Image of Victoria Beckham

I am from an older generation, and so I can only recall pop stars and not celebrities. I would not have known what a celebrity was back in the 1960s. The Beatles were pop stars, and nothing else really mattered.

As a girl I thought about my looks and being slim, and not fat, was important, but the only faddy diet I did was for two days and that was eating as many apples as you wanted to. The tummy gripes got to me in the end and so I gave up.

Celebrities

It would appear that anyone who has been on TV can be called a celebrity now, and it is often amusing to me to see the kind of people who have very little talent other than egocentricity who have such an effect on young people.

Though we all know, well most of us do, that the celebrities in magazines are airbrushed until not a crease or lines shows. No flaws; just perfection. And we are meant to either be in awe of them or try to emulate them.

Young people have a hard time trying to be as thin as possible, and be as flawless as possible, but often it is not feasible in the real world.

Many young people do not accept the way they are and spend a good deal of their time trying to find ways they can be different. That in itself causes so many problems that in turn leads to anxieties.

Expectations

Life seems to be all about expectations, and what other people will think of us if we don’t live up to their and our own expectations.

There is now a designer who has decided to create clothes in normal sizes, and he may start a trend. Someone, somewhere has got to break the cycle of the idea that unless you are stick thin, you are not successful.

Is it time for the cycle to change, and the trend to be for Rubenesque figures to be dominating the front pages of magazines?

Balance

Where has the balance gone? And how do we get it back?

We are brought up with beliefs and values in life. Our parents teach us the most basic forms of beliefs and values, which include knowing right from wrong. The problem arises when we learn different beliefs and values from others as we grow up. What we read about in magazines and see on TV influences us. The celebrities or stars can make us feel worthless at times because no matter how hard we try, we never seem to be able to be like them.

And yet it is all living an illusion. These people have just as hard a time, perhaps even more than we do. They struggle to stay thin, to look good, and always there are the paparazzi waiting to catch them unaware, and then that awful photograph appears in the next magazine.

Be honest though, don’t you just love seeing the celebrities not looking so good, with the odd spot here and there, and looking weary and exhausted? It is because they look normal, just like you and me, and we can relate to that.

If we had no TV, no cameras, no mirrors, would we just be going about our business without worrying what we look like? Would we just know we were eating too much and naturally cut back?

You see, I have this theory that you and I know how to make the best of yourself. We can have a good personality that shines through despite being this or that size. Is this true or not? If it is not true, and how we look is the only thing that matters, how come these celebrities have so much trouble keeping relationships? How come the most beautiful of women find their men going off with someone else?

Being beautiful starts within.