would be such a boring place if all the girls looked like Kate Bosworth, Keira Knightley or Jessica Alba. Having different body shapes & looks make us beautiful in our own way. In fact, I think having a big nose & being confident about it is sexier then constantly going under the knife to decrease the size. Oh, and don't get my started on plastic surgery, especially boob jobs! Melina Kanakaredes is my favourite actress & role model because she told Hollywood no to straighten (sp) her hair & reducing the size of her nose. I personally love her curls & I think they make her who she is today. Also, her nose is the perfect size as it is & I bet it would look funny if it looked smaller. Her confidence in her looks makes her beautiful & honestly, confidence makes you beautiful, not because you look like Kate Moss. Confidence has its way of shining through & you just cannot hide it. People can find it just by looking at you & your body confidence. Basically, natural beauty is the best, not what your plastic surgeon gives us. Oh, and to end this I think plastic surgery is basically saying "f*ck you parents. I hate what you gave me & I'm gonna change the way I look." When I look in the mirror I wanna see my dad's eyes & mom's nose, not a nose created by a knife.

Finally, I thank the Dove Company for their ads. I wanna see more of that!
 
I think the main problem is getting girls to accept that you dont have to look like somone else to be beautiful.Thats what I deal with everyday with almost every girl I know - they've got to be thin and perfect, they'll starve and then cut their wrists cause they don't see themselves as "Average", yet when you call them "typical everyday people" they get offended and say they want to be unique :confused:. I don't get it, you can't expect to be unique if all you do is copy everyone else. What's it going to take for women to get that?

Oh and I think the stupidest thing you can ever do is bring some thin celebrity with her "perfections" to speak to girls about being unique. I hate ads like that, what do they know, they've got all the money in the world and every girl looking at them thinkin "I wanna look like her". Dammit I hate humanity.
 
im weird, i know i should be happy with how i am, but i'm not, i've suffered from depression for years and alot of it centers around hating myself physically, especially the way i look, and i've been known to go through bellumic stages when i feel really fat.

i know that the media portrays only skinny and fake pretty girls to be attractive, and most of the time they arent, but for some reason my thinking is screwed, and i still want to be thinner, i cant help it, i know that the media isnt whats real and stuff, but i still want to be like that...

yes i'm screwed in teh head lol.

i dont think its that i want to be like what models are like or anything, its just i want to feel attractive, and to me attractive oddly enough is skinny and pretty, i dont know why, but i find it really hard to see larger people as attractive. and i hate that about myself, it makes me seem shallow, but really i'm just messed up in the head lol

i mean whats attractive to me, is a flat stomach with nice hip bones (my fave feature on guys and gals for some weird reason lol) and i dunno, i just cant seem to get past the physical look of someone, and i hate it.

i mean for me to be attracted to someone there has to be some sexual/physical attraction, no matter how much i may love them as a mate or their personality, if there isnt the physical attraction i just dont get the same feelings as with someone physically attractive but not as nice a person. and i hate that about myself, and i feel shallow, but i just cant get past it.

and the dove ads are really powerful and challenging the idea of beauty, but to me those woman arent beautiful or attractive, and i know thats so mean and shallow of me to say, but in my eyes they arent. i dont know why my thinking is like this, and i hate it, but i'm not going to lie to y'all about how i think, because that would be fake, and the one thing i'm not is fake lol.

i'd be interested in if there are any others that have the same problem as me lol, and if anyone has some suggestions about how to overcome this, because it is a part of my personality that i dont like.
 
Wow, atleast you're honest heartagram. I know it might not be about looking like models for you, but if tv didn't always portray beautiful people as thin and big boobed, you probably wouldn't have that state of mind. I won't lie, for a long time I always thought I was one of those people that found everyone beautiful. But then one day I realized that anyone i've ever found attractive was actually really thin. I felt like such a hypocrite because of that.
Then I met this really really really confident yet down-to-earth person that changed my mind. Cause she was overweight but healthy. She had thick thighs and a kinda chubby belly and I grew to admire her for not wanting to be what everyone else was. Her sister was like that too for a while, then she turned anorexic - and now she's half the size she used to be - her back is all bony and she's always weak. And strangely enough, I don't find her sister the least bit attractive anymore.
So I know for a fact that for me, confidence is everything. If you're healthy, you don't need anything more than that. At the end of the day, you can get into a car accident and lose your ultra thin legs, or your huge boobs, so why hang on to something so materialistic?
 
