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Be Friends with Your Body & Food

February 25, 2011 By

Last night I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things. There weren’t many people in the store and I noticed a young man in his twenties. He didn’t have a cart or basket, he held his few items in his arms, along with a bag of what looked like pastries. As he walked by the dairy cooler, he reached into the bag and pulled out a yummy-looking bear claw. He bit through half of it in one bite as he walked along scanning the juice cooler.

You might wonder why I was watching this guy. Well, it was really just a glance! But there was something about the situation that gave me pause. He chomped through and clearly enjoyed  his bag of pastries with obvious comfort and enjoyment. He was hungry, he wanted a big bear claw, and there  he was eating.  I had a hard time imagining a young woman eating the same thing in the same way–with such comfort, in public, going about her business.

But for women and girls, eating is often something to hide or that brings up feelings of guilt instead of enjoyment. Just look at the photo above and the feelings it telegraphs about seeing. In contrast, the relaxed, open manner of the guy in the store made me want everyone to have that feeling of natural enjoyment of eating.

Sadly, food isn’t so easy for everyone. 8 million people in the United States suffer from an eating disorder. 10% of them are men.

Those numbers are startling. Did you know eating disorders affect more women than breast cancer does? It also has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

Because eating disorders affect so many women and girls we’ve asked The Emily Program to share their expertise on New Moon Girls and Daughters. As one of the US’s largest eating disorder prevention and treatment programs it’s helping us get you the best resources, and answering your questions every week.

While this is a sad topic, it doesn’t have to be! Talk to your daughters now. And check out Be Friends with Your Body. It has great information for the girls in your life, faccompanied by more great resources for parents. Become aware this week. After you check out Be Friends with Your Body, share it with friends and colleagues, especially those who work with girls. There’s more information at The National Eating Disorders Association. Thank you!

Good news! New Moon Girls made SheHeroes 10 Websites We Love That Are Helping Empower Girls

Filed Under: Communication, Health & Safety Tagged With: , , ,

Popularity Pressure: Webinar Helps Girls and Parents

February 24, 2011 By

Here’s a sad letter from a parent. Can you relate?

Girls can be so cruel to each other.  Nadia’s “best” friends dumped her because we bought the wrong kind of jeans (according to Nadia).  Now she’s depressed about not being in the popular group and feels like a misfit.  I want her to know that kind of popularity is short-lived and not worth coveting but she thinks I’m just out of touch and don’t understand what she’s going through.  –Gayle

Popularity is a hot-button issue for girls and parents. How do girls handle it? How can parents give support and guidance without over-directing?

These questions and more will be answered in a unique Popularity Ups & Downs webinar for girls & parents together presented by New Moon Girl Media and led by yours truly!

Join us Tuesday March 1 – 7-8 pm central time. Enrollment is limited to 25 total – register now. Fee for current New Moon Girls members: $15 per girl & parent. Fee for Non-members: $25 per girl & parent.

I imagine you can relate to the letter above. A new study  in this months The American Sociological Review says the desire to be popular causes kids to bully. Tara Parker-Pope reports in The New York Times, “…the authors argue that when it comes to mean behavior, the role of individual traits is “overstated,” and much of it comes down to concern about status.”

The researchers say, “Educators and parents are often unaware of the daily stress and aggression with which even socially well-adjusted students must cope.”

The release of this study couldn’t be more timely.

Always focused on the girls’-eye view, New Moon Girls asked our members (ages 8-14 worldwide) to let us in on this very prevalent issue in their lives: NMG Popularity Survey.

Girls told us:
• If they feel they can be themselves when with friends
• What they’ve done or said to be more popular
• What other girls do to be more popular
• If they have stayed friends with someone because that friend was popular
• What makes them feel popular or content with themselves
• and more!

Responses to “what makes them feel popular or content with themselves” may be the most heartening to read. Anyone who cares about girls or works with them needs to get this inside look at the lives of girls.

If your daughter is struggling right now, or even if she isn’t, New Moon Girls’ Popularity Ups & Downs webinar will help you both understand each other better.  I hope you join us!




Filed Under: Communication, Family Life, Friends & Friendship Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Obsessed with Her Looks-Guest Blog

February 23, 2011 By

Margo Maine, PhD.  is a clinical psychologist who has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders for over 30 years and author of several books, including The Body Myth: The Pressure on Adult Women to Be Perfect (John Wiley, 2005). She has written several responses to questions from parents for Daughters.com. Here’s just one example.

Question:
My 10 year old daughter is beginning to get acne and she is obsessed about getting rid of it. She is tall for her age and has begun to say that she is fat. She is down on herself. I try to build her confidence but she is so sullen. She is also very angry at her father and doesn’t want to be around him. I am lost and worried. Help.

Response:
Talk to your daughter about the plain old unreality of our culture’s attitude about beauty. I call it the”Body Myth” the mistaken belief that life’s meaning, our self-worth, and our worth to others are (and ought to be) based on how our body looks, what we weigh, and what we eat.

