Have you ever noticed that most of the leading women in movies and television shows are very skinny? Many celebrity women are so skinny that they barely have any feminine curves. There might be a less important-probably funny-female character on the show that is overweight, but you almost never see a plus-sized leading lady.
If you are a magazine-reader, you might have noticed a similar phenomenon. You almost never see overweight people represented in popular literature. And online advertising is the same-lots of very thin people and never very many larger ones.
The message that we receive as consumers is that thin is beautiful. After all, the thin people are the only ones we see, and they usually look perfect without any pimples or age spots. The advertisers invite us to compare ourselves to the people we see in the ads. They are asking, "Do you look as good as this person?" If the answer is no, they are hoping that you will be willing to buy whatever they are selling to make yourself look better. That's the major advertising strategy.
Unfortunately, not everyone can be as skinny as the actors and models that we hold as our standard of beauty. Differences in genetics alone prevent many women and men from ever having a chance of being a size 2 or a 26 inch waist.
Instead of simply accepting the fact that everyone has a unique body, many people are desperate to lose weight so that they can be beautiful. They are not satisfied with their bodies, and they assume that other people find them unattractive too.
When you are desperate to lose weight, you might be willing to crash diet, become anorexic, or take dangerous supplements to get the job done. You may not even be aware of the risks of your weight loss attempts. For example, women who spend years crash dieting are more like to develop diabetes than women who do not.
Weight loss can, of course, be very good for your health. A lot of diseases are made worse by excess weight, and you might need to drop a few pounds for medical reasons. This is a good motivation because you are not likely to do anything extreme if your health is so important to you.
But if you are obsessed with losing weight just to look beautiful, you might want to think about a few things. You've probably heard the adage, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." It really is true that every person has somewhat different ideas about what makes a person beautiful. Some people are attracted to a very skinny form, but others like more curves. The trick is finding a mate that likes your particular shape, regardless of your size.
Also, remember that your life is not likely to change very drastically just because you lose weight. You will have the same family and the same friends, as well as the same life difficulties that you faced before. You might assume that losing weight and becoming more beautiful will fix all of your problems, but that just isn't very likely. You will still be you, and the people who like you now should still like you then.
