Advice Column
About the Authors:
Leslie Miranda - Leslie Miranda is currently a senior at TYWLS of Astoria, an all-girls single sex public school. She has attended the school from 6th all the way to 12th grade. Throughout her attendance at TYWLS Leslie has participated in a wide range of in- and after-school activities and programs hosted by the school, such as Dance My Cultural club, Eco-friendly Fashion Show, Step-Up, Tech Crew, taught an Eco-fashion intensive class, and joined the Volley club. Leslie has shown great passion for the sciences throughout her academic career, inclining her to involve herself in various out-of-school science programs, while at the same time using some of her spare time to do some volunteer work at local centers around Astoria and Manhattan. Recently, Leslie has been admitted to Columbia University and will be attending the university in the fall of 2014 with an interest to major in Neuroscience.
Mayar Mansy - Mayar Mansy is also currently a student at TYWLS of Astoria. She has attended the school from 9th grade all the way to 12th grade. Throughout her attendance at TYWLS Mayar have participated in activities such as Dance My Culture, Step Up and taught a photography intensive class with the help of two teachers. Mayar had always been interested in the sciences, especially medicine. She volunteered in hospitals in Egypt during her summer vacations and worked at a pharmacy in Astoria for 3 years. Recently, Mayar has been admitted to New York University and will be attending the university in the fall of 2014 with an interest to major in Biochemistry on a Pre-Med track.
Q: Since body image is constantly portrayed everywhere by the media, its hard for girls to not become influenced at aiming to have the “ideal” body image. So how should we approach this situation if we don’t feel satisfied by the way we look? It is commonly know that excercise and dieting are popular options to take, but how can we measure when it is too much or too little?
(Figure 1)
A: Encouragement to focus on appearance is at an all-time high in today’s modern culture, and with it comes the potential for a significant increase in negative body image. While there may be small quirks or details that you wish were different, there is no need to call for extreme changes. Change is good. In fact, it can boost up our confidence. However, what you need to keep in mind is that these changes should be approached as mere enhancements, such as those Instagram filters. Even though, the media will always be brainswashing us with what the “ideal body” should look like, “our bodies don’t define us...” like an 11th grader at TYWLS said. When approaching our bodies’ psychic it’s totally fine to be unsatisfied with ourselves, but it shouldn’t reach the extreme of lowering your self-confidence. If you do want to change yourself, such as try to loose some of that stomach fat, exercising and dieting is the best method to go. However, what some girls sometimes don’t understand is that it’s not good to exagerrate things. For example, dieting doesn’t always mean just to eat fruits and salads. According to our school survey (Figure 1), the lower the high school grade level the more the girls at TYWLS believe that a healthy diet consists of only fruits and salads, with absolutely no junk food intake on the side. What these girls fail to realize is that they can still eat their normal daily food, such as the home-cook food their parents make which does contain the healthy nutrients of grains, dairy, fruits and vegatables, protein. With a presistant nutritional diet and daily exercise you will be able to get that healthy body shape you want and lead happier life-style.