Category: Appearances
Diets, Filters, & Tossing Out the Scale: Beauty Redefined
“This May 6, put away your scale and form a new relationship with the person in the mirror for International No Diet Day. For so many people, and especially women, unattainable body standards and pressure have prompted eating disorders, low self-esteem, bullying, and unhealthily restrictive diets.”
The previous quote from National Today isn’t about eating Cheetos on May 6th until your fingers are an inch deep with cheese dust. It’s about taking a moment to evaluate whether your idea of health and beauty is sound and healthy. Or is your idea of health and beauty based on images and ideas that are not only subjective– they’re dangerous to pursue.
Beauty Through the Ages: Subjectivity at Its Finest
The word diet originally meant “habitually taken food and drink.” Now, the word diet triggers thoughts of temporary food and drink restriction. The evolution of the word diet parallels the evolution of the world’s beauty standards in that the evolution is not an improvement. Consider how far the beauty standards of women traveled over the years:
Ancient Greece (c. 500-300 B.C.)
Ideal woman: “plump, full-bodied, light skin”
Italian Renaissance (c.
