Thinspiration: Trending #thinspo Amongst Women

Underneath the caption reads, "I want to be this thin."

The woman in the photograph is so light, balloons hold her up. The picture was taken off a social media site. Underneath the caption reads, "I want to be this thin." On many media sites #thinspo represents the "Thinspiration" movement. Young women post pictures of themselves, often without their faces, just their slender, lovely bodies in a secret and conspiratorial cult of skeletal waifness. They are networking to encourage each other to remain thin. Is this something that should spark our outrage?

Having been obese all my life, yo-yoing 12 times with extreme swings of weight gain and loss, I've resented the global social culture for embracing thin. In my mind I've racked myself with envy of skinny bitches for their beauty and apparent fullness of life. I know how important being thin is. For a woman it is the difference between life and death, between joyfulness and grief. The misery of a fat woman is to sorrowfully wallow in fat denial, while overeating to mute the pain of guilt. Fat becomes a god and supplying its maw and starving the soul becomes a living death. That was what it was for me.

Being overweight and/or obese is a physical hell. It is a never ending emotional self- torture. You wake each and every day overblown with guilt and the resolve to diet. The intent becomes a fait accompli because you never weigh yourself to get a baseline to begin, putting off the diet until a tomorrow that never comes. Guilt increases, self-hate escalates, cowardice and depression augments. The result? You eat more and get fatter.

So I understand how such a "thinspiration" movement IS FASHIONABLE amongst young women and many women who recognize all too horrifically how the culture treats fatties. These young girls, like their mentors in the media, crave to be beautiful on a galactic scale so that it hurts the viewers' eyes. To produce that result, since it is not necessarily the appearance of the face but "the uber thin body that is deemed beautiful," they deny themselves highly caloric foods, i.e. junk foods, fast foods, desserts, dinners, lunches, breakfasts, etc., or hit the toilet bowl with their vomit. They sample a few small bites of steak and four green beans to maintain their size zero skin tight jeans figure. They have no fat rolls, fat back, bulbous, sweat rubbing thighs, ungainly balloon boobs or crinkles of cellulite. And if they take laxatives, and daily exercise their fingers down their throats to be the bony pride and joy of brothers and boyfriends parading them as the status stunner? A BIG SO WHAT!

Taken from a Twitter site I stumbled upon: there is a reference made to being thin enough for a belly ring.

They have elected LIFE over FAT DEATH. And who are we to judge, condemn, criticize IF we live in this culture that celebrates such an existence? Of course, black is white, red is green, up is down and evil is good. I do not dispute what these young women have been compelled, almost to the extent of slavery to do. I dispute the culture that influences them through overt or surreptitious messages. Either they live the thin lovely or imperil their social existence. The culture places them in a horrific choice between Scylla or Charybdis. Die slowly as you starve yourself physically to appear beautiful: accepted, petted and loved. OR  Live and eat but choke and die socially, because you will be heavier than your peers and most likely be borderline overweight, even obese if you begin the indulgent wheel and woe of guilt, self-torture and muted pain that you have lost your edge in overweight oblivion. Is there a balance?

This was posted on a site to show how desperate and anorexic a woman was. Comments were underneath the photo. Young men thought this woman's body was gorgeous. Comment after comment of young men thought she was stunning and seeing the bones were great. They were serious. Finally the woman who posted the photo said this woman had anorexia and was very sick. She posted the photo that reason. Thinking otherwise was wacked. I agree. This is concentration camp time.

 Can one be just thin and eat? If one wants to look like the beauties in the media that are prized, lauded and celebrated. No. And that is where #thinspo comes in.

Thinspiration women are the most compelled and enslaved in our culture. The trend spans economic classes. Indeed, very wealthy women embrace thinspiration. They have chosen life and success, DUH! have they not?  #Thinspo women create a network of like-minded bonies who prevent them from falling into the statistical pool of America's obese and sedentary. Everywhere we turn, junk food and fast food restaurants corner us with fare that's cheap, plentiful, in your face delicious, highly caloric, and deadly for a woman's happiness quotient. This is the stuff that when ingested, is finger food vomited up. So to combat this war on the thin by the industrial food complex which encourages obesity, thin women post photos of skeletal women on their websites and pinboards with sayings underneath like, "Isn't this worth denying yourself for?"  And "better to starve and be thin than feel full and be a fat pig."

