Slimming ads and fads
Recently there have been several curbs on people administering beauty treatments in Singapore, seems like the MOH has finally woken up from deep slumber.
But besides placing these curbs, it's also important to monitor the messages that these burgeoning slimming and 'beauty' centres send out to the average joe and plain jane. They seem to convey that only lean and pretty people can make it in life.
This idea is reinforced regularly, in so many ways that it's hard to escape it. Especially if you suffer from low self-esteem and don't have the quintessential 'chio-ness' and fab figure.
Flip the newspaper and there is a host of slimming ads featuring svelte women (often in skimpy clothes), open the TV and there is a deluge of - dandies who can do no wrong in the beauty department, make-over programmes and movies. Some of the most popular TV programmes and movies around the world are all about 'ugly duckling to swan' transformations that leave you gaping as the 'transformed' gets everything he or she wants from their life.
Shopping is a national pastime in Singapore but there are many shops that cater only to the small-sized among us. I've come across too many shops that don't carry sizes beyond L which seems more like a M at the most - even my fairly thin friends find it hard to get into some of those clothes. I've lost count of how many times I've seen big sized women step out with a sigh - nothing fit...
The most shocking bit is how some of these slimming and beauty centres force you to take their stuff after complaining about the state of your body/face/hair/nearly anything and everything possible..ARM SCALLOPS! PLEASE, HOW SHALLOW CAN YOU GET?
Exercise and shedding the flab is good for your health, as is moderate diet control - not binging excessively. But it's bad if it becomes an obsession, no matter what people say. When something affects your self-confidence and makes you think negatively about yourself - it's bad. Ultimately, you're just as good as you feel inside and your superficial traits should never be a factor in that.
"If people slam you for your looks and avoid you because of that, they are plain ol' assholes, so forget about them losers, get it??" That's the most angsty yet empowering line I heard recently.
Recently there have been several curbs on people administering beauty treatments in Singapore, seems like the MOH has finally woken up from deep slumber.
But besides placing these curbs, it's also important to monitor the messages that these burgeoning slimming and 'beauty' centres send out to the average joe and plain jane. They seem to convey that only lean and pretty people can make it in life.
This idea is reinforced regularly, in so many ways that it's hard to escape it. Especially if you suffer from low self-esteem and don't have the quintessential 'chio-ness' and fab figure.
Flip the newspaper and there is a host of slimming ads featuring svelte women (often in skimpy clothes), open the TV and there is a deluge of - dandies who can do no wrong in the beauty department, make-over programmes and movies. Some of the most popular TV programmes and movies around the world are all about 'ugly duckling to swan' transformations that leave you gaping as the 'transformed' gets everything he or she wants from their life.
Shopping is a national pastime in Singapore but there are many shops that cater only to the small-sized among us. I've come across too many shops that don't carry sizes beyond L which seems more like a M at the most - even my fairly thin friends find it hard to get into some of those clothes. I've lost count of how many times I've seen big sized women step out with a sigh - nothing fit...
The most shocking bit is how some of these slimming and beauty centres force you to take their stuff after complaining about the state of your body/face/hair/nearly anything and everything possible..ARM SCALLOPS! PLEASE, HOW SHALLOW CAN YOU GET?
Exercise and shedding the flab is good for your health, as is moderate diet control - not binging excessively. But it's bad if it becomes an obsession, no matter what people say. When something affects your self-confidence and makes you think negatively about yourself - it's bad. Ultimately, you're just as good as you feel inside and your superficial traits should never be a factor in that.
"If people slam you for your looks and avoid you because of that, they are plain ol' assholes, so forget about them losers, get it??" That's the most angsty yet empowering line I heard recently.
posted by Meg @ 9:14 PM
2 Comments:
hello megs. well you know, it's true that it's unfair the way these ads/programmes insinuate the fact that one can never really be happy etc. unless you're slim, pretty etc., because there really is so much more to life other than looking good yeah? and if someone's comfortable just as the way they are, then what the hell you know, you don't need to be a size zero, you don't need to stick that finger down your throat.
but the thing is, there are people who just cannot see past certain things. like anorexics who look into the mirror and just see bulging pockets of fats. and self esteem is just that strange a thing.
hmmm, my point is, there really is nothing wrong in striving to be a size zero (unless you endanger your health in the process), there's nothing wrong in going on tv shows like extreme makeover and hoping that it'll change your life. because in certain cases, it really does change lives. not because looks are everything mark life as a success or a failure, but because self-confidence is all one needs to have a changed life.
so if you see it from the flip side, cheap as it is, this commercialism isn't half bad. after all, the notion of beauty existed way before HBO.
:) cheers!
hey...I know your side of the pic..and I'm for it..just so long as the person really feels that he/she needs it. But by some misfortune..I've seen one too many dweeps who wanna loose weight for all the wrong reasons and that was getting on my nerves..so the rant.
And the arm scallops - no reference to the URBAN article..hahaha...if that was at all a motivation! More like a skinny someone who was actually whining about HER ARM SCALLOPS!
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