Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

That line comes up way too often in my work. So here’s a piece I wrote about how our culture normalizes disordered eating and privileges some stories over others.

I wrote this Op-Ed for CNN.

I have a few thoughts. Over at Adios Barbie.

It wasn’t long ago that Special K was selling us on the idea that we could “drop a jean size in two weeks” by replacing meals with cereal, shakes and their other food-ish products…But now they are singing a different tune. Sort of. Here’s my new one for The Frisky.

I’ve been doing some very entertaining research on vintage diet and fitness advertising. I posted a couple gems and will be sure to share more madness as I uncover it. Behold:

Size 8 Diet cereal (yes, SIZE 8). Pour your delicately toasted wheat puffs from a stylish Pucci canister.

Slimming Beds. The Shake Weights (or Thighmaster?) of the ’60s.

If we all do our part, we might be able to save the dying weight loss industry! (How much sarcasm can I pack into one piece? Heaps, apparently.) Here’s my latest for The Independent.

I was a full-blown feminist by the time I started college. I also had a full-blown eating disorder.

For real, I don’t. Here’s why.

Here’s another place where you can find me posting things irregularly and impulsively.

So I wrote a couple of pieces for The Frisky this month:

In honor of the late, great E.L. Konigsburg, author of one of my all-time favorites: 10 Life Lessons From the Book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

And a very personal essay about eating disorder recovery, fat acceptance and thin privilege (Plus zines! And Nomy Lamm!): Confessions of Thin-Privileged Fat Activist

More than 86,000 people signed Julia Bluhm’s petition asking Seventeen to include an un-retouched photo spread each month. And she’s not the only activist stepping up. It’s time for a revolution. Here’s why.

We’re Losing a Generation of Leaders
“By the time we’re old enough to seriously consider becoming leaders, the majority of us are crippled by insecurities about the way we look, which we internalize and equate with our sense of worth on all levels,” writes 18-year-old author Julie Zeilinger in a Forbes article titled “Why Millennial Women Do Not Want to Lead.” This self-doubt is amplified to the nth degree by the way our culture treats women who are at the top of their professions. The public eye is critical. It counts pounds and zeroes in on every freaking “flaw.” It makes us utterly fearful of landing in its line of sight.

“I’ve been spending a year and a half meeting teenage girls who just hate themselves,” singer Kate Nash recently revealed in an interview. “They’re really insecure about the way they look, and at the age of 14, dismiss the idea of becoming a musician because of the worry about how the media would treat them.”

Young women are shying away from all kinds of stages, including political ones. The relentless appearance-focused jabs at women in public office–from Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann to German chancellor Angela Merkel–do not fall on deaf ears. “The glass ceiling is hard enough to break through and when a powerful woman is thrown into the spotlight, she is bound to be criticized for being either too feminine or not feminine enough.” writes blogger Brittany Cullen. “This double standard is perhaps another barrier that prevents women from seeking public office.”

A recent Proud2Bme poll asked, “Has your body image ever prevented you from participating in an activity you enjoy or would like to try?” An overwhelming 90% answered “yes.” Body insecurities aren’t simply holding girls and women back from wearing bathing suits and having fun at pool parties, (which is bad enough); they’re stopping us from taking on leadership roles. And when women are still maxing out at 16% of the top positions across every sector, it’s clear that we need to nix the vanity talk once and for all. This is not a battle with the mirror. It’s a battle for equality.

Girls Are Being Being Erased
When 14-year-old Julia Bluhm petitioned Seventeen magazine, her request was far from outrageous: “I want to see regular girls that look like me in a magazine that’s supposed to be for me.” That. Right there. That is the issue. The thin, white models are not the problem. The problem is that we ONLY see thin, white models (except for those rare cases when we might see a few thin, light-skinned models). It’s not that Photoshop is inherently bad. It’s that the overuse of and overdependence on Photoshop ends up making us feel bad–really bad. When magazines brighten and lighten, when they erase every little pimple and curve, they’re erasing us too. As a teen activist from Sisters Action Media points out in this video, “The only diversity I see is brunettes, blondes, and redheads.”

