The steel counter weight on the scale clinks back to neutral as
I disappointedly step back into my tennis shoes.
Hmm, I know, I’ll just skip dinner tonight…
and I’ll get back on the treadmill for another thirty minutes.
My stomach doesn’t growl, my hunger is far past that.
A dull ache gnaws in my head.
I plod at a steady pace and increase the incline by another two levels.
The screen in front of me is filled with images from the latest hip hop music video.
Gorgeous women strut across the screen flashing seductive smiles while shaking their perfectly sculpted bodies. At the end a Lamborghini pulls up and whisks them off to their next raucously fun party.
My heart pounds,
not with the exertion from running,
but with the envy and overwhelming desire to be beautiful and successful
like those women.
Swimsuit models, cover girls, movie stars, the rich and famous.
Their glorious photo shopped images are plastered on magazines, television the internet and every other facet of the media that pervade our over mediatized lives.
These unrealistic standards of perfection are what our society asks girls to live up to.
Is it any wonder then that over one half of teenage girls and one third of boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting and taking laxatives.
In a survey of 185 female students on a college campus, 58% felt pressure to be a certain weight, and of the 83% that dieted for weight loss, 44% were of normal weight.
America’s Next Top Model draws millions of viewers every week.
Millions tuned in last week as Tyra Banks crowned yet another winner;
a pretty bag of bones who will be a role model for thousands of women.
Escaping this warped and destructive mind frame is a huge struggle. Eating disorders are ranked as mental illnesses and need to be treated with the same urgency and importance as depression.
The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own…
1 Corinthians 6:19
Oh. Well that puts things into perspective. So, God, are you saying that I have to eat perfect and work out all the time?
That’s so hard.
I can’t be perfect.
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
~Philipians 4:13
Oh, right. God, you already knew that didn’t you.
Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.”
~Matthew 7:7
So, whether you eat or drink,
or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 1:31
But when it comes down to it God assures us,
I will love you for you.
Not for what you have done or what you have become.
I will love you for you.
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