If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably seen my previous posts about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty and their self-esteem workshops. If you haven’t, please take the time to take a look. As the mother of a young daughter, this is a subject I’m very passionate about.

One of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund’s most recent projects has been a study entitled Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report on the State of Self-Esteem. It revealed some alarming statistics that point to the existence of a self-esteem crisis among young girls. Here are a few of the findings:

• 7 in 10 girls feel that they do not measure up in some way, whether in looks, school performance, or relationships.
• 75% of girls with low self-esteem said they engaged in negative behaviors, including such things as smoking, drinking, cutting themselves, bullying and disordered eating.
• 25% of teen girls with low self-esteem have purposely injured themselves.
• 25% of teen girls with low self-esteem have engaged in some form of disordered eating.

The study also found that the older girls get, the less likely they are to talk to their parents when they feel badly about themselves. That means that it’s never too early to start fostering good self-esteem.

These statistics are frightening for any parent of a teen or preteen girl. Isn’t it time we did something to turn it around? Dove has been on a mission to do just that. It is their goal to reach five million girls around the world with self-esteem programming by the year 2010. In addition to their self-esteem workshops and advertising campaigns, they offer a wealth of online tools for girls, moms and mentors on their Campaign for Real Beauty website. There you’ll find booklets, interactive exercises, and even tools that can help you hold your own self-esteem workshop.

I’ve had several people ask me about where they can attend Dove’s self-esteem workshops. I finally found a page where you can sign up to receive alerts about workshops in your area. I’ll leave you with another short film produced by Dove that sums up a few of the reasons behind the self-esteem crisis.

A teenage friend of Hubby’s came to me a few weeks ago asking what he could do to clear up his acne. I told him about going to the doctor over mine when I was his age, and that they gave me oral and topical antibiotics. He said he had gone that route too, but for some reason which escapes me at the moment he ended up giving up on it.

I looked through the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of antibacterial wash that Hubby got when he had to have surgery. I gave it to him and told him to try that, because I had used something similar at one point and it worked well for me. But he forgot to take it with him, and he hasn’t been back for me to give it to him. Actually, I think he might have been scared of it.

Maybe he should start trying out stuff that you can get a free trial with, like Triclear. Then if it doesn’t work, he wouldn’t be out any money and could try something else. I know how stubborn acne can be, and what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. But surely there’s something out there that will help.

As you probably know from recent posts, I’m trying everything I can think of to save money. I don’t have much choice right now, and I’m trying to get together enough money to have Pumpkin a birthday party. So I’ve been cutting back any way I can.

Some of my efforts have worked out pretty well, such as driving as little as possible. I have been making it a point to get as much done each time I go to town as possible, and I’ve managed to go out no more than once a week most of the time. I’ve also done a fairly good job of stretching the grocery dollars, but I suppose I could do better.

But some things haven’t worked out as well as I had hoped. For instance, I ran really low on foundation. I despise going out without makeup on, but without foundation, I’d rather not use anything else, either. If I can’t cover up my pimples and blackheads, what’s the point? It wasn’t too big of a deal, though, because as I said I don’t get out much lately. So I only put on makeup when I’m definitely going out.

That worked out fine until this past week. There was so little foundation in the bottle that the small amount that was there just clung to the sides. So I got the bright idea to add a couple drops of water. Hey, it works for shampoo and conditioner, so why not makeup? Heh.

I did manage to get some more out of the bottle, but it didn’t provide any coverage whatsoever. Oh well, I guess it was worth a try. I ended up going to the store anyway, and darn if I didn’t forget to buy any foundation. So I guess I’ll be going to the store without makeup again.

Is it just me, or does everyone else run out of multiple beauty items at the same time? For me, it always seems to happen when I am extremely low on cash and can’t justify buying anything that’s not an absolute necessity.

A couple of days ago I ran out of my anti-frizz treatment that I use in my hair every day. I’m so low on my acne treatment that I have to squeeze the tube about 10 times to get enough out. I’m getting dangerously low on foundation and powder, and my favorite tube of lipstick is nearly gone.

Oh well, it could always be worse. I do have plenty of my other makeup, and I suppose I can make do until payday without the rest. Just please don’t laugh if you see me out somewhere with frizzy hair, lots of zits and no way to cover them up. Hey, at least I’m not out of deodorant.

With the way women are portrayed in the media today, it’s no wonder a lot of girls are growing up with low self esteem. The ideals set forth on movie screens and magazine covers are virtually impossible to measure up to, yet they’re made to seem like the norm.

It’s hitting at younger and younger ages. Pumpkin is six, and she already has a hangup about her “hairy” arms. It didn’t just come out of nowhere, though. Two of her cousins commented on them, and now she keeps saying she wishes they weren’t so hairy. I tell her not to worry about how much hair is on her arms, that she’s beautiful inside and out. But it often seems like it just goes in one ear and out the other.

Dove is making some great strides in dealing with issues like this in young girls. The Dove Self Esteem Fund is holding self esteem workshops for young girls to help them understand how unrealistic the images they see in the media are. They encourage the girls to realize that their uniqueness is beautiful. Here’s a clip that explains what it’s all about better than I can.