Following the huge outcry of support for Julia’s Seventeen petition and Seventeen editor-in-chief’s public response, Carina Cruz, 16, and Emma Stydahar, 17, created a petition to Teen Vogue. “It’s time for an end to the digitally enhanced, unrealistic ‘beauty’ we see in the pages of magazines,” they wrote. “We are demanding that teen magazines stop altering natural bodies and faces so that real girls can be the new standard of beauty.”

This is what body image activism is all about–and why it’s important that we seize this moment and this momentum. We need to talk back. We need to make our own media with our own messages. We need to speak up when we feel invisible. We need to keep reminding media makers that real girls are here. Watching. Listening. Ready to change the game.

Girls Are Getting Sick
Fifty-three percent of 13-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies. The number increases to 78% by the time they reach age 17. Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting and taking laxatives. Disordered eating and poor body image are complex issues and we can’t blame the media–entirely. But no way, no how should we let them off the hook. Seriously, is it such a coincidence that we have an epidemic of body hatred in a culture that is constantly telling us that life would be better if we were thinner, more fit, had straighter hair, lighter skin, if we could somehow fix our “problem areas”? Of course those are all empty promises. There is no beauty prescription that will really lead us to happiness. But the message is that we’ve got to keep trying—and keep buying (products, “plans,” “solutions”). So what happens when an entire generation is plagued by bad body image? We get preoccupied with all the wrong things. We get sick. We lose our power.

Young women–and an increasing number of guys–face intense pressure to conform to an ideal that blatantly rejects the diversity of who we really are. On top of the constant noise about what we should look like, we’re exposed to a steady stream of toxic media snark that targets women’s bodies, cruelly reminding us of what we should never allow ourselves to be: imperfect, different, human. Yes, each of us needs to work on our own self-acceptance. But we also need to step up and advocate for social change. Because this is not just your problem or my problem–it’s a full-on crisis. And the stakes are high.

Because who doesn’t need pro-pixel intensifying fauxtanical hydro-jargon microbead extract? Hilarious spoof, and a great teaching tool to boot.

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

I’ve had my head down working on a new project for the last few months. It’s one I’m really excited about. Proud, in fact, which is fitting given its title.

Proud2Bme is a new online community for teens that aims to promote positive body image and healthy attitudes about food and weight. I am overseeing the site’s content as a consultant for the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) and I’m collaborating with a growing list of amazing contributors including the unstoppable Emily-Anne Rigal of WeStopHate, teen activists from the Boulder Youth Body Alliance, Melanie Klein of Feminist Fatale, girls from Girls Inc., Stephanie Covington Armstrong (author of Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat), and many, many others. It’s a veritable body acceptance love fest, people.

The Proud2Bme movement was started in the Netherlands by a young woman named Scarlet, who was horrified to discover the unsettling universe of pro-ana websites in her research of online communities. In recovery from eating disorders herself, Scarlet set out to create a positive, non-toxic space for those who needed support for their disordered eating, poor body image, and low self-esteem. Proud2Bme.nl has grown to be the top help website in the Netherlands. NEDA is now launching the English language version. And lucky me–I get to be a part of it.

So here are three simple things you can do to help make Proud2Bme a success:

1. Spread the word to the teens in your life and to anyone you know who works with teens. If you are a teen? Sign up as a member and contribute blog posts, videos, or artwork.

2. Follow Proud2Bme on Twitter.

3. Like Proud2Bme on Facebook.

Easy, right?

I’ve known Jess Weiner for a lot of years. We’ve connected at different points in our lives, our careers, our body image activism, and on our paths to making peace with our own bodies. From our first meeting, I have counted her as a friend and ally in this work—work that is a whole lot easier to do honestly and authentically when you know that there are trusted colleagues who have your back. When my inbox started blowing up this week with “Have you seen this?” “What’s your take?” and even some “WTF?” messages about her Glamour essay, (“Jess Weiner’s Weight Struggle: Loving My Body Almost Killed Me”), I had to stay out of the fray for a minute. What did I really think about the piece?

I read the article wearing a few different hats. I tackled it from a media literacy angle. Then I explored how I felt about it as a body acceptance activist and as someone who has recovered from disordered eating. Finally, I thought hard about how to engage in a public conversation about the piece while honoring the respect I have for Jess. I reached out to her privately and she agreed to address some of my concerns on the record. We met up yesterday and chatted over breakfast. There was laughter. There were tears. There was oatmeal! Here are my reactions to the article and my interview with Jess.

