Tip #2 is inspired by NEDA (National Eating Disorders Association):

Your body is the vehicle to your dreams.

It is easy to look at the body as the sum of its parts: I hate my thighs, I like my eyes, I hate my chin, I like my hair. However, all the parts of the body (parts seen and unseen) function together in complex, extraordinary ways. Today, rather than mentally dividing your body into pieces, think of your body in its entirety. As you end your day express your gratitude to the wholeness of your body. Begin with the following:

“Thank you for carrying me through the day.”

You might find that other gratitudes to your body come to mind. Express as many as you can.

Check back tomorrow for Tip #3.

Love Your Body Month has finally arrived, and before we get to the first tip I want to let all of our Atlanta readers know about some great body love resources available locally. EDIN (Eating Disorders Information Network) is sponsoring an entire month of body positive events. Check out their schedule and see if any of their events resonate with you. I’ll be giving you updates throughout the month on specific EDIN events.

So, with that being said, here’s Tip #1:

Think of your body as a friend.

We often think and speak of our bodies in ways we would never use toward others, especially not with our friends. Throughout the day notice how you speak and act toward your body. If you find that you are less than kind in your body talk, take a moment and say (either silently or aloud):

“My body is my friend.”

You may not believe it yet, but practice saying it, and you’ll take an important step toward honoring your body.

Check back tomorrow for Tip #2.

February is “Love Your Body Month,” and The Curvy Life is planning some fun activities to celebrate. We have a workshop “Love Your Body for Valentine’s,” and we’re planning on providing you with “29 Body Love Tips in 29 Days” for February (it’s a leap year). Click here for more information.

The Curvy Life blog is a response to the constant barrage of unrealistic images of women on television, in movies, and in print. We are constantly being told that our bodies and our lives aren’t “good enough” and many of us suffer from the emotional pain of feeling outside the beauty norm (ab-norm as it is).

However, the Curvy Life is really for her:

That’s me at age 15, hating my body.

I had already been on a diet or two, and I remember the punch in the gut I felt when I looked at this photo–I hated my thighs, I thought my stomach was too poochy, and my knees were too dimply. From this point forward, I made it a mission to avoid having my picture taken.

It breaks my heart to look at this picture today. I look at that photo know and think– How cute was I? Young, slim, with creamy skin, beautiful in the way of youth (and I wish I could have those thighs back). I was athletic and smart and outgoing. Yet, at this moment in my life, I felt like a failure as a woman (and I was just starting out).

It took me many years to learn to appreciate my own beauty, and dare I say it, to love my body. It was a process, and I want to share that process here, so that no woman has to carry the heavy burden on her heart carried by that 15 year-old girl.

Here I am, all grown-up:

I still wince at the site of myself on film, but I don’t run from the camera anymore. And I know, that one day, I’ll look back in wonder at the beauty of my youth here, just like I do with my 15-year-old self.

So, what’s the mission?

The Curvy Mission

1. To promote positive body image and self-esteem, regardless of size
2. To advocate for size inclusion and diverse images of women
3. To educate women about images and messages aimed at us
4. To promote body love rather than body hate
5. To encourage whole body, mind, and spirit wellness
6. To rage against the self-loathing machine
7. To create a community of support

I’d love to hear your curvy story. Feel free to share your curvy struggles, your curvy triumphs, your curvy fears, your curvy dreams–your curvy life.

Tune in to Radio Sandy Springs this Tuesday, January 22, 2008, from 12-1 (Eastern) for “The Organizing Playground Radio Show.” Allison Carter, Organizer Extraordinaire, puts the “FUN in FUNctional” as she brings a chatty fun way to think about organizing.

I’ll be playing the role of “Playmate and Co-hostessa” for the theme “Using Calendars to get Organized: What makes a calendar work or not work?”

If you miss the live show you can download the replay through the site. I’ll provide a link as soon as it is posted.

