Fashion: Friend or Foe?
Skinny Is Not Always Healthy

Picture this scenario in your mind: You dash from one meeting to another in your fabulous heels and delightful (yet uncomfortable) clothing.  You stop for your fifth coffee of the day (and it's only ten o'clock in the morning) while thinking about how you should forget about sleeping tonight in order to go out and dance the night away with your friends.  Does this sound appealing to you, or perhaps even similar to how your life is now?

Women are expected to multi-task while looking fabulous and while still maintaining a social life.  You should stop and take a moment to think about your expectations for yourself, and if these expectations are actually to your physical detriment.

SUFFERING FOR FASHION

Do you stuff yourself into too-tight clothing? As legend has it, women who wore tight corsets back in the day when they were the fashion norm would tighten these corsets so tightly that their internal organs were actually squished and injured and ribs were broken.  Did this stop women around the world from wearing these monstrosities? No, not until they fell out of fashion.  What sort of things are you wearing now that you do for the sake of fashion but to the detriment of your health?

Any woman who has ever worn a super-tight pair of jeans or an itchy sweater knows that there are certain lengths that women will go to in order to look or feel physically attractive.  You should realize that sometimes the things you do for fashion can actually hurt your health.  For example, if you wear tight-fitting pants and lacy underwear all day you might be opening yourself up to a yeast infection.  Your vaginal area needs air once in a while, after all, and if you wear tight pants all the time then your vagina gets deprived of the air it needs while also breeding more moisture.  If you are prone to yeast infections then you are truly flirting with disaster.  Most women understand the need to feel attractive and sometimes a tight pair of pants and lacy underwear can make some women feel quite attractive. 

Remember, though, that your primary concern when picking out what to wear should be that it's relatively comfortable and isn't something that might actually harm you.  If you aren't sure what is meant by this then try to think back to a time when you wore an outfit that was entirely too small and how great it felt at the end of the day when you took the outfit off…your clothes should not be something so horrendous that taking them off is a source of elation.  Instead, choose clothing that is fashionable yet relatively comfortable.  It's not impossible to find clothing that looks good yet doesn't hinder your health…you just have to look for it.

What kind of shoes are you wearing? Every woman knows how great it can feel to step into a pair of high heels and go out for a night on the town.  Of course, the phrase "how great it can feel" does not pertain to the actual physical feeling associated with high heels, but rather pertains to what kind of woman it makes you feel like.  If you wear high heels on a regular basis - especially if the heels are really high and you spend a lot of time on your feet - you're asking for trouble.  Think about the unnatural position you're forcing your body into.  You're not a Barbie doll... you're not designed to walk around with all your weight on your tippy-toes. 

Your back is one of the biggest sections of your body that will start to rebel when you wear high heels consistently, even if you don't notice the back pain right away.  You are probably compiling back injuries that you won't even become aware of until something really starts to hurt.  Remember that your back is a tricky part of your body because one muscle pull can result in massive spasms and other problems that won't go away easily.  Simply taking the high heels off and not wearing them again won't be enough to stop the pain if you've done enough damage to create an actual injury.  If you insist on wearing high heels throughout the day then perhaps you can switch between high heels and more sensible shoes depending on what you're doing. 

For example, sitting at your desk might be a good time to wear your high heels whereas a walk down the street to pick up coffee and run to the bank might merit a change to some different shoes that aren't going to make your back cry.  Also make sure that the heels you buy are quality shoes with good traction…or at least as much traction as high heels can have.  If you have never had back problems before then trust this statement: Back problems can be horrible, and are not easy to resolve.  You just don't want to mess around with your back, especially for the sake of making your legs look cute in a skirt.

Remember that clothing is supposed to be protective.  Our bodies are not meant to be out in the elements without some form of protection.  Think about all the things your body is exposed to throughout the day.  Depending on what type of environment you live in, you might find that your clothes protect your body from harmful UV rays from the sun, or if you live in a climate that experiences bitter cold winters then your clothing protects you from the cold. 

When you are getting dressed in the morning, consider what it is that your clothes should protect you from that particular day.  If you know you will be exposed to the sun for a good portion of the day then wear long sleeves, long pants, and a hat if possible because this will protect your skin and prevent bad sunburn.  If you know that the temperatures will be dropping to ridiculously cold during the day, you should dress accordingly and protect your body from being exposed to the cold for too long because you may otherwise wind up ill.  Although it is not true in most cases that simply being out in the cold will make you sick (you actually need to be exposed to a germ or virus before you can get sick) you should know that being out and about in the cold weather without proper protection can hinder your body's ability to fight off a possible attack from a virus or germ. 