This is taken from a Pinterest page

Eating disordered? Well, the overweight think so, of course. But folks, these girls can look in the mirror and leap for joy. They turn men's heads. Their reflections in store windows don't hold an obnoxious surprise. They get boyfriends, lots of them. They cause the swarms of hungry male looks. They can go to a size 2 or size 0 clothing rack and select amazing outfits and everything they try on looks fabulous. They can sport belly rings on flat stomachs and see-through flimsy shirts with bra straps flying out and LOOK COOL. They are to be envied. They are beautiful. They are photogenic. They belong in advertisements on TV and in print. They have an edge. They are IT. Their bodies are supreme and the hot, super great guys want THEM and not YOU. You get the leftover guys who are a hassle to deal with, the pain in the ass, the neurotic, the economically deranged or the one who expects you to be like his mother.

Truly, thinspiration girls are perceptive and realistic. They know how to go far in this culture which lauds uber waifs. They've seen how the fat kids are drubbed to the outer abyss, their egos so flogged they are shell shocked and debilitated for life. They know that fat is death and resignation. They know they must fight for the life equation to remain slender, young, beautiful. And who dares to tell them different is telling them a lie because the culture is reality. And THE REALITY IS HORRIFIC.

Only if we change the culture so that outer appearance doesn't matter, so that being thin is not equated with beautiful, so that being BMI 18.5 is not equated with an abundant life, can we stem the need for "thinspiration" woman. If enough women, with celebrities in the forefront stand up and refuse to be oppressed and enslaved by a soul annihilating culture which fosters the appearance of dealth-like skeletal women and touts them as goddesses of life, will the earth's axis tilt toward health, freedom and emotional balance. If enough celebrities and others decry the industrial food complex that promotes overeating and obesity with a legion of unhealthy, cheap food product, will wellness be restored and the alignment toward health be made. Then maybe, just maybe will  nutritious, non-processed, fresh and locally sourced food, (expensive and made to appear unappealing by the food complex) become more in demand and thus cheaper. And just maybe this elixir of life and wholeness will inspire the overweight and obese to trend healthy weight loss. And just maybe will we be able to expurgate corruption, modify our culture and shift the paradigm so that right is right, black is black, white is white.

FYI  Additional and related links and sources:

 http://www.achristianapologistssonnets.com/

http://technorati.com/social-media/article/will-pinterests-ban-on-pins-showing/

Cate Blanchett Naked-faced: the Brave Bamboozle.

Well, in light of Demi Moore's Photoshop fiasco, Cate Blanchett swooped right in and in a maverick and iconoclastic gesture, highlighted herself on the cover of "Intelligent Life," the Economist's bi-monthly magazine. The meaning and significance is not for the shallow, of course, and that is the point. Her commentary is silent and weighty because she appears without make-up and without, you guessed it, Photoshop! Is this stupid? Brave? An example of Intelligent Life? Probably yes to all of it.

Stupid? Perhaps she will be cutting herself out of future Helena Rubinstein ads when she reaches Demi Moore's current age of 49. No make-up is not what make-up advertisers and initiators of make-up lines (Tom Ford) elicit as good for business. But on the other hand, Cate Blanchette's import and gravitas as an actress is huge. She is beholden to no one, an Aussie who has made her mark off Broadway in Australian theater and in films. She has mounted productions,  A Streetcar Named Desire at BAM's the Harvey Theater in this country and has appeared in Hedda Gabler Off Broadway. She and her husband are artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company.

Already on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she has won numerous awards for her film roles including an Oscar, two Golden Globes, two BAFTAs and two SAGs. Clearly, she may live up to the title of the Meryl Streep of her generation at 43 years old. And she has a stability born of the Australian theatre where she began her career. So is it any wonder that commercialism, Hollywood and the industrial film production are not something she is in tune with? Clearly, does her solid foundation ground her in a reality more profound than anything Photoshop and all its attendant illusions which fuel the fashion industry, the advertising industry, the entertainment industry and other American enterprises in publishing, offer? Clearly, indeed.

So on the one hand, bravo that Cate Blanchett has appeared without make-up to reveal that it is not necessary for one so highly connected and globally lauded to be made into a faux goddess that in reality is a fading fury of stressed out appearance. On the other hand, this is in character for her. She was never one to tout her beauty which for many is not the typical and usual type sold in America. Granted, she does have qualities that universally are attributes of beauty icons. She is blonde and fair and she is tall and slender. To be slender alone, is a key attribute of the beautiful, the coin of the realm!

