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Monday 24 May 2010

Dove - Beauty Pressure

Dove continue to do good work in promoting healthy body images to women. Here they show the onslaught of perfect body imagery children face in their daily lives. And leave you with the message that you should talk to your children about body image and beauty before the industry gets them.



A while back I went for a hypnotherapy session. I wanted to sort out a habit I have of obsessing over my skin. Every night I look at every pore in the mirror before I go to sleep and feel miserable about every imperfection. It drives Fiance mental. Anyway the hypnotherapist told me to think of the first time when I could remember something happening with my skin. I told her I was 6 and my mother was holding me down and squeezing my face between her nails. It hurt like hell. She wasn't being cruel - she had seen a blackhead. The message I had taken from this was that blackheads were something dirty, something that HAD to be gotten rid of, something that you got punished for. The hynotherapist then asked me to imagine myself aged six playing in the garden with a bit of mud on my face, she asked me if 6 year old me was ugly with the mud on her face. I said no, she is beautiful and then I cried. I cried until tears rolled down my cheeks. The hynotherapist asked me why I was crying and I said, "because I've lost her". I didn't feel that that was me any more. I wasn't the same happy little girl, I wasn't beautiful any more. The hypnotherapist told me that that's all blackheads were - a little bit of mud on your face. You are still beautiful. You are still you. You are still the same person. You've just forgotten.

Anyway I guess my point is that little things when you're small, have a huge effect on your self-image as an adult. So as a parent you need to tread carefully and make sure your children always feel beautiful. And that includes, as Dove point out, telling them that the women in adverts and magazines have been airbrushed and painted and that normal people have flaws and that those flaws are what make them unique and beautiful.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

a beautiful post. thank you for writing, I am sure lots of people have felt the same and don't always share as honestly as you have.

William said...

Very beautiful post.