This is part of what I shared in the health seminar yesterday:
"15 years ago I looked at this girl - who wasn’t fat to begin with but lost more weight - and I decided I wanted to be like her. What a huge mistake. I felt inferior, I felt less than. Through this image I was introduced to a tyrant constantly telling me I wasn’t thin or good enough.
I did lose a lot of weight and standing in the mirror at 120 pounds, I called myself fat. I literally looked in the mirror and in my mind, I still thought I was fat. For 10 years, no one could tell me why that happed. I even shared that with a co-worker who didn’t have the answer herself.
Since I was 11 years-old I’ve been on some kind of diet periodically. Nothing I’ve tried gave me lasting results. I told you I would talk about the Media’s influence but I’m not gonna spend a lot of time in that and you will see why.
I don’t need to give you tons of states for you to know that advertisers are out there to create new wants in your life. I studied the tactics of advertising in college and after taking that particular course my professor told me: Cintia, you know how they do things so you shouldn’t be affected by advertisement. The kind of advertisement that always impressed me was mascara. Every other day there’s one that’s supposed to make your lashes 3 times fuller. For some reason that really impressed me.
The media is always after women. I took a magazine class with one of the leading Magazine experts in the country. He calls himself Mr. Magazine, his name is Samir Husni. On his book “Selling Content” Dr. Husni quotes Richard Stolley, founding editor of People magazine who wrote the laws of magazine cover designs.
Here they are: “Young is better than old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. Movies are better than television. Television is better than music. Movies and television are better than sports. Anything is better than politics. And as morbid as it may seem, nothing is better than the dead celebrity.”
Dr. Husni preached, backed by research and real life, that every magazine that includes a diet on its cover soar in sales.
I don’t have to bring any examples of thinness being celebrated on television. Actresses are celebrated when they lose extreme amounts of weight for their roles. What I realized with the Janet Jackson incident – as well as with the recent The Biggest Loser – is that I don’t live in a ranch somewhere out in Arizona with Chefs and personal trainers working with me 8 hours a day. I have a job, a family and a life. I can dedicate only 40 minutes of exercise most days of the week.
Think about it at home:
* How does the statement above (Media Standards) can be compared to God’s standards?
Now that we know what the world standards are, let me talk to you about God’s way of loving & changing me.
I came to the States at 18. In College I gained weight and lost it. My life was a constant yo-yo experience when it came to weight but I never gave any in depth thought about it. If I was getting too big, I either combined diet with exercise and pills or exercised until it came off. Then it came back again.
When I got married in January of 2006 I lost a lot of weight and gained it all back within two weeks of the marriage.
Along with the weight I experienced chest pains. I dressed and came with my smile to work but inside I was a mess.
I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about portions, nutrition and exercise. 85% of my clothes did not fit. That’s when I really got desperate. We couldn’t buy larger sizes and I didn’t believe in larger sizes. As I put on my tight pants, I remember calling myself fat with a lot of anger.
I suffered before leading worship at church. It was extremely hard to lead others to worship when I felt insecure about myself, my clothes, the way I looked. My husband never called me fat, never told me to lose weight, he encouraged me through it all but that didn’t work for me either.
The summer of 2006, when we were house parents to the college summer staff here at the Lake I had enough of that suffering. I got on my knees at Colonial Inn an said a simple prayer. I asked God to help me because I didn’t know what else to do. I kept living life.
That’s when God said ok, because you are going to stop trying I’m gonna work on your behalf.
He led me through a process that has given me so much more than weight loss. The first thing He had me do was to renew my mind. For 10 years my mind was functioning according to the standards of the world. I was so sick, I was walking around the lake and being bothered by how thin other women were. That’s sick. As Christians we are supposed to look at persons as Jesus would. Look at their eyes with the love of the Father."
I did lose a lot of weight and standing in the mirror at 120 pounds, I called myself fat. I literally looked in the mirror and in my mind, I still thought I was fat. For 10 years, no one could tell me why that happed. I even shared that with a co-worker who didn’t have the answer herself.
Since I was 11 years-old I’ve been on some kind of diet periodically. Nothing I’ve tried gave me lasting results. I told you I would talk about the Media’s influence but I’m not gonna spend a lot of time in that and you will see why.
I don’t need to give you tons of states for you to know that advertisers are out there to create new wants in your life. I studied the tactics of advertising in college and after taking that particular course my professor told me: Cintia, you know how they do things so you shouldn’t be affected by advertisement. The kind of advertisement that always impressed me was mascara. Every other day there’s one that’s supposed to make your lashes 3 times fuller. For some reason that really impressed me.
The media is always after women. I took a magazine class with one of the leading Magazine experts in the country. He calls himself Mr. Magazine, his name is Samir Husni. On his book “Selling Content” Dr. Husni quotes Richard Stolley, founding editor of People magazine who wrote the laws of magazine cover designs.
Here they are: “Young is better than old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. Movies are better than television. Television is better than music. Movies and television are better than sports. Anything is better than politics. And as morbid as it may seem, nothing is better than the dead celebrity.”
Dr. Husni preached, backed by research and real life, that every magazine that includes a diet on its cover soar in sales.
I don’t have to bring any examples of thinness being celebrated on television. Actresses are celebrated when they lose extreme amounts of weight for their roles. What I realized with the Janet Jackson incident – as well as with the recent The Biggest Loser – is that I don’t live in a ranch somewhere out in Arizona with Chefs and personal trainers working with me 8 hours a day. I have a job, a family and a life. I can dedicate only 40 minutes of exercise most days of the week.
Think about it at home:
* How does the statement above (Media Standards) can be compared to God’s standards?
Now that we know what the world standards are, let me talk to you about God’s way of loving & changing me.
I came to the States at 18. In College I gained weight and lost it. My life was a constant yo-yo experience when it came to weight but I never gave any in depth thought about it. If I was getting too big, I either combined diet with exercise and pills or exercised until it came off. Then it came back again.
When I got married in January of 2006 I lost a lot of weight and gained it all back within two weeks of the marriage.
Along with the weight I experienced chest pains. I dressed and came with my smile to work but inside I was a mess.
I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about portions, nutrition and exercise. 85% of my clothes did not fit. That’s when I really got desperate. We couldn’t buy larger sizes and I didn’t believe in larger sizes. As I put on my tight pants, I remember calling myself fat with a lot of anger.
I suffered before leading worship at church. It was extremely hard to lead others to worship when I felt insecure about myself, my clothes, the way I looked. My husband never called me fat, never told me to lose weight, he encouraged me through it all but that didn’t work for me either.
The summer of 2006, when we were house parents to the college summer staff here at the Lake I had enough of that suffering. I got on my knees at Colonial Inn an said a simple prayer. I asked God to help me because I didn’t know what else to do. I kept living life.
That’s when God said ok, because you are going to stop trying I’m gonna work on your behalf.
He led me through a process that has given me so much more than weight loss. The first thing He had me do was to renew my mind. For 10 years my mind was functioning according to the standards of the world. I was so sick, I was walking around the lake and being bothered by how thin other women were. That’s sick. As Christians we are supposed to look at persons as Jesus would. Look at their eyes with the love of the Father."
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