Real Girls, Real Pressure

Self-esteem has become a national crisis. Many little girls have a negative image about their body. They are disturbed and depressed by the way they feel about their body, looks, performance in school and relationships. Many self-hate themselves. These negativity pull down their self-esteem very much. So they start engaging in harmful and destructive behavior that can leave a lasting imprint on their lives.


Most common dangerous behaviors of girls with low self esteem:

• Eating disorder – starving, refusing to eat or over-eating and throwing up when feeling badly about themselves
• Bullying
• Smoking or drinking
• Talking badly about themselves
• Injuring themselves

Young girls need proper guidance and support.

The good news is that if parents and other role models are willing to create a steady conversation of encouragement, honesty and openness it can definitely help girls gain confidence and reach their full potential.

If we spend time giving girls new ways to think about beauty, body image and self-esteem it can make a real difference.

Dove is helping us parent to take our first step towards it. Dove has developed a program to provide the resources necessary to create positive change and ensure the next generation of young women grows up feeling good about themselves and appreciating their own unique beauty.

To ensure everyone has access to self-esteem resources, Dove has developed a range of powerful online tools, workbooks and facilitator training guides.

You can visit www.campaignforrealbeauty.com to download free self-esteem building tools for girls, moms and mentors including:

• True You and Mirror, Mirror booklets
• Interactive exercises
• Workshop Facilitator Guide DVD

I appreciate Dove’s every effort to pump up the self-esteem of our little girls.


For supporting this cause, Dove presented me 2 wonderful books

1.Life Doesn't Begin 5 Pounds From Now by Jessica Weiner


2.Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters by Courtney E.Martin

I am very honored as ever when I wear Dove’s gift T-shirt which says

“ you’re beautiful
pass it on”

It makes me keep my head held high to know I am doing my duty perfectly to bring up future little ladies brimming with self-confidence and courage…..


I have done mine, do visit www.campaignforrealbeauty.com and do your part too, as a fellow Mummy of Gals…

Under Pressure

Under Pressure

Girls today are under more pressure than ever.

They want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance.

The books, magazines, TV shows, commercials show them the fake made up beauty. Young girls are forced to make-believe the “Picture Perfect Beauty”. Actually there is nothing like a “Perfect Beauty”.

After all, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. It’s the high self-esteem and confidence that carry & present out the beauty in anybody. Isn’t it?

Long hair or short hair, dark skin tone or fair, with braces or specks, with pimples or freckles…..it doesn’t matter. What matters most is what you think you are. Do young girls today think they are beautiful? Sadly, a majority don’t. They relate beauty with the cute looking fairies, flawless princess or gorgeous thin tall super models or actress with full make-ups. Is this what beauty is all about?

Come on, wait a second and take a look at this clipping.

Is this the beauty our young girls yearn for?

We parents should join hands with Dove to support it in its campaign for Real Beauty.

Keep building up the self-esteem and confidence of our dear daughters!!!

Dove – Celebrating Real Beauty !!!

Whenever I go out with my daughters, at least there are two strangers to greet them as "Cute doll" or "Beautiful Princess". Of course, kids are cute. But these compliments are mostly based on their looks. I agree that they cannot be praised for their intelligence or creativity in a 10-second interaction by a total stranger.
But still, why do people make empty praises with mere attention drawn to looks, hair or clothes? How do our kids realize that these are not Real Beauty?

Do we want the silly "Princess Syndrome" to operate unchecked on our young girls? On very basic level, princess stories are transformation tales. Many of them are about the turning of one kind of girl into something very different, which is still a common storyline in our fiction, whether in books, film or television.

Onslaught

A one minute video that details all the beauty and media imaging that young girls are inundated with within a 24-hour period.

Furthermore there is an aggressive marketing and merchandising campaigns of a huge array of beauty products which are creating and feeding an enormous appetite for transformation. Media also breeds cross-merchandising and that's earning a bundle for entertainment companies.


From a historical perspective, the transformation parallel has been there for centuries - but the merchandising associated with conglomeration has amplified its effect; now almost all of our little girls think that they are ugly. They worry too much about their looks maybe be their skin tone, freckles, hair or stature. They yearn for a transformation. They are unable to accept themselves as they are.

It is difficult for young girls to enter a toy store, fashion store or even a bookshop without being assaulted by beauty-related merchandise. Marketing industry canvases them to look slimmer, softer, tighter, younger and what not. As a result their self esteem decreases too much.

So it is now high time for us moms to talk to our dear daughters before the beauty industry does. We need to teach them true beauty lies within and not on the surface.

One of our culture's immediate visual signifiers is :

Beauty equals worthiness, success and popularity.

Ugliness equals worthlessness, failure and wickedness.

So make them understand what true beauty is. Now girls are questioning the world of beauty around them. Mom, now your daughters need you more than ever. Rise to the challenge!

Enter into girl world to learn what your daughter really faces. Things are more intense for a girl today than when you were her age. Your daughter is bombarded with media images that suggest how she should look and feel.

As a responsible mother, I have taken the first step by supporting the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. The Dove Self-Esteem Fund (DSEF) was established to raise the self-esteem of girls and young women to make them feel more beautiful and confident every day. The DSEF is part of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, a global effort designed to widen today's stereotypical view of beauty.

I was honored with the T-shirt and Dove products for taking up the challenge. Now I wear it proudly, as I celebrate my real beauty and help build the self-esteem in the next generation. You should do your part too……Get involved at www.campaignforrealbeauty.com

Play your role good as a concerned mom!!!