Natural Beauty

Normally I try to stay away from the news. It is sad and depressing and makes me sick at the things that people do. But, while at  work the other night, I was browsing through MSN and saw an article about Kim K and "waist training", which, if you don't know, is wearing a corset to get your waist smaller. 

Sadly, she isn't the only celebrity that has/does do this. This got me thinking about a couple things:

1) Don't they realize that you have internal organs that take up room? Organs that need to be in certain spots and need so much room to function properly. It is so unhealthy and dangerous to try to shrink your waist in this way... squishing all your insides into places they don't belong!

2) What ever happened to natural beauty? I look at my girls and they are so gorgeous... no makeup, completely natural.

Of course, you say, all babies and kids are so pretty and cute, but then you grow up and get acne and yucky skin, and the baby fat doesn't go away, and so forth, so you have to do something to make yourself look better. Sure, I wear makeup, powder and mascara... unless I am going out then I'll add a little eye shadow and maybe some blush, but I am still "natural". And I think its our differences that make us pretty. 

The lady I get my lattes from gets fake lashes put on. I am still kinda confused on how this works... I had actually never heard of it until she told me about it a couple weeks ago. I guess she goes to some sort of "lash bar" and they put these extension things on your lashes so that they look extra long...? Do you know what I'm talking about? And of course they look pretty, but to me they looked a little freaky too. Like abnormally long... spider leg long... I hate spiders.

My waist is not unnaturally thin. My eyelashes aren't fake. I have no tan. I don't put on makeup to give the illusion of a thinner nose, higher cheek bones, or more defined chin. I wear powder cuz I'm shiny and mascara cuz my eyelashes are blonde. When you look at me, you see ME. Would I like more defined features? Sure. A smaller waist? Of course! But that wasn't what God gave me, so I am not going to manipulate myself into something I am not. What you see is the real me.

The saddest thing is all the little girls that see there moms, sisters, celebrities, doing this stuff to themselves because they don't think they are pretty or skinny enough, and then they think they need to do it too. How are they going to have any confidence or self-worth if they grow up thinking that the bodies we are given are not good enough and need to be manipulated into something "better"?