Turns out I look like Cindy Crawford!

Hopefully, as we grow older one thing we care less about is the all importance of physical appearance, right?  That doesn't mean we gain 50 pounds and wear sweats all of the time, but hopefully, it means we don't define ourselves as valuable human beings based on 10 pounds.  Hence, I don't think about the topic of body image nearly as much now as I did when I was 25.

But I did pay attention to the recent Cindy Crawford photo that was posted by Marie Claire Mexico (Cindy Crawford photo).  Cindy has received a lot of praise for posting this, because it shows - well, it shows that shockingly, she is no longer a 25 year old.  And it isn't Photoshopped!  (It turns out the photo was actually posted without Cindy's permission, but given the praise she received, hopefully, she won't sue.)  I have to say when I first saw the photo, the first thing I thought was, "Awesome, she has loose skin on her stomach, too.  That makes me feel much better about mine."  And then I reveled for a moment in the fact that my body is not so crazy different from Cindy Crawford's, and I felt pretty good about myself.  After all, she's in pretty darn good shape!  I in no way thought ha - see Cindy - now you look old, too.  I just thought it was so refreshing to see an untouched photo.  And that's about all I thought about it.

Then, I read this article - Is Cindy Crawford's cellulite photo empowering?  I thought, heck yeah, it is.  What could this author possibly have to say?  So I read it. She criticized the masses for praising Cindy, because her belief is that people just want to feel better about themselves by glorifying Cindy Crawford's "flaws." Well, she lost me at "flaws."  That's the whole problem, right?  Because all we see are Photoshopped - completely unreal images, we believe that a stunningly beautiful 48 year old woman, who has had two children, has flaws if she has some loose skin on her stomach and some cellulite on her legs.  I argue that if we only saw un-Photoshopped photos, our view of perfection would change. And then, we wouldn't see flaws in a little cellulite, we would see normalcy.  We would see a very beautiful woman, not a woman who should be Photoshopped so that our eyes aren't distracted by her "flaws."

Nowadays I worry far more about these things because of my own self image and much more because of my daughter's future self image.  I know how hard it can be for girls to have a healthy body image.  I can do a lot at home to ground her, but the outside world will still have a great deal of influence on her.  I don't know what the solution is, but I'm all for supporting publications that print unedited photos.  I might even subscribe to one!  And I haven't subscribed to a magazine in 10 years...I mean, who has?

Moms and dads, what did you think about the photo?  And Peggy Drexler's article?