Why I support Fat Talk Free Week

Last winter, while spending time with family in Colorado, my visit happened to correspond with that of a family friend. She was 14-years-old at the time, very petite and sadly completely visually impaired as a result of an adverse drug reaction known as Stevens Johnson Syndrome.

She had lost her sight around the age of 3. My cousin also experienced the same reaction, resulting in her partial vision loss which is what brought these two young women together as the best of friends.

I spent a lot of time with them over the trip, taking the teenagers sledding and to the mall.

What stood out to me the most was that despite her lack of sight she was just as concerned about her appearance as any other teenage girl.

One evening when dressing up in cocktail dresses she asked if the dress made her look fat.

At the end of meals she would suggest not accepting dessert, because she did not want to gain weight.

I was floored. This was a 14-year-old, 90-pound girl, who had no concept of what being ‘fat’ would look like.

Obviously these conceptions of weight and social standards must be coming from somewhere, beyond magazines, fashion designers and movie stars. Fat Talk is the only reason a visually impaired child would have this perception of body image.

After this experience, I found new realization in why we need to work to remove Fat Talk from our conversations. Not only are unrealistic images of beauty being portrayed in the media, they are also portrayed in our homes, with our family and friends. This has to change.

We have to present ourselves as strong, empowered women not only to ourselves, but to those around us. We need to challenge those stereotypes in our own conversations and we need to have meaningful conversations with those we care about who struggle with this issue themselves.

I’m going to share the message of Fat Talk Free Week with the girl I mentioned as well as the rest of my friends and I hope that you will decide to join me.

Fat Talk Free Week is October 18 - 22. Visit www.facebook.com/FatTalkFree to learn more about this years events and how you can get involved in the movement to End Fat Talk.

Yup... I'm a stalker

I read blogs. I like blogs. I might even love blogs.

I vaguely miss the newspaper, although I can get most of their news on twitter faster than reporters can produce it.

I do continue pick up magazines, if only to have something to read while on a plane somewhere. Otherwise they just take up space, get saved for an undue amount of time, and left on an end table until I move.

But I love blogs.

As I spent the last half hour reading past entries on the blog of someone I knew in high school it dawned on me how entirely creepy blogs really are.

I don't know these people. I sorta knew the person who's blog I was reading at that moment, but really I wouldn't recognize the bloggers I read if I met them on the street (except maybe Pioneer Woman because shes my blogging hero).

Yet, that is ok. It is completely welcome and actually invited that I peek, daily, into the lives of total strangers. The difference is when it's someone I know, or used to know. Thats when I feel like I'm creeping in someone's bushes taking pictures of them in the shower and that is surreal.

Why is it ok to be a daily part of someone's life whom you've never, and probably never will meet and invasive feeling if its someone you do know?

Its befuddling, and a little creepy, and I'm inviting strangers to hear about my befuddlement.

Is social media a Dr.'s note excusing lazy journalism?

I had planned to go to the gym today but since I'm battling with the pollen counts outside I thought it might be nice to not sneeze all over the equipment. I planned to go last week too, but I got a tetanus shot and already felt like I'd worked out.

Granted these are a lot of excuses. I could still have worked out last week, or today with a large box of tissues in tow, but when it's all said and done, I didn't feel like it.

One of the list serves I subscribe to sent out this blog post today asking if Young PR people are getting Social Media Tunnel vision.

I think that there becomes a point where instead of writing a good release, or learning the finer aspects of AP Style [or basic grammar for the matter] is too difficult and therefore a social media blast is an excuse for not doing it.

There is a fine balance between not recognizing the potential of social media and not doing the basics of brand management. If you know the basics and recognize when you should still use them, social media is a fine compliment to the entree.

The concern raises when we stop learning the basics or forget how to use them. Everything else is just an excuse.