Media, Advertisement and Word Choices: Skinny and Beautiful are not synonyms

I wrote this post because now that I am at home more, I have a bit more time to watch some TV, I like to leave the TV on while I do chores around the house so I can listen to the background noise. I have noticed something that I believe is worth mentioning. Looking at commercials I’ve found a horrific similarity among them and that is their focus on a common goal, to make you feel bad about yourself so you will buy their products. That’s right, the new merchandising strategy, guilt. Ads like the one of the bowflex thread climber, the NutriSystem ones and a lot of other fitness and dieting commercials target mainly women’s low self esteem and image problems to persuade them to buy expensive, non proved and sometimes useless equipment and products with the promise of a taste of “skinny paradise”. Most of these commercials strategize the constant use of the word skinny, but never the use of the word healthy. As most of us are aware (because most of us own a mirror), no two women have the same body type; therefore skinny for you might not mean the same it means for me. I mean, skinny for Queen Latifah does mean the same as skinny for Kate Moss, or Kim Kardashian, or Halle Berry, and it will never mean the same, because they are different women, with different body types, bone structures, genetic material, etc, etc. However, media and advertisement industries seem to disagree with these notions and it appears they have come to an understanding that as long as it has the word skinny on it, women should buy it because it will be good for them. Skinny has become the new “One Size Fits All” tag. This reminds me a lot of those Jimmy Dean commercials where at the end it gives you a nice display of the product and shows you the calories but there is a strategically placed plate with sausages or a sandwich so you won’t see the sodium levels. Where am I going with this example? Simple, just because it is low calorie does not mean it is healthy, the same way, just because it says skinny on it does not mean it will be good for you.    

Also people tend to forget that skinny does not equal beautiful, and that is what we should be teaching girls and women and even men around the world; fit and healthy equals beautiful, not skinny. Eating healthy and exercising properly IS loving yourself, but you don’t need expensive diet systems and expensive fitness equipment for that, all you need is to inform yourself on nutrition and health and put it to practice in a way that fits your schedule and budget. But most importantly, know that you are beautiful, smart and important regardless of anything else.

My latest publication

This a link to my latest publication, it's in Spanish so, enjoy!

http://elpostantillano.com/component/content/article/318-cartas-de-una-antillanoa/2821-yalitza-santos.html

Chain Reaction

Puerto Rico has turned in a place of violence. This weekend alone (from Friday to Sunday) there have been 10 cases of murder reported. The once “Island of Enchantment” has turned into a place where people are afraid to come out of their houses because they know that now more than ever it is more of a possibility to die waiting for a traffic light to change, picking up an order in a fast food restaurant of jumping back into your car after a day of shopping. What ever happened to sense of community that moved people to take care of each other of the codes of the streets where no innocents, women or children were to be hurt in the process of “taking care of a situation”?

 While the public slowly marinates in the panic, government official and political parties focus on smear campaigns and playing a “tag blame game” amongst themselves. Red senators blame blue ones and those blame red district representatives and those blame blue mayors and those blame red senators and those then go back to blaming blue Governors and so on so forth they continue to play tag while women are being battered to death by their abusive partners, children are being physically, sexually abused and murdered, senior citizens rights are violated by badly trained and psychologically unstable police officers and citizens are being murdered and robbed in their own homes.

 Meanwhile, in the United States political parties and government officials are focused on denying people the right to public health insurance and women the right to choose whether they want to have children or not. Instead of focusing in the education and economy problems of the country they just “want to show those second class citizens who’s boss.”

 As we can appreciate here our socio-economic situation is not only our own, but it is a chain reaction. The worst part of it is that it will continue to get worse if we don’t pay attention to the social components of the problem. People need help. Not only in the economic sector, but also access to objective information, quality education, to know that they have a choice and that they will treated with respect and dignity. Otherwise these situations will only get worse; which is a shame because it is those who are innocent the ones who end up paying for the sins of the guilty.

Parent does not equal Good Teacher

A couple of days ago I was watching a TV show in which a man was demanding from his wife for her to take charge of their 12 year old daughter's education. The father wanted to remove the girl from the public school system and force his wife to home school the girl because he felt it was safer and it was the wife's duty to educate the girl at home. These statements done by the father other than being exaggeratedly chauvinistic and unreal left me thinking about home schooling and the level of involvement parents should have in their kids education. How far should a parent go, how much should a teacher tolerate? Where are lines crossed? Today while I was roaming the children books section at Borders I involuntarily witnessed a situation that chilled my bones but provided me with some answers to my own questions. I saw a mother trying to teach her daughter how to recognize verb tenses in Spanish. What's wrong with that? Is what you might be thinking, well, the part that chilled my bones and made me want to bitch slap the woman was that the girl was probably around eight years of age and the mother was talking to her as a drill sergeant would talk to a private during the first week of basic training. As could be expected the child was scared, about to cry and could not concentrate so every time mom would ask a question the little one would get it wrong and the whole children section plus the corridors of the store would know she got it wrong for to add insult to injury, she wasn't using her indoor voice when she corrected the child. The point this example proved to me is that being a parent does mean you are a good teacher. Not all parents have the disposition, patience and training that being a good teacher requires. There is no hormone released during pregnancy that readies you to be the appropriate teacher for your child, or somebody else's child for that matter. Being a good teacher just like every other good professional is a matter of loving what you do and those that you do it for. So if you can't take the heat, get out of the classroom before you damage your child's education in ways you would never wish to. Because as I have witnessed a vast amount of times during my years teaching, good parents are not always good teachers. Something that the aspiring teacher should always have in mind is that teaching is a calling, not just another 9 to 5 with a set of paid vacations twice a year.

Finally back on the post

Hey everybody!!
My apologies but I had some trouble accessing this account, but never fear, I'm back here. Over here in Puerto Rico things are going insane. The University of Puerto Rico board of directors are fixated on imposing an 800.00 dollars extra tuition fee to all its students and that has everyone going nuts. If you ask me, it is pretty abusive. I mean, students already pay fees for things they don't get. Can you imagine paying a sanitation fee for bathrooms that have no toilet paper, are always dirty, 50% of them do not work, there is no hand soap and no paper towels? Can you imagine paying a technology fee and not having a computer center for your department? I mean, we have to teach and take classes in what has already been declared as "sick buildings", the trolley system sucks, you go to the medical services office with a cold and they prescribe anti-acids for God's sake!!!. What's worse? Most of the employees in the different offices treat you like less than a human being and they want to place 30 students per section. 30 students per section in a college classroom with no air conditioner, no technology, no space and no resources, I mean, people have to sit in the hallway's floor. And yet, the administration feels the need to increase tuition by 800.00 dollars topay for things that never make it to the hands of those who need it. I don't know about you, but I think it's not fair.