A fit, healthy body—that is the best fashion statement

There is no dictionary in the world that includes the words ’skinny’ or ‘fat’ under the definitions of ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’. So, focus on being healthy and stop the self-criticism.

While most people are playing it safe and doing everything they can to avoid pain, successful people know that they must face their fears and do what needs to be done regardless of how they...

Proper posture sends a positive message since 90% of all communication occures through body language and how you carry yourself.

All Beyoncé and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful.

Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.

Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.

If you find the dividing line between fairy tales and reality, let me know. In my mind, the two run together, even though the intersections aren’t always obvious. The girl sitting quietly in class or...

Eating disorders are prevalent among women who were sexually abused as children. They seem to have components of other symptoms such as obsessions, compulsions, avoidance of food, and anxiety, and they primarily include a distorted...

Beauty provokes harassment, the law says, but it looks through men’s eyes when deciding what provokes it.

I am protective of the gentle slope of stomach bulging like an early pregnancy, at my waist. I’ve earned its existence with everything I’ve been forced to swallow.

We can only bring about change in our lives when we clearly see two truths: that the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of fighting our toughest battles, and that by...

I’m sorry I don’t conform to your standards of feminine perfection, but I’m quite happy the way I am—anyway, I wasn’t born to be buxom.

What is this food in my head, anyway? Let’s see…it’s green and good for you and so delicious. It’s prepared by angels with love. The minute you bite into it, it’s savory, chewy, nourishing, and...

We do not have to spend money and go hungry and struggle and study to become sensual; we always were. We need not believe we must somehow earn good erotic care; we always deserved it....

Our culture is obsessed with perfection, especially when it comes to the way women look. The parameters of acceptability as far as physical appearance go are so limiting that only a handful of women actually...

Inspiring qualities make some people to feel a little uneasy.

I can see that.

The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance.

The surgeons are playing on the myth’s double standard for the function of the body. A man’s thigh is for walking, but a woman’s is for walking and looking “beautiful.” If women can walk but...

Sexual satisfaction eases the stranglehold of materialism, since status symbols no longer look sexual, but irrelevant. Product lust weakens where emotional and sexual lust intensifies. The price we pay for artificially buoying up this market...

I am, for some reason, actually happy with who I am and the muscle, the bones, and the flub that exist beneath these clothes.I don’t need to lose 20 lbs. to be attractive.I don’t need...

When you ignore your belly, you become homeless. You spend your life trying to erase your own existence. Apologizing for yourself. Feeling like a ghost. Eating to take up space, eating to give yourself the...

Culture alone cannot explain the phenomena of such high rates of eating disorders. Eating disorders are complex, but what they all seem to have in common is the ability to distract women from the memories,...

No matter what a woman’s appearance may be, it will be used to undermine what she is saying and taken to individualize – as her personal problem – observations she makes about the beauty myth...

It’s not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language,...

We may not be able to control life’s circumstances, but we always have a choice about how we use our minds to respond to them.

Choose this life. Choose this body. Say yes to all of it. Say yes to the beauty and the good and the ugly and the difficult. Choose what you have, what you are. Choose this...

When [beauty pornography is] aimed at men, its effect is to keep them from finding peace in sexual love. The fleeting chimera of the airbrushed centerfold, always receding before him, keeps the man destabilized in...

It’s my choice to be beautiful. It’s my choice to be ugly. And it’s my choice to decided what those words actually mean.

Your lowest moment and life can be your best if you survive it and learn from it

Beauty shouldn’t be about changing yourself to achieve an ideal or be more socially acceptable. Real beauty, the interesting, truly pleasing kind, is about honoring the beauty within you and without you. It’s about knowing...

The human body is the best work of art.

Whatever is deeply, essentially female–the life in a woman’s expression, the feel of her flesh, the shape of her breasts, the transformations after childbirth of her skin–is being reclassified as ugly, and ugliness as disease....

In a sexual double standard as to who receives consumer protection, it seems that if what you do is done to women in the name of beauty, you may do what you like. It is...

Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly. They do not simply advertise for a share of a market that already exists: Their...

The skinnier and more toned I got, the fatter I felt.The more in shape I got, the more out of shape I felt like I was.And the more I made myself look good to the...

You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won’t discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and...

Value yourself for what the media doesn’t – your intelligence, your street smarts, your ability to play a kick-ass game of pool, whatever. So long as it’s not just valuing yourself for your ability to...

Health makes good propaganda.

Claims have been made that I’ve been on a strict workout routine regulated by co-stars, whipped into shape by trainers I’ve never met, eating sprouted grains I can’t pronounce and ultimately losing 14 pounds off...

Believe it or not, your body has nothing but unconditional love for you. The proof? Without any effort on your part, your heart is beating, your lungs are breathing, and the rhythm of life is...

I’m fifteen and I feel like girl my age are under a lot of pressure that boys are not under. I know I am smart, I know I am kind and funny, and I know...

This body needs me to say yes to it, just as it is right now. No more singing that same old jingle of body-shame and dieter’s promised lands.

The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold.Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an...

What if my boobs decide to grow WHILE I’m at school?

Telling yourself you like the way you look is easy. Believing it is an entirely different kettle of whales.

good” body. Your body didn’t do anything wrong. What’s fucked up about your body is not your body at all, but that your body has to live in a society that thinks it has a...

Be patient. Your skin took a while to deteriorate. Give it some time to reflect a calmer inner state. As one of my friends states on his Facebook profile: “The true Losers in Life, are...

The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today’s woman has become her “beauty.