I got really sad reading about how Janet Jackson felt about herself as she was growing up, and as an adult. Sad, but yet the feelings were familiar. For Janet Jackson, as well as Paula Abdul, Jessica Simpson, Demi Lavato, Candice Cameron, and many more actresses in Hollywood, they have been dealing with their weight as a "monkey on their back".
Where most of us would look at these women (who are probably a size 6 or less) and think they are gorgeous & thin, Hollywood and the media professes them to be fat. And so the focus becomes not on their God-given talent but on the size of their ass. Trust me - if you are a girl with the least little bit of junk in the trunk, YOU KNOW IT - you don't need your truth splashed across the Star Magazine to make you realize it.
I have dealt with a weight issue since I was about 18 years old. To sum it up, it sucks. It is all consuming at times. I know my self-worth is not defined by the number on the scale, I am beyond that thinking, but at this point I have to lose weight because it is a health issue. The doctors are saying that if I lose weight I will feel better. Can you imagine how devastated I feel to connect the dots to what they are saying: that I put myself in this pain because of my weight?
But yet losing weight is the one goal I cannot seem to obtain. It is just unreachable...and THAT is what brings me down. I earned two degrees while working full time. I have a wonderful husband and daughter and I work my tail off at my job over 40+ hours a week. But DO NOT ask me to stay away from the chocolate or you will be missing a hand!
I'm sure that Janet, Paula, Jessica, and the others are in my same sisterhood: we eat when we are stressed. Whether it is good stress, like being out with friends, or bad stress, like having a bad day at work, we all turn to food. For me, it is the one area of my life where I let things go. I give my self a break and my perfectionism just fades away...
So I'm open for suggestions from blogland about how to deal with this - and I'm sure other people need help with it too. For the celebrities listed above, they may look thin, but they are still fighting the monkey within.
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