love your body ? ? ?

The NOW (National Organization for Women) Foundation held "Love Your Body Day" on October 15th. They set out to counter unhealthy and unrealistic beauty standards fostered by media and advertising with a simple message to us: love your body. I found out about it a few days late, but is it really ever too late to love your body? I hope not. I'm 40 years old and it is still one of my goals. I am much more likely to focus my unfavorable attention on the body part that hangs over the top of my jeans than I am to lavish praise on the parts that grew and gave birth to 2 healthy babies, get out of bed every day and heal easily from any illness and injury that come their way.

The "love your body day" website has examples of offensive ads as well as positive ads including this one (above) from Dove. (Truly, has there ever been a more brilliant marketing campaign than their Campaign for Real Beauty?) They also held a poster contest and the grand prize winner was this one by Whitney Calvert. The measuring tape asks "What's the measure of a woman?"

My friend and business partner, Jennifer, organized an event at our local library using a program from Mind on the Media called "Turn Beauty Inside Out." We invited pre-teen girls and their moms and used the be line's message of focusing on what's inside to facilitate a conversation about how they define beauty. The girls created a life sized representation of themselves by collaging words and images to create an empowered, personal vision of what defines them, makes them unique, important and beautiful.

I loved using the be brand as a launching point for a conversation that I think is the most important conversation anyone can have with themselves or others, one that goes -- "I am SO much more, worlds beyond, what you can see by looking at this body. Knowing and allowing this divine, specific, natural expression of me is what I came here to do, and ONLY I can do it. As the dancer Martha Graham has famously said "it is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open."

Our bodies are important, no doubt, and loving them will become possible when we can also see beyond them, the big picture of what we look like. Then the question will be "What's not to love?"

source for Love Your Body Day Story: BlogHer