Body Confidence: It's About Inner Beauty

 

On the beautiful, bright train journey to the picturesque tiny village which is home to my family, I saw a woman who utterly intrigued me

At a guess I would say she was in her seventies, with a heavily lined little face and an extremely slight frame, although she was well dressed in a waist cinching dress and dolly shoes. Either her hairdresser was a witch, or she was dressed in a wig – A synthetic-looking, shiny thing, with an almost inconceivably high crown and flowing| ringlets in various colours, falling to just below her waist. Think Dot Cotton from Eastenders with Dolly Parton’s wig. Luckily, I was wearing sunglasses, which allowed me to feed my curiosity by staring at her like David Attenborough scrutinizing a insect for the best part of the fifteen minute journey.

I conjectured that she had been very pretty back in her heyday and that she had learned the art of makeup doing in the a long time ago, neglecting to modify| her look since. I surveyed her as she applied a harsh, very pale foundation, several layers of black and grey eye-shadow and then heavy-handedly began lining her lips. The result was ghastly, in a kind of car crash type way. This, I determined, is what happens when women refuse to recognise the ageing process.

The established social attitude of “youth = beauty” is a result of exactly the same phenomenon which pushes women and men so starve themselves right back to infancy. Initiatives like Body Gossip and Winning Minds (www.winningminds.co.uk) are working to introduce more representations of health into the beauty spectrum – but that isn’t limited to body shapes, it also runs to races and ages we aren’t accustomed to seeing in the public eye.

With wrinkles come maturity, wisdom and experience. These are very desirable characteristics – So why why do we think wrinkles are distasteful? Paradigms of beauty are constantly changing – Only a few centuries ago Rubenesque style voluptuous beauties were in vogue. Why we feel the need to botox ourselves back to our teens remains a mystery.

For more info on eating disorders and negative body confidence to call 0800 083 0143 for your free 15 minute consultation.

Document No: win10200804

 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 4:59 pm and is filed under health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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