Make it a habit to always dress according to the weather, and to consider your clothes functional and protective.  Sometimes it's hard for women to think beyond how clothes look because fashion can be such an important influence in what we choose to wear.  That's why you should make an absolute conscious effort to make sure that you look beyond what clothes look like and instead think about their functionality as well.

STARVING YOURSELF

Your body NEEDS nutrients.  You can't live on Diet Coke and celery sticks for long.  What you need to understand is that your body actually needs certain nutrients and vitamins in order to survive, so no matter how thin you want to be you must still take into consideration what your body needs in order to keep going.  This is why you need to be careful when it comes to diets that exclude whole food groups from your menu, because this inevitably removes some type of source of a specific nutrient from your plate and can cause real problems. 

There are stories of people who follow strict vegan diets (which can be healthy when done properly) but who didn't pay attention to the need for certain vitamins commonly found in animal products and then wound up severely ill.  If you are going to diet then make sure that the range of food you are eating is balanced according to what you need.  Although other diets may help you to lose weight, they are not doing any favors to your overall health.  You can't just think about the numbers on a scale or the size of your jeans.  You need to take into consideration and think of the bigger picture about the potential damage you may be doing to your health when you exclude certain foods from your diet. 

This is certainly not to say that you shouldn't heed the advice of a diet guru who suggests you eliminate processed foods or fast food from your diet, because these changes will help your health instead of hindering it.  Instead, take care when you receive advice about scrimping on (or eliminating) fruits, dairy, or some other type of food from your diet.  If you are going to eliminate something from your diet completely then you need to figure out what you can do to replace the missing nutrients and vitamins.  A registered dietician can help you with that, and it would be well-worth the expense to make sure that you are doing everything right. 

Skinny does not automatically equal healthy.  Don't look at someone walking down the street that happens to be skinny and automatically assume that the skinny person must be healthy.  This isn't necessarily true.  You should not strive to simply get skinny.  Doing something like this will inevitably result in you sacrificing health for weight loss, and even though you may think you look better on the outside it will not offset the problems that you're forming on your inside by not giving your body the things it needs. 

Before you make the effort to simply lose weight, you should think about why you want to lose weight.  Do you want to do it simply because you think it will make you more attractive, or do you want to do it because you know that it will help your overall health to get closer to your ideal weight? There is a huge difference between being at your ideal weight and being downright skinny. 

Some people take "skinny" too far and turn it into a health problem.  Be cautious when you strive to reach a body image that qualifies as skinny.  You have undoubtedly heard about women who take the aspiration of getting skinny too far and turn it into an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia.  While most medical professionals agree that these disorders are just as much mental as they are physical (if not more so), that does not mean that you can avoid falling into these categories just because you think you would never fall so low. 

The truth of the matter is that you may be within your ideal weight, even if you think you aren't.  Do not look to the media to tell you what your ideal weight is.  If you do, then you're referring to air-brushed images and women who also have the time and resources to spend all day with a personal trainer.  One thing to look out for is your friends and family urging you to eat because your weight is scaring them.  Another thing to be aware of is if your body is not functioning as well as it should because of your dieting and exercise.  Your energy levels will plummet if you aren't getting the nutrients you need.  If you realize that your quest for a skinny physique is harming you then it's time to go see your doctor and get some help.   

Be careful with diet aids.  The truth of the matter is that the majority of the time, you don't really know what is in the diet aids you can buy at the store.  You'll see claims like "fat blocker" or "advanced energy system," but unless you actually take the time to read the label and see what is in the pills, powder, or drink, you may not realize that you're being pumped full of caffeine or even ingredients that are going to give you stomach cramps or embarrassing anal leakage.  Yes, that's right: anal leakage. 

There is no miracle pill.  You're sacrificing your health by popping pills or drinking drinks that might actually wind up harming you.  Sure, you might lose some weight, but at what cost? Ask yourself this: would you take some mystery pill that you knew nothing about if someone promised it would make your hair shiny? Probably not.  There is something about weight loss that can make some women desperate and maybe even a little wacky.  Unless you have some medical reason to lose a huge amount of weight through any means possible (in which case you should be doing so under medical supervision anyhow) you should strive to lose weight the old fashioned way…by decreasing your caloric intake while increasing your physical activity.  This is the sure-fire way to lose weight while also giving yourself the best chance of keeping the weight off. 

Diet aids are rarely a permanent solution because once you stop indulging in the diet aids then you start to gain the weight back.  If you are absolutely resolute on taking a diet pill or some type of weight loss supplement then do so after having consulted with a physician.  Most doctors will probably try to talk you out of using a diet pill - and rightfully so - but they may be able to steer you toward the least dangerous diet aid.

On the next page we will discuss how to Respect Your Body by getting the sleep you need and nixing your vices.