What Size Are You?

At a leader’s meeting this weekend, one of our church staff with a background in counseling (and one of our writers-Hannah) came to talk to the ladies about eating disorders. It is estimated that 10% of female college students suffer from an eating disorder, and that four of every five women in the U. S. are dissatisfied with their appearance. Even looking at these statistics makes me realize the value of equipping our female leaders about how to help themselves and others who struggle with this.

One thing mentioned in the talk was about how our culture and media is one of the etiologies of eating disorders. How true this is! There’s always talk of stars losing or gaining weight, with more applause for those who have lost weight. There’s a pressure to be thin and that being thin is beautiful.

The media recently have been pointing out Jessica Simpson’s weight gain. Looking at these pictures, she definitely doesn’t look like a stick and she doesn’t look fat or obese to me. I think she looks fine and wish the media would hold back comments on how heavier she looked.

Even Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, stood up for her daughter when the media took pictures of her in a bikini and made unkind comments about her daughter’s weight. The Duchess kept commenting that her daughter was “a healthy size 10″.

I do admit that the cultural and media influences are strong in how we view ourselves and others. But we must fight against those and other worldly influences and replace it with Biblcial truths. We can’t do it alone. We need the power of Jesus and the accountability from other sisters.

And rather than focusing on being a size 0, 2 or ?, I think the focus should be on being healthy as ladies.