For My Girls

Dove has been doing some amazing things with their Real Beauty campaign.  I’ve been quite impressed with the campaign to show the beauty of real women over the last couple of years.  Women do come in all shapes and sizes and America has a completely unhealthy addiction to physical "beauty".  Ironically, what many Americans describe as beautiful is not what most of the world defines as beautiful.

This new video from Dove is beyond words.  It is powerful, heart-breaking, gut-wrenching and sickenly revealing about the destruction and damage done to our young girls. Women – we should know better!! And we should do all we can to fight our young girls having to endure this same torture.  My niece is 3 months old.  I grieve the day that is coming when someone or some ad or some song robs her of her innocence and tells her she isn’t beautiful. I will do everything I can to fight that day.

Everyone needs to pay attention to this and pass it along.

Some Important Stats: (Thanks to YSMarko for stats.)

– The average person sees between 400 and 600 advertisements per day – equivalent to more than one message for every waking minute.

– The average US girl has the opportunity to see an estimated 77,546 commercials by the time she is 12 years old.

This growing phenomenon is having a direct impact on girls’ self-image and even causing some to engage in destructive behavior. The Dove Self-Esteem Fund/Seventeen Body Image Survey also revealed:

– 93 percent of girls and young women report feeling anxiety or stress about some aspect of their looks when getting ready in the morning

– This could explain why more than 70 percent of girls and young women avoid activities when they feel bad about their looks including giving their opinion, attending school and even going to the doctor.

– 76 percent of girls and young women admit to partaking in unhealthy activities when they feel badly about their bodies

– 58 percent of girls describe themselves in negative terms, including words like “disgusting” and “ugly,” when feeling badly about themselves.

– Nearly four out of 10 engage in unhealthy eating behaviors, such as anorexia or bulimia.

– More than one out of 10 girls has used cutting or self-inflicted injury as a coping mechanism.