No, it’s not just the girls. Yes, it seems like it used to be. But in recent years, a growing number of boys and men have fallen victim to body image issues and disordered eating. That shouldn’t be at all surprising. We live in a social-media and marketing-saturated world that pounds us all. . . every single minute of every single day. . . with the message that “YOU ARE WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE. . . NOTHING MORE. . . NOTHING LESS.”
Walt Mueller from the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding wrote that this past week on his blog. A soon as I saw another blog post with "body image" in the title, I definitely just assumed it would be aimed at the teenage girls in our lives. However, to see what our young men are thinking about concerning their physical image, it's kind of eye-popping. Take a look:
If you can't quite read that, definitely follow this link for a larger version here on Walt's post.
If the sheer amount of numbers and data contained in that infograph cause you to numb or tune out, than just know this--your boy (or girl, speaking generally here) spends significantly too much time worrying about how physically attractive they are, AND, are generally unhappy about how they look.
Now, there's a piece of that we can't control, just because of the largeness of the daily assault of images/media/societal values that are thrown at them. But, we CAN be a refugee from that assault. In fact, we are CALLED to be a refuge from that assault.
We cannot drown out every negative voice in the lives of our boys and girls, but we can be a pretty stinkin' loud voice of acceptance and love. We can make sure they hear our voice of positiveness every day. And maybe just that will be enough to help them walk with dignity inside of them, and not shame.
