Dr. Linda Helps - It’s that dreaded moment. You slip off your shoes (that’s at least two pounds), your jacket (another pound), your watch (few ounces), and step on the scales. You don’t want to look because you know you are retaining water. Besides, the doctor scales are always off a good five pounds. Then, the nurse loudly announces the number as if it’s no big deal. You wish it wasn’t, but it is!

No matter how emotionally healthy we are, we still obsess about our weight. What woman doesn’t want to lose another five pounds? How many of us lie about weight on our driver’s license? Weight matters, especially to women. In fact, 75 percent of us think we are too fat.

Few of us look like the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models yet we spend billions of dollars on weight loss products and magical cures for obesity. Why are we so consumed with dieting? One reason is the media. We are bombarded by images of glamour and beauty constantly -- television, movies, magazines, and advertisements. Even standing in line at the grocery store, we stare at tabloids promising to melt the fat from our thighs like wax.

With all our emphasis on thinness, 34 million Americans are overweight and 11 million suffer from eating disorders. The average American woman is five feet four inches tall, 144 pounds and a size 12. Compare that to the average model, five feet eight inches tall, 110 pounds and a size two. When you look at the model and then in the mirror, it’s easy to become depressed.

The cultural pressure to be thin is so intense that nine-year-old girls are dieting and teen plastic surgery is on the rise. Thousands of dollars are spent on shaping, cutting, stapling, and lopping off parts of the female body. Girls and women are highly influenced by media images and the media knows this.

So how can you resist the million-dollar brainwash of the media all around you? Become outraged. Speak up about the negative effects media has on women and girls. Write letters to editors of magazines and tell them we’ve had enough.

• Remember media pictures are often airbrushed and computer altered.
  
• Listen to your daughters as they talk about their bodies and unrealistically compare them to the Barbies in their rooms.
• Correct their thinking to a healthier view of the female body.
  
• Refuse to be a part of  the cultural obsession with thinness by complaining about your looks, comparing your body to glamour types and constantly dieting. It is one thing to take care of your body and another to obsess about looks.
  
• Stop waiting to be thin. Work on the total person now.
  
• Recognize that true beauty is inward, not a manufactured facade. God looks at the heart. Our bodies are mere temples that will pass away some day.
  
• Don’t fall in love with products that promise you happiness. Only a relationship with God brings true happiness. There is no magic product or pill.
  
• Expose yourself and your daughter to healthy images of women and girls.
  
• Determine to be healthy. Focus on good eating habits and nutrition. vows.

Dr. Mintle – author, professor, Approved Supervisor and Clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy – is a speaker and media personality, as well as a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty years in psychotherapy practice.

For more articles and information, visit Dr. Linda Mintle's Web site.