Women and Weight

The preoccupation that many women have with their weight is tied up with their emotions and self esteem. Fueled by advertisements displaying airbrushed perfection, women all around the western world are striving to match that which they see on billboards and in glossy magazines.

We are beginning to realise that advertisers digitally enhance photographs of already attractive models, thereby leaving the female viewer with impossible role models to attempt to copy.

A few years ago it looked as though the world was waking up to the dangers that came from skinny models being encouraged to totter along the fashion catwalks, and some advertisers even began their own campaigns to introduce real women of all descriptions into the limelight.

However, recently all of the fuss in newspaper headlines about anorexic celebrities and the health problems associated with severe weight loss seem to have died down. Possibly, this its because this is no-long news. We already know this, and yet very few changes have been made.

Some shops still only stock clothing that fits small, to medium sized women, leaving those who are any larger feeling like social lepers, and forcing them to visit special shops for larger people.

This sends the message to women that if they are over a certain size they are not normal. After-all, they cant even shop in regular clothing shops like their smaller counterparts.

Its high time that the world began seeing women from a different perspective than merely that of their appearance. Women could do with being respected for more than how much physical space they take up on this earth, and more for their brain power and skills.

Once this shift comes, if it ever does, women will stop being obsessed about their weight because they will feel valued in other, healthier ways that reflect them as a person, rather than a visual object.