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Spring Time for a New Beginning
By Joanne O'Day
Body Image and Food, Confusing Messages
Being painfully thin is portrayed as the ideal for women in our culture. Just open one of the many fashion magazines and look at the models who adorn their pages. The average model is 5’11” tall and weighs 117 pounds. Models are expected to maintain zero body fat which, by the way, is inhuman. Women’s bodies are not designed to operate with zero body fat.
Unfortunately, selling the idea of being thin is not confined to women’s fashion magazines. When girls are only four of five years old, they will more than likely begin playing with Barbie dolls. Whether we intended it or not, this doll is what we give our daughters as an image of what it is like to be a woman. Did you know that if Barbie’s shape were real, she would not be able to walk, have a menstrual cycle, give birth or breathe? How much does Barbie influence a young girl’s developing self-image? I don’t know. I only know that in our culture an unattainable, artificially-created concept of beauty is promoted to girls at a very young age and it continues through adulthood.
Of course, while anorexic models are being sold to us as ideal beauty, we are also being hammered by the advertising media to consume overly processed, unnecessarily fattening and unhealthy foods. Manipulated with chemicals, these foods are often a chemicalized version or imitation of real food. These are just two of the powerful, opposing cultural forces that play with our psyche each day. As a result, we are left shaking our heads … often not knowing what to eat … wondering why we are experiencing a continual weight gain … being uncomfortable about the way we look … and feeling deprived and low energy.
Nutrition, Clarity from Nature
Spring is here! Just as winter is designed for us to turn inward, spring is a time for us to blossom outward. It’s time for a new beginning and new growth. It’s a time for clarity. This is a good time to look at your life and make a new plan. What do you want to see happen to you in this coming year? This process requires energy. So let’s look at our main energy source which is our food.
Once again, Mother Nature is here to support us for spring is the greening season. It is when greens of all kinds begin to flourish. As you may know, vegetables are the scarcest ingredient in the American diet and green vegetables are lacking most of all. Dark leafy greens are particularly beneficial to us. Greens are crammed with nutrients and in Asian medicine greens are known to promote emotional stability. They also have uplifting qualities. The fiber and chlorophyll in the greens are cleansing and detoxifying. Greens are nature’s way of providing us with an internal spring-cleaning and with the energy to put things back in order.
Would you like support in going from confusion to clarity?
Contact me, Joanne O’Day, at www.basichealthsense.com to schedule a free, private, one-hour consultation. You’ll receive some recommendations on how to attain your goals and you’ll also receive information about my Basic Health Sense programs. The Basic Health Sense is an affordable, personalized program designed to resolve issues about weight, cravings and binging and to promote health and self-care.
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Lao Tzu
Joanne O'Day
Joanne E. O’Day is founder and director of Basic Health Sense.
She is a graduate of The Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York City, a Certified Health Counselor and member of the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. Joanne is also a licensed social worker and nursing home administrator.
“The seeds for my interest in health counseling began long ago. Being a nursing home administrator and social worker for over thirty years gave me the unique opportunity to learn from the many elders who shared their life story with me. I consider myself extremely blessed to have experienced the “wisdom of the ages”. The elders have shown me by example that life truly is what we make it. The controls for the life we desire are in our hands. At the end of our days when we look back on life, it is how we have lived our life that is most important. It’s up to us to experience our life to the fullest and of course, good health is key.”
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