"Embrace" The Documentary
Currently, 80 percent of women in the U.S. are dissatisfied with their appearance. And more than 10 million are suffering from eating disorders. We are a “thin at all costs” culture and at the same time, the U.S. has the highest rates of obesity and eating disorders in the world.
Embrace is a documentary (See the trailer here) that explores the pervasive and destructive idea of “the perfect female body.” The documentary highlights the journey of Taryn Brumfitt, a young Australian mom who, after her third child hated her body because of the way it looked. So, she went on a mission to get the perfect bikini body and achieved it and went on to enter a physique contest.
Was she happy and fulfilled when she achieved her goal of the perfect body? Nope. Not even close. In fact she was miserable and so were the other contestants at the contest. The amount of effort and time she spent on exercising and managing her food left almost no time for her family or any other interests she had. She realized it was no way to live and went back to her normal life that includes exercise and healthy eating, but restricted eating, and more reasonable exercise. She posted a before and after picture of herself on Facebook that showed the before picture as the perfect bikini body and the after picture with her at her normal weight looking much happier. The post went viral. She got thousands of responses thanking her for her honesty and courage and many women went on to express the dissatisfaction and even hatred of their own bodies.
- According to the National Eating Disorders Association, 42 percent of first- to third-grade girls want to lose weight, and 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat.
- According to a study in Pediatrics, about two-thirds of girls in the 5th to 12th grades said that magazine images influence their vision of an ideal body, and about half of the girls said the images made them want to lose weight.
- By adolescence, studies show that young people are receiving an estimated 5,260 “attractiveness messages ” per year from network television commercials alone.
- According to Teen magazine, 35 percent of girls ages 6 to 12 have been on at least one diet, and 50 to 70 percent of normal-weight girls think they are overweight
Being thin is not always healthy and in fact the tactics used to get thin can be very unhealthy both physically and psychologically. Being “overweight” is not necessarily unhealthy, the important thing is healthy habits and focusing on health.
It takes courage not to buy into the “thin at all costs” message and that getting down to a certain weight will make you happy because it won’t.
Eating healthy foods and being physically active is one of the best ways you can love and respect yourself, but when the motivation comes from “not being good enough,” a line has been crossed. Don’t buy the bullshit.