Chabot Spectator

Issue date: 3/8/07 Section: Editorials

Media Credit: Matters, Marc

Daily we are bombarded with body images, either you see them when you pick up the newspaper, when you are watching the television or maybe when you are flipping through your favorite magazines.

The pressure cooker is set on high, either you conquer the heat, which means you are acceptable in the eyes of society or you evaporate due to the fact that you think you are too fat or skinny.

Some people's days end with "happily ever after" and others do not have the opportunity to endure the feeling of being "Just right." This is because society makes individuals feel inadequate.

There are two things that we have to remember daily. One is that as college students we need to eat healthier and two, we need to fight the unbearable standards, and simply be OK with who we are.

With Jack in the Box and other get-food-quick establishments accessible to college students, it makes it a lot harder for individuals to think about their health when they are rushing to get back to school.

We have the tendency to think about a quick fill, rather than a home-cooked meal. It is time for us to think about the effect that the processed food we eat is going to have on us physically in the long run.

Organic foods may not be included in your budget, but it would not hurt you if you bought a few bags of different fruits. It is OK to have pizza, but we need to stop piling it with high cholesterol and a touch of a heart attack.

Along with taking care of your bodies physically, taking care of yourselves mentally travels the same journey to an individual's positive self-esteem.

Sometimes, people's metabolism work faster than others and they simply cannot gain weight, due to the fact that they are considered too small. This begins to take a toll on the person and it could develop into muscle dysmorphia.

This condition makes an individual appear to be too small when they look at themselves when in actuality they are of normal size. This disease also promotes steroid use and can affect males and females.

On the other hand, people may feel as if they are too fat, and society labels them as being overweight, obese or morbidly obese.

Seeing such words used to describe yourself and your weight class being plastered all over the media can cause another set of issues. Too many people suffer from anorexia nervosa and bulimia. And society also plays a major role in separating people into these weight classes. The pressure to be thin causes people to suffer from these diseases and it breaks peoples "super-model," self-worth down to its lowest point.

It is time to start taking care of ourselves. It's time to start exercising more. It is time for us to start eating better.

We can understand that there is not an organic garden growing in our backyard, but a little bit of change is a lot better than nothing at all.

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