Mixed Messages

Along with my growing list of pet peeves is the ever popular of late –mixed messages. I deal with it a lot on a daily basis at work but I’ve seen it everywhere. For instance, this morning, I was at the gym and I was watching a morning talk show program. One of the anchors of this show was grilling a model who recently encountered a lot of controversy as being too skinny. (Now, the irony of this whole situation isn’t lost on me but neither here, nor there.) The anchor woman showed her a normal portion of food and asked her to point out how much of this normal portion the model ate. The woman pointed to half of the portion. I’m not surprised in the least.

But here’s what annoys the crud out of me. So, the media (same morning show for instance) is always saying how we should lose weight and not be obese because it’s bad for our health. And now, they are saying this woman is too skinny. How is a poor impressionable young person supposed to know which of these categories is correct if the messages are different from day-to-day? I know parents should be telling their children this kind of stuff. But I just have this feeling that kids don’t listen to their parents too much. They believe their friends and tv/movies more. What kinds of messages are friends/tvs/movies sending to children…don’t be fat, be skinny. People like skinny people because they are more likely to get hired. People find skinny people more attractive, etc.

Is it just me? Am I the only one that sees that this is a problem? There is a lot of stuff that could get my goat but this is the one I decided to focus on for today.