Females focus on weight too much

Most of us make resolutions in the New Year and probably have a hard time keeping them even for the month of January. On top of this list there usually is the timeless favorite “losing weight” resolution. It lasts for about one to two weeks and then goes out the window because truth is, no matter which New Year we are celebrating, habits are hard to change.

Purchase of treadmills, weights, and any kind of home equipment skyrockets in the month of December and January only to end up in the closet or garage by February when our resolves waiver in the face of sweets and carbohydrate and all of those prohibited diet foods.

Although many Americans should lose weight, especially if we are dealing with obesity or unhealthy habits and lifestyles, there is another segment of the population that resolves to lose weight or look better even though they are perfectly fine. Oftentimes these people are women.

I am one of these people. My ideal (illusion) of a very tiny and thin woman with large breasts, firm buns, and killer hair looms somewhere on the horizon of this year like many other years, even though the thinner I am, the smaller my chest becomes. So I have already lost this battle. But I keep going forward with my fantasies.

It seems I am not the only one who has this obsession. Magazines are out to catch women in unflattering pictures whenever possible and to confirm that, yes, a size 0 is the way to go. I can’t believe how many times I have seen pictures of Jennifer Love Hewitt in her bikini accompanied by comments about how fat or unattractive she looked. A few months ago, Tyra Banks, a beautiful former model and now talk show host, was the target of the same kind of attention when some unflattering pictures of her in bathing suit showed up all over magazines and the Internet. Both women fought back and brought attention to the fact that there was so much emphasis on being extremely thin (they looked just fine in the pictures) but admitted that it was difficult to withstand that kind of scrutiny and criticism.

Weight is such a big issue for women that we get carried always sometimes and move from an emphasis on health to an emphasis on being extremely skinny, even though we rationally know that it's not healthy.

I will try to worry less about this absurd ideal and more about living in the present and enjoying what I have. I think this is a great resolution for the New Year, and it's something that I hope to be able to do this year and for many years to come.

Anita Doberman is a freelance writer, mother of five and wife of an Air Force pilot stationed at Hurlburt AFB in Florida. The family expects to be moving to Cannon Air Force Base in the next year. Contact her at: [email protected]