Additionally, though the photo is not tweaked, skewed and illusioned, there is another element not discussed: lighting. The photographer and his assistants had to light her properly and lighting makes all the difference in the world. As all good photographers do, he or she most likely ran a series. They didn't just snap one photo in the twinkling of the eye and process it. And from that series, proofs were selected and the best ones were most likely picked, to show the intention of the article which was to twit American celebrity. Perhaps the photographer, et. al ran the images by Blanchett and allowed her to select which one or ones to run, a common occurrence as a courtesy to the star. So, this is not the typical family photo shoot by someone without experience or an eye for light and color. And clearly, the equipment and processing were top of the line which can make a difference. So though there was no obvious enhancement by Photoshop, all of the elements of photography most likely applied. Not wearing make-up, appearing naked, is no big deal.

Now, I dare her to appear on TV without make-up. That is a different kettle of fish. On TV more is less!!! (so I have been told by TV make-up artists).

Folks, the Photoshopped image is going to continue. Why? Because this is the United States. Our culture, borne and baked in the sun of LA and Hollywood, the dream capital of the world as its historical name was supposed to suggest, will require much more than a great Australian actress to appear with a naked face on the cover of a magazine to prompt other celebrities, including Meryl Streep, to follow suit. Only until American celebrities of all ages agree to advocate for the reality of the image and eschew Photoshop, only until they repeatedly go naked-faced for all of us to see, only until they stand up for natural beauty, will this futile and destructive race against aging and self-annihilating embrace of the illusory die a final death. I don't think it will be in my lifetime. But surely it will come.

Demi Moore's Photoshopped Ad: Illusory Image

Demi Moore at an event

Did you ever envy celebrity goddesses, stars and media personalities? Well, maybe you shouldn't. After all, vengeful time grinds them into a pulp of insecurity and appearance terrors. Sure, Suzanne Somers looks great because of all the treatments she is getting. But let's face it. She has to keep them up. So far there is no reversal of the destructive process that we had hoped science could arrest with an easy pill and painless medication to promote health and beauty forever. And for a beauty, aging is worse than death. Just ask Marilyn.



 If only it were only possible to avoid looking old. Well there is Photoshop! For those celebrities in the media, entertainment and fashion industry, it is a fabulous way to skew reality until you can either get lifts, tummy tucks, fat sucks, eye sluices, gain or lose weight, put on pounds of make-up or just stay inside and never be seen by the light of day and papparizzi who are looking to get those compromising and TRUE pictures of the real you. This is your wake up call. Right now, toss any wistful desires to be like a certain "beautiful" goddess you or your boyfriend, husband or male friends have hitched your appearance to. When these lovelies grow old (in their 30s) they will have to confront the abject hell of atrophying ugliness and imperfection which shadows them to exacting an ever rising pain quotient of multiple mutilations: surgeries, acid peals, procedures, needles.

For someone like Demi Moore who has been battling this scene for years, you would think the terrain has become familiar. But her weight loss and the January incident where she used nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to get high and then had severe reactions to its overuse requiring hospitalization, coupled with the stress of the relationship break-up with Ashton Kutcher who was involved in a very public and extremely humiliating cheating affair with a woman in her twenties appear to be the symptoms of Moore's attempt to negotiate her intense celebrity life with Kutcher. The crushing media pressure to look beautiful and be perfect as she ages only adds to creating personal and career stress. As many celebrities do to enhance their diminishing careers or hawk their products (Dame Elizabeth Taylor, Andy McDowell) Moore has taken to appearing in advertisements. And Photoshop which should be an aid is not.

Moore's ads, especially photos for the most recent Helena Rubinstein 2012 campaign  are extreme. The dichotomy between Photoshopped ad and photo taken around the time of her hospitalization is as wide and deep as the distance between here and the moon. Moore is sans tan, wrinkles and acute thinness. And according to other media pundits, her facial features appear to have been tweaked and crimped, though it might be the camera angle. This is not the first time that Moore's image has been subjected to the wonderful, age defying digital program. And as she and other celebrities pile on the years yet advertise, it will not be the last.

Helena Rubinstein ad obviously Photoshopped

The tragedy in all of this is that eventually, the monstrous faux images that the digital universe has accustomed us to, supplant celebrities' reality and human vulnerability. They are stuck with the latter and we are envious of the former. The difference is devastating and increasingly they react to it. For example, have we seen Cher lately? Or is she in one of her hiding modes? Though Whitney Houston was beautiful, Kevin Kostner's remarks at her funeral reference her tremendous insecurity about her appearance; she was near Moore's age.