1. Did loving her body really almost kill her? I mean, really? The article title was a sensational doozy. But I was fairly confident that Jess had not suddenly flat-out rejected the idea of body acceptance after nearly two decades of work in the field. I asked her to clear that one up first.

CM: Ok, so what’s up with the title?

JW: The title was about an inner exploration and question that I was having. It was not intended to be a declaration that in general, everyone who loves their body is hurting themselves. That’s too literal a takeaway. My intention for the piece was to talk about the fact that my own version of what it meant to love my body, even as a self-esteem expert, even as an eating disorder survivor, even as a conscious woman aware of body image issues—even then, loving my body didn’t involve getting deeply involved in my real physical health. That was a conflicting, confusing, vulnerable, and scary place to find myself in. So for me, that was the question. Had my own perception—my own, underscore my own!—of loving my body stopped me from really knowing my body? And the truth was that for me, it did. It meant that even though I wasn’t weighing my worth on the scale, I also wasn’t looking at the weight gain I had had over the years. I wasn’t looking at my blood pressure and my cholesterol, and those were things that were troubling to me. And I feel like there are so many women out there who are in a position similar to mine. They’re questioning those things too and they don’t know where to take them. I found myself in a very tricky spot and I needed to figure out where to go from that question.

2. Working within the media to change the media is no easy task. Of course it was frustrating for me to see that a story about how Jess improved her health by adjusting her activity level and working with a nutritionist and therapist was packaged as a story about her “weight struggle.” After all, she said herself that health, not weight loss, is her priority and that the weight she shed was not as dramatic as she expected (I did raise an eyebrow at her admission that she

The United States has issues when it comes to food, weight, and body image. There are an estimated 24 million people who suffer with eating disorders (a growing number of them are children), and even more Americans who fall into gray areas of disordered eating. Then of course there is the much-discussed problem of obesity. Add it all up and we’re talking about a serious public health crisis. So what can we do about it? Experts in the fields of eating disorder and obesity prevention came together this week in Washington, D.C. to propose solutions. Here’s my roundup and analysis of key recommendations from “Pounds & Policy: Effectively Communicating About Weight and Health,” a panel discussion co-hosted by the National Eating Disorders Association and the STOP Obesity Alliance.

1. Start talking about Obesities (as in plural)
Chevese Turner is the founder and CEO of the Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA). A recovered binge eater herself, she stressed that there are many different ways that individuals reach weights that are considered obese. Some are disordered eaters (she estimates that 70% of her organization’s constituents are overweight), others have limited knowledge of or access to fresh, healthy food, while others might be naturally larger in size and lead healthy, active lives. The current strategy of talking about a scary, monolithic obesity epidemic and holding weight loss up as the magic fix-it is not getting us anywhere. We need to look at the complex and varied reasons why people are obese and we need to offer complex and varied treatments that get to the root of those reasons. And while we’re at it, let’s acknowledge that fat is not necessarily an indicator of poor health, just as thinness isn’t necessarily an indicator of good health. Not all fat people need to get thinner in order to be healthy.

2. Stop With the Fat Shaming Already!
You know what really irks me? News segments about “the war on obesity” that rely on footage of larger-sized Americans innocently going about their business, unaware that they’ve been transformed into Headless Fatties (or the slightly less ubiquitous Blurred Face Fatties). These are the media images that have come to represent obesity in this country. They are representations based on shame, and according to Dr. Rebecca M. Puhl, Director of Research at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, they’re not encouraging anyone to be healthier. In numerous studies, Puhl and her colleagues have concluded that stigmatizing obesity actually impairs obesity prevention efforts.

To see one of the most frightening examples of how this is playing out, you can look at what’s happening in schools. Several parents of teens recently reported that their children suddenly started sneaking food and exhibiting an irrational fear of fat after participating in a “Healthy Food Program” at school.  And this is not an isolated incident. Across the U.S., students are being weighed (often in front of their classmates) and sent home with BMI report cards. Kids with “failing” grades are humiliated and parents are routinely shamed into putting their children on diets, which can trigger eating disorders and lead to future weight gain.

“Longitudinal studies show that dieting predicts weight gain over time. Many overweight people have fallen into a lifelong cycle of