This means that over 20 percent of women care more about skipping breakfast for their waistlines than the life functions we actually need that fuel to perform. Our focus has shifted too much toward calories, forgetting the nutrients that come with those calories, which we need to feed our minds and bodies. In order to be slim, we render ourselves weak, dumb, and sickly. This does conflict with female empowerment. How can we fight for more career opportunities if we are light-headed at the office after skipping breakfast?
Redefining health.
Rather than focusing solely on ways to lose weight and the health risks of being overweight, the media must include more holistic health information for women of all sizes. Indeed, healthy women do come in all sizes. Two studies by the Cooper Institute in Dallas, in 1994 and 1999, found that when adjusting for overall fitness levels, body mass index is not an indicator of disease and mortality rates. In other words, fit is more important than fat. Such holistic information would include realistic weight ranges for women according to height and greater emphasis on full nutrition with explanations of why certain nutrients are important and how they interact. For example, women need to know that most vitamins and minerals are fat soluble, which means that a diet based solely on fruits and vegetables is far less healthy than one that incorporates protein and unsaturated fats.
Most importantly of all, to improve women’s (and the media’s idea of) health, we must forget about dieting almost entirely! Fixating on weight and eating is not healthy. Low self-esteem is not healthy. If women’s magazines really want to empower their readerships, they should feature more articles on mindful eating rather than restrictive diets, and active lifestyles rather than working out at the gym every day. This way, we will learn that our weight can balance naturally and we can focus the energy spent fixating on weight to enrich our lives instead. With sharper minds and healthier, more energetic bodies, we can perform better in all our endeavors and truly further the cause of womanhood.