There is always a point of no return. Regardless of the flurry of surgeries, procedures, enhancers and treatments to align the beast with the beautiful image, age wins. Witness Dame Elizabeth Taylor who eventually used her Photoshopped image to sell her perfume though the photos were from the early 1980s and the reality of her true appearance grew painful to look at as she tried to mirror the beauty of the past. How the stars negotiate the trauma of the dichotomy evidences their strength of character and courage or their devastation and resignation.

The media culture's obsession with appearance and youth has created tremendous hazards for celebrities and young women alike, encouraging them toward eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, obesity). It has misguided our focus emphasizing externals, promoting a shallow understanding of ourselves and how we function in relationships. And it has doubly influenced young men and older men to disregard and keep at low priority a woman's inner beauty at the expense of a woman's status as eye candy or trophy associative. Photoshop may be a technological advancement, but like all advancements, the power of its usefulness is only found in its ability to improve the human experience, and not in its fallout to devastate through exaggerated illusion. If Photoshop promotes enslavement to iconic images that don't exist, then it is promoting addictive waste. The only way such bondage can be broken is through a concerted effort by all celebrities to OUT the process and condemn its injustices.

God forbid that we all should "grow old more gracefully unphotoshopped?"  At the very least, celebrities and media personalities should discuss how the caged lives they lead are beholden to devastating images they can never live up to and not, as some are wont to do, deny that they "have had work" or have been Photoshopped.

None of us is perfect. Holding ourselves and each other up to ridiculous ideals that are media fabrications meant to injure our self-esteem in order to create the need for a company's product is a pathetic, mind bending use of our humanity. Unfortunately, the Rubinstein ad is one more example of this.


A similar article was published on Technorati about Demi Moore and the Photoshopped Helena Rubinstein article.

And Then It Happens! Fat Attack!

Gentlemen, this probably NEVER happens to you! Damn! How do you guys do it? Weight loss weight gain? It comes and goes and you men could care less, right? You are so lucky! Women have it sooo much harder! For us, the culture IS RELENTLESS about our being UBER THIN. I'm just trying to stay alive being a normal weight!!!

Brooklyn esplanade facing away from NYC, happy at a comfortable, non panting up 5 flights of stairs weight, 10/26/11.

Refreshing Your Perspective About Valentine's Day, For Next Year

Teens Losing Weight Use Wrong-headed Thinking!

Do you know a teen who is struggling with obesity? Chances are that they are trying to lose weight, but may not be eating healthily. A recent study of Philadelphia high schools students indicated that 14% needed to lose weight because of obesity and they acknowledged it and were trying. The problem was that they were clueless about an appropriate and healthful weight loss strategy.

Resolutions for 2012: A Time to Dream a Time to Hope, Only for Some

The stuff dreams/resolutions are made of.

Well, 2011 your "Best and Worst" films, books, mistakes, political gafs, science advances, medical blunders, sports events, blowbacks, tech trends, celebrities/people have vanished into the land of forgetfulness.  Ended are the celebrations and drunkenness and substance induced oblivions and enthusiasms that blottoed the dread of work on Tuesday (if you are lucky) or NO JOB (much worse if no one is there to subsidize you) on Tuesday. And the whip lashing marathon bouts of excess erupting like cheap wine from bottles of New Year's Eve wildness and crescendoing into the morning dawn, then devolving into the drag of New Year's Day bloat and torpor, when quietude and TV voyeurism reel in the mind...they, too, have fled.

Holiday Meanings!

Occupy Wall Street: Occupying Wherever...The Week in Review, A Bit of This and That

I marched on Washington. I am a Baby Boomer. I was devastated when the Movement in the 60s failed. But it really didn't, I can see that now. The Boomers raised their children, many of them who do believe. In the spirit of true change, not the words mouthed by Obama to get elected (sorry, but there it is... I don't understand why he kept Bush's people or those who exacerbated the mortgage debacle mess) the movement is attempting to find its way and make a better world. Currently, the one represented has huge issues...

This was a defining week. I support them. I am a unionist, a teacher. I made a difference in many of my students' lives.  AND I AM GLAD THAT I CONTRIBUTED in some small way the values I gleened from my parents and the 60s...tossing away the worst of them, refining and filtering. And I do think the true message is LOVE. Check out November 17th link.  That I do uphold. That is something the Philistines do not uphold. And who are the Philistines? Those for whom everything is a commodity, including the peasant class of which the 99% are.