Join us for:
The Organizing Playground Radio Show
Tuesdays 12p - 1p ET
http://www.radiosandysprings.com
Live and replay
–
Allison Carter, CPO®
The Professional Organizer
http://www.TheProfessionalOrganizer.com
Organizer € Speaker € Mentoring & Licensing Organizers

http://hvattum.net/index.php/2008/01/05/evolution/

“When a girl walks by with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your face…”

…she’s probably pretty smart, or so says a new study just published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

You’ve got to love this quote, based on a summary of the study:

“Curvy women are not only intelligent, attractive and live longer, they also give birth to intelligent children….” (DNA-India)

Scientists studied 16,000 women to determine if there was a measurable link between waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) (the size of the waist in comparison to the size of the hips) and cognitive ability (IQ) of the women and their children. The study revealed that women with hips larger than their waists (think “pear” shape) had higher IQs than women with small hips or linear shapes. The children of big-hipped women also scored higher on cognitive tests.

The researchers suspect that a prevalence of Omega-3 fatty acid, found in female hips and thighs, contributes to the growth of the fetal brain during pregnancy. Belly fat contains more Omega-6 fatty acid. This difference in composition of fat may also explain why, in women, lower body fat seems to have a protective effect on the heart (see Diabetes.org for more on the subject).

Thus, big booties=big brains=big health.

Waist-to-hip ratio is becoming a new area of interest in the study of weight and health. Studies consistently reveal that WHR is a greater predictor of overall health in women than BMI. (To calculate WHR: divide waist measurement by hip measurement–w/h–a measure of 0.8 or less is considered healthy for women. To read more about WHR vs. BMI check out the article, BMI:Freaking out about nothing, on Reuters.com.)

I am curious to see how this study is going to be covered in the mainstream media. Will this study be used to challenge the ongoing and continuous attack on fat bodies, or will it be minimized? Even worse, will this data be used to beat on curvy bellies? It will be interesting to watch.

But in the meantime, let’s take our big hips and big brains and get out there and take over the world!

Leonard Nimoy’s latest photography project, The Full Body Project, features the voluptuous women of the Fat Bottom Revue, a plus-size burlesque troop.

It is so rare that fat female bodies are visually portrayed as anything other than ridiculous or grotesque. Not only are these photographs visually stunning artistically, the power and confidence of these women are breathtaking.

Heather MacAllister, founder of the troop (with a degree in anthropology to boot), made the following profound statement:

“Any time there is a fat person onstage as anything besides the butt of a joke, it’s political. Add physical movement, then dance, then sexuality and you have a revolutionary act.”

These women are no joke, and their movement and sexuality, captured on film, is a revolution long overdue.

The Full Body Project is an art exhibit at R. Michaelson Galleries in Northhampton, MA (through January 15, 2008), as well as a book, available through the gallery website.

The gallery provides some great links to Nimoy’s artist statement as well as to several articles discussing the project. Click here for the list.

You can also purchase a Full Body Project tee. Very cheeky.

In the latest “Guess where we found lead lurking” news, The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has found that more than half of 33 brand-name lipsticks tested contained lead. One-third exceeded the FDA limit for lead in candy (0.1 parts per million), the standard established to prevent the ingesting of lead. As the average woman will ingest 4 pounds of lipstick over her lifetime, the candy standard for lead seems appropriate.The entire report, including the entire list of tested products, is available in PDF format at www.safecosmetics.org. It is well worth the read.

The worst offenders were:

-L’Oreal Colour Riche “True Red” – 0.65 ppm
-L’Oreal Colour Riche “Classic Wine” – 0.58 ppm
-Cover Girl Incredifull Lipcolor “Maximum Red” – 0.56 ppm
-Dior Addict “Positive Red” – 0.21 ppm

However, don’t ditch your Dior just yet: in the test, lead levels were not consistent across brand, shade, or price point. In fact, Dior “Replenishing Lip Color Red Premier” made the “good” list, with less than 0.02 parts per million of lead.

In a somewhat-good news/bad news/worse news scenario:

Good news: there are lipsticks at every price point with no detectable levels of lead.

Bad news: there is no way to determine the lead content of a lipstick based on brand or price.

Worse news: In several cases, multiple tubes of the same lipstick (brand and shade) showed significant variations in lead content from tube to tube.

Thus, you can’t even bank on a lipstick from the “good” list today being “good” tomorrow.

(Wonder why two tubes of what should be the same lipstick can have different amounts of lead? Safe Cosmetics speculates that this may be due to “different amounts of contamination taking place during contamination or different levels of lead contamination of the lipstick’s individual ingredients.”)

But is leaden lipstick really a problem?

See the next entry, “Lead in Lipstick — Part II”