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Parenting with Connie: Does J. Lo have a big bum?
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Anonymous user Tue Sep 5, 2006 09:45:55 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments When I ask junior high girls if J. Lo has a big bum, they all say, “Yes, OMG it’s huge.”
Then they inform me that Beyonce has thunder thighs.
We then discuss the fact that I think they both are beautiful, shapely women who have normal figures. I appreciate the fact that they have made curves fashionable again. Remember, Marilyn Monroe was considered buxom in her time as a vintage size 10/12. Now by Hollywood’s standards if you’re not a size 2 or below you are considered overweight.
Recently, I read a quip about Patricia Arquette, who portrays a married mother of three children in “Medium.” The producers of the TV show asked her to lose weight since giving birth. She refused and said she would rather not have the role. You go, Patricia! It was nice to hear grownup women not cave to the unattainable image that is portrayed.
Speaking of unattainable, the perfect Hollywood body suggests 12-year-old boy hips with oversized breasts. The only person who can maintain that is Barbie, and her waist has actually thickened over the years. Life-size Barbie is 5’9” and weighs 110 pounds with measurements of 39-18-33. The average woman in America is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds.
I watch the Emmy and Academy Awards to see how much thinner the women have gotten. It is very disturbing to me as a woman and as a teacher of junior high girls. No wonder females of all ages think they are fat. Have you seen tabloid pictures of a bag of bones in a designer dress lately? Who finds that attractive?
I want to say to these women, “You look hungry. Eat the cheeseburger, babe.”
What teen magazines and fashion magazines fail to tell young, impressionable girls is that these photographs are graphically altered by computer. They shave off hips, add breasts and even forget to put belly buttons back on the images. It is unrealistic, but young girls can get caught up in the images and strive to achieve them by developing poor eating habits or the worst-case scenario, anorexia or bulimia.
It’s disturbing when girls do not eat all day long then eat a big dinner. That forces the body into starvation mode and anything the girl eats is stored as fat. She wonders why she doesn’t lose weight, especially since she doesn’t eat all day. Studies have shown girls who eat breakfast are slimmer.
When a young girl goes through puberty, estrogen, the female hormone, puts fat deposits in all the right places.  A woman’s body is supposed to be soft and curvy. During puberty, her hips actually widen to ready her body for childbirth. Some women have more testosterone than others and are naturally leaner. But I always tell my students cavemen didn’t draw a woman in caves like this (ll), they drew her like this (8).
In class, I try to offer a healthy body image for the young ladies. I think it’s important that we curb the Hollywood persona. Talk to your girls about the issues regarding body image. Let them tell you their ideas. Discuss what’s real and what is processed. You might be surprised!
One final thing: Never, never ask your daughter if your bum looks big in those new skinny jeans.
E-mail Connie at: cmoustakis@bak.rr.com

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