November 14th- 15th, A Day of Infamy for Civil Liberties
November 15th
Also Go to Livestream to see what happened.  They do replay the raid for the true results. Cameras don't lie. And they give updates about the protests.

November 16th

November 17th
November 17th

November 18th

FB Page Occupy Wall Street
Here is 1 reason to join the movement.
The U.S. Census says the number of children living in poverty in the U.S. rose by 1 million last year. Nearly 1 in 3 children, 33% now live in households considered poor. At the same time the 400 richest people in America – our nation’s oligarchs – have never had it so good, they control more weath than 150 million Americans.
400 people with more wealth than 150 million. Many children in poverty so they can have billions. Sickening.  
We simply will not allow this to continue. We are rising up.  
Re-read it. Share it. We are growing stronger every day

Make no mistake about it. the Occupy Movement is a thorn in the wealthy's side which constitutes both Democrats and Republicans. They and corporate and the Federal Reserve cabal do not want people thinking very much about how they are not prospering, about how NO ONE HAS GONE TO JAIL AS A RESULT OF THE HIJACKING OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY after the mortgage debacle.

The Occupy Movement is comprised of many educated and intellectual individuals amongst the 99%. Scientists, writers (like Salman Rushdie, etc.) economists, lawyers, etc. On the sub rosa, unionists like the police also agree. I have met organizers; they are educated. They are very sharp. They are non-violent. I have also seen "plants" at demonstrations. I have seen undercover, not from state governments,try to divert meetings of the General Assembly or live chats on LIVESTREAM. (To see what livestream is check out the Technorati article link for Novembe 16th above.

Now, I ask you, if this movement has no steam and is made of 'RIFF-RAFF" why did Bloomberg feel he had to prevent press from following the raid at 1:00 AM?  Lie:  for safety? Journalists follow wars. The protesters are NON-VIOLENT. It was a press blackout plain and simple.  No press were to be around to catch the EVICTION and police acting in a fashion that recalls strong arming tactics (KGB/GESTAPO????)  pushing, shoving, destroying. The library alone cannot be replaced. Donations were destroyed...laptops, the permaculture structures, the self-sufficient structures, etc. The private property of those down there? A good part of it destroyed, smashed and irretrievable. The pix of people picking up the stuff at the sanitation garage, was skewed. The books were wet and the pages stuck together, etc., etc.

Even in an eviction, warning and notice are given. Actually, a copy of the court order must be put up. None of this occurred. Why? Because, beyond civil rights violations, the Mayor was told by his cronies/henchmen from on high to get rid of the rag-tags (which by the way are not. Many are from middle to upper middle class families who have taken a leave from their jobs, who have put their leases on hold in order to TAKE A STAND FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO CANNOT AFFORD TO LEAVE THEIR JOBS BECAUSE THEY HAVE MOUTHS TO FEED, ETC.)

So the Mayor has lied. He has talked about civil rights, yet denied them with a black night raid of eviction a press blackout, using law enforcement, not for purposes of peace, but for THE PURPOSES OF THE WEALTHY. In other words, he turned a civil police force into a PRIVATE ARMY TO USE AGAINST citizens of the US. Not only has he contravened the law for his own purposes, hijacked the laws for his ends (the wealthy's ends...we mean here the elites in power...not just the wealthy) he has made his own law. That law is MIGHT IS RIGHT.

Martin Luther King Jr. said an unjust law is no law at all. In other words, such a law must be protested  through nonviolent civil disobedience. That is what  the Occupiers represent and stand for. (The hijacking of civil liberties by power elites...not even really the corporations, but global power elites.) In every way the Occupiers are fighting the hypocritical lifestyle that damages and makes servants out of all of us in the culture, slaves to an economy that rips us off daily, slaves in our elder years to fear and want. That is why they set up a self-sufficient community down in Zuccotti Square. 

Very dangerous. Be self-sufficient? Use barter instead of money? Grow your own food? Don't rely on the industrial complexes and corporates that indenture the culture by making them puppet consumers? That is what the permaculture movement was all about at Zuccotti Park. They reused the water. Grew their food. Used their own energy supply (not generators). Had their own free library (showing all could learn/read/be educated...educated connections are for the rich. See the film Social Network)  

Self-sufficient communities not beholden to consumerism must be stopped. 

Check out this from MSNBC.  (November 19th)