Dove has held nearly 2,700 workshops such as this around the world. I think it’s great that they’re putting forth so much effort to get this message out to young girls. It’s something that’s needed to be done for many years.

When I was younger, my hair was extremely frizzy. Some days it just looked like a great big puffball. That was the only thing I didn’t like about my hair- other than that it was my favorite feature.

I still have frizz, but it’s not nearly as bad these days. Still, it seems like every time I want to look nice, I have a puffball day. What I wouldn’t give sometimes for a ceramic flat iron.

My hair has a good bit of curl to it, and I used to blow dry it straight because that was the only way to tame it. That only made the frizz worse, though. A flat iron would produce much better effects. Hana makes a couple of different models, and I would love to get my hands on one of them.

The ceramic plates heat more evenly and efficiently than metal. And for those who share my frizz problem, Hana’s plates contain tourmaline, a precious metal that generates negative ions that eliminate frizz and increase shine. And you don’t have to go completely straight- these irons have curved edges that are capable of producing nice curls and flips.

I’d love to give one of these a try. I don’t go out a lot any more, but I can definitely see myself using it from time to time. Especially on those frizzy days.

I had a lot of issues with self-esteem when I was growing up. I struggled with my weight, experimenting with anorexia and bulimia at times. I would lose weight, but it was never enough, and I would end up giving up. I guess those are two things that it’s good to give up on.

The summer after I turned 15, I decided to start working out regularly. I didn’t dedicate my life to it, but I started walking four or five days a week, using my mom’s stair stepper, and doing sit-ups. I kept it up for a long time, and I lost about 25 pounds. By then I was skinny as a rail, ribs sticking out, but I started getting really muscular thighs from all of the exercising. I quit working out because I didn’t want to have to buy bigger shorts to accommodate them.

The self-esteem issues were pretty pervasive up until a few years ago. Don’t get me wrong- I still have lots of things that I would like to change about myself. I weigh more now than I ever have, and I don’t like to go out of the house without enough makeup to cover up my recurring breakouts and enhance my features. But there are things that I love about my appearance, such as the fact that everyone thinks I’m about 10 years younger than I really am. And at any rate, the way I look is not the be-all and end-all of my existence.

The Next Generation

Pumpkin is only in first grade, and she already has issues with her appearance. She has the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen (took it after Hubby), and yet she says she wishes it were like mine. That’s sweet and all, and I would trade with her in a heartbeat. But I worry about her having more hangups as she gets older.

I try to do everything I can to build her self-esteem, but it’s not easy when I’ve always had issues myself. She’s got a little belly on her (not nearly as much of one as I had at her age though), due to her extremely healthy appetite. And I find myself struggling to find the right way to tell her that she needs to eat healthier foods without making her self-conscious. And I must admit that although I want her to be healthy, part of the issue is that I don’t want her to go through the teasing and criticism I did.

The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

I recently got the privilege of an inside look at Dove’s latest efforts in their Campaign for Real Beauty. I had heard of it and seen the commercials and thought it sounded great, but hadn’t gotten around to checking it out on the web. After taking a look, I truly believe that it’s something that every mother with a daughter needs to see.

Their latest project is the Dove Reality Diaries, a web series of confessionals from teen girls about how self-esteem has affected their lives. It reveals just how universal the issue is. The site is geared toward teens and preteens, but I took a lot away from it too. I saw a lot of things that reminded me of myself when I was younger while watching.

But why are things that way? A big part of the picture is how the media portrays women. The video above shows an example of what takes place from the time that a model shows up for a photo shoot until her photo hits the billboard. Things like this portray an unrealistic picture of what girls and women should aspire to, and when we miss the mark, we often feel inadequate. And in the case of kids, they often pick on other kids because of their own self-esteem issues, making them feel even worse and starting a pattern for a lifetime of problems.

The media needs to start recognizing that beauty does not mean that we all have to be super-skinny, blond, and perfectly symmetrical. The world is beautiful because everybody doesn’t look the same. Dove is doing a wonderful thing by promoting these types of ideas to the young girls of today. They have resources for both mothers and daughters on their site, so go visit them yourself and introduce your daughters to the videos and interactive activities.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with my hair. It’s frizzy and stubborn, but it’s also thick and has a small amount of natural curl. I get more compliments on my hair than anything, and yet sometimes I just want to shave it all off.

Over the past few weeks it has developed this extremely annoying tendency to pouf out right next to my temples. Kind of like a lot of people wore their hair in the eighties, except they had to coax it and spray it to make it stay like that. While I might have appreciated it back then, it’s driving me nuts now.

I am a big advocate of wash-and-wear hair. As stubborn as my hair has always been, it just takes way too much effort to get it to do what I want it to. So for many years now, I’ve worn it all one length, and done little more than put a little gel in it to keep the frizz down and let it dry naturally. Up until recently, it has worked out nicely most of the time.

Any suggestions on what to do about my little unwanted wings? I know I could have my hair straightened or permed, but I swore off chemical treatments long ago and don’t want to go back to them. But something is going to have to give.