I just spent about an hour exploring that Dove site.. that film is amazing. I called my boyfriend in to watch it as well. Every girl should see that. Everyone should focus on health over beauty. I run an hour a day (with my dog), wear hardly any make up, and dress in jeans and tshirts. And I am a happy, beautiful, intelligent woman. If anyone feels differently, that's their opinion. We've got to stop basing our self-worth on outside influences.
 
Major props to you,ziggy that alone assures me that you're as beautiful as it gets. Self-acceptance is the only way you'll ever discover your worth.

I want to join the forum on that site, seems like everyone can benefit from each other on it.
 
When I was younger I was always being teased because I was quite big, but the thing is, they just looked unhealthy in my eyes and I was the one that felt sorry for them. They may have grown taller but somehow they kept their thinness because they're so desperate to be Victoria Beckham; perhaps they feel that's the road to celebrity?

Now I'm 5'6", wearing size 12-14 clothes (UK size), 10-12 (American size) and I feel more beautiful than ever. Those people and teenagers with twigs for legs need to realise that being too thin is unhealthy, this is why I completely back up the initiative, I'm only 14 however, I'm completely healthy and happy.
 
I've always considered myself as fugly and I may have not liked my body like...ever.
Mostly because upper body doesn't match with the ass and legs and huge feet :p

But then I haven't given a crap what others have said about me (usually nothing nice) but I'm happy to see such a campaign. A few of my friends have been in hospitalbecause of anorexia so this is really worth it.
 
I know of a 12 year old anorexic girl who went through 2 month therapy before breaking that up. I'm not sure how she is doing now but I doubt she got much better.
Hearing about that made me very sad, not just because of the thing itself, but she is still a child!
When I was 12 I played outside with my friends. I didn't care about the way I looked. Nowadays kids that age are being so cruel to each other, they create so much pressure on themselves and each other, it's terrible.
They define beauty by the size of their pants and the amount of money they spend on make up and clothes. No wonder so many teens are developing depressions.

I've never really been fat so it's easy for me to say I never felt the need to eat less, but I'm not perfect either. I'm trying to be proud of my imperfections, it's a long way but I've learned. When I was 15 I used to feel uncomfortable about myself, but I think many kids feel that way. They just have different ways of dealing with it. I was just a shy girl, never really talked much. That was my way of protecting myself from other peoples negative comments. But with time I stated to actually accept myself and see that there is beauty in the little imperfections.
I think it's very important that children learn that from young age on. And only having 'perfect' beautiful women as rolemodels is not helping much.

One thing though about those underweight supermodels: I've never really considered them beautiful. There are very few of them who are attractive to me. Most of those skinny girls scared me actually. I think it's a matter of perspective. You can either look at them and say "They're so slim that must mean I'm fat" or you see the real world and say "They're boney, that's unhealthy and unattractive, I don't want to be like that"
 
I often feel intimidated my the media because everyone is so tiny these days. Everytime i'm flipping though my magazines, all the pictures are of woman who appear flawless with their perfect figure, perfect weight, perfect skin, perfect hair and perfect makeup. You need to remember that the people in these ads probably don't really look like this. With the air brush tool, you can do anything. In the picture, people can make it look as though the models are the most bueatiful people on Earth. But really they could have that pimple on their chin, or those five extra pounds, but with just a few clicks of a button, all that can be gone and you have a perfect image. That is why we shouldn't look up to these sticks as our role models. Many of them are fakes.
 
That's so true, Haley.
I hate it that when you open one of those magazines you see a beautiful woman in her mid forties and her skin looks like that of a child, all smooth and flawless. Nobody believes they really look like that. It's amazing what make up and the right lightning can do, you don't even need to photoshop it much. But that's not reality.
And then they want to sell you hundreds of lotions and expect you to believe that once you've spend your 50 bucks on it you look exactly like those women. You won't. You don't have to.
It's not just teenagers suffering from those false ideals, it's women (and men too btw) of all ages.
I'm 19 but I actually believe that wrinkles make a face more interesting, more beautiful. I admire women who are proud of those changes instead of trying to conceal them at all costs. I think a healthy and comfortable woman whose face crincles up when she laughs radiates a lot more life and vitality than one whose smile is tight because her muscles are paralyzed with botox or whatever that stuff is.
 
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