LatinaLista — Body image is an important issue for anyone who cares about their looks. For Latinas and those ethnicities who are more naturally endowed than others, body image can be a frustrating reality.
On the one hand, popular media and fashion houses dictate beauty to be rather blah with no curves allowed on the body, and hardly a bustline. Yet, every Latina has only to look at their mothers, abuelas and tias to know that their destiny and reality are far different from what struts down runways or broods back from the pages of magazines.
Curves are a part of the Latina physique and getting women and girls to celebrate that reality has long been a mission of every woman who has had to comfort a daughter or a friend who thinks their body is feo (ugly) because they don’t look like their favorite actress or model.
That’s why an annual campaign created by The National Organization for Women Foundation (NOW) is an important ally in showing women they cannot only be satisfied with their bodies — but can love themselves.
NOW’s Love Your Body campaign, held every October, reinforces the reality that women who don’t fit the popular media’s definition of beauty are not freaks but more normal than they know.
To continue getting this message across, NOW is partnering this month with the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) for 2011 NEDAwareness Week, running from Feb. 20-26, 2011. NOW created a new element, just for their partnership with NEDA, under the umbrella of the “Love Your Body” campaign.
The new portion of the campaign is “Let’s Talk About It” and it’s open to all women and girls who want to film themselves talking about their feelings on body image.
For more than a decade, NOW Foundation’s Love Your Body Campaign has been calling out the fashion, cosmetics and advertising industries for promoting unrealistic images of women. The campaign encourages women and girls to celebrate their bodies and reject the narrow beauty ideals endorsed in the media.
Now, we’re ready to be inspired in a whole new way. The Let’s Talk About It project is a new way for women to help lead a spirited discussion about body image issues.
The Let’s Talk About It project provides a space for women and girls to talk about their struggles and success with body image. And for those women and girls too shy to post a video, they can still watch what others had to say.
The ultimate hope by organizers is that someone who has been struggling with the same issue will be inspired to realize that no body is ugly and that differences should be praised, celebrated — and embraced.