The body is an essential part of our identity, because we literally wouldn’t be alive without it. But the body is not the sole source of our identity and purpose. The body gives us the means to think, speak, touch, feel, listen, taste, smell, and sense both ourselves and what is around us. It enables us to express our self and shape our relationships with our self and those we love.

We are in the body when we reflect on life’s ongoing difficulties and joys, and when we grow in response to them. Make sure she knows that we are not our bodies. You are not your body. The body is only the vehicle; it is not the journey or the destination.

RE: her relationship with her father, encourage dad to visit daughters.com and read Dads and Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand, and Support Your Daughter. Sometimes, anger or sullenness with dad is a normal phase that may cycle out and then back again during adolescence. However, if things drag on and you’re still concerned, consider seeing a family counselor.

Check out Dr. Maine’s compilation of  20 Ways to Love Your Body!!


Filed Under: Communication, Health & Safety

Am I Popular?

February 22, 2011 By

Remember when “popularity” was an issue? Whether you wanted to be popular  in school or not, it was something you instinctively knew about. Some people were described as popular and others weren’t. The popular kids were often envied but some viewed them with scorn and a bit of anger. Did you want to be one of the “popular kids?” Maybe you were one of the popular kids.

What’s funny about popularity is we all feel like we know what it means but some view it as positive and others view it as a negative way to be.

In the New Moon Girls Popularity Survey , we asked girls to tell us what they see other girls doing to be more popular.  Some of the answers were heartening. One girl said, “If you want to be popular just wait until people like you for yourself.” But others were pretty sad: “I see other girls bragging, and leaving other girls out to be popular.” And, ” I’ve seen girls cuss and siding with boys to be liked. I’ve also seen people get really bossy with their popularity.”

I know I’m thrilled to not think about it in my life at all anymore! But girls do think about it and are trying to figure it out. Where you fit on the social hierarchy ladder and why and what you can do about it are questions that keep some girls busy. I think it’s a complicated and vast current running through our girls’ lives. One study even found that a girls’ perception of how popular she is can affect her body weight! School Popularity Affects Girls’ Weights

Remember your own days of wondering where you fit in. Did you experience positive peer pressure or negative peer pressure? Did you wear the “in” jeans? Did you spray a quart of hair spray on your hair to keep it just so? Did you do anything you regret? Hopefully remembering your own challenges will help you be a compassionate listener when your daughter is wondering if she’s a popular girl.

Inspired by our  results, and learning in The New York Times that there is a strong connection between Bullying and Popularity, we’re offering a unique webinar for girls & parents together.

Exploring the survey results, the Popularity Ups & Downs webinar for girls and parents will give girls and parents new ways to think and talk about how to cope with popularity pressures and problems. Led by NMG’s Founder and girl parenting expert Nancy Gruver, this session will open a conversation between you and your daughter that will continue long after the call is over.

Join us Tuesday March 1 – 7-8 pm central time. Enrollment is limited to 25 total – register now. Fee for current New Moon Girls members: $15 per girl & parent. Fee for Non-members: $25 per girl & parent.

Filed Under: Communication, Friends & Friendship Tagged With: , , , ,

Creative Girls Make Media

February 8, 2011 By


Girls make their own media!

If the newsstand lineup of magazines for girls looks bleak to you or your daughter, walk on by—and head home to get her producing her own girls’ media. This could be as simple as a younger girl’s hand-printed text and illustrations for a magazine that she photocopies and delivers to friends and family. And many younger and older girls already have the minimal skills needed to create an online ‘zine that can be widely distributed by email. Either way, making her own media is a great way for a girl to have her unique voice heard and appreciated.

Girls’ media production has exploded in recent years, says Mary Celeste Kearney, Assistant professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Texas and author of Girls Make Media (Routledge, 2006). Girls from elementary ages on up are making ‘zines, movies, music, and websites and becoming less dependent on mainstream media that can demean them.

They’re inspired and mentored by women who began making media as teens and now do workshops on ‘zine production, girls’ rock ‘n’roll camps, movie-making classes, and more. The wider availability and lower cost of equipment has made media-making accessible to more girls. Not least of all, girls who make media now will be one step ahead for adult job opportunities in the booming media industry, Kearney notes. And they’ll be certain to steer media away from its girl-unfriendly ways as they become women in media.

Inspiring girls by exposing them to women writers, musicians, directors, and other amazing and creative women is a great start to supporting her creative dreams.

We’ll be doing that on NewMoon.com February 28th when we chat with Amy Nathan, author of the true story, Take a Seat—Make a Stand. About Sarah Keys Evans, a Black teen who refused to give up her seat on a bus three years before Rosa Parks became famous for doing the same.

You can also catch Amy Nathan and Sarah Keys Evans on Brian Lehres’s interview on New York Public Radio at 11:40 am eastern time (8:40 pacific, 9:40 mountain, 10:40 central) on Wednesday, February 9. If you  miss the interview, you can listen to it here: Book Club Author on the Radio!

Filed Under: Family Life, Parents Who Advocate Tagged With: , , , ,
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