Mixed Messages

Take a look at this article, featuring the lovely Mindy Kaling. You might know her from her years on The Office, or from her new show, The Mindy Project. In general, I think Mindy is a great role model for girls, and grown women, too. She’s a Hollywood success without being the typical starlet; she’s not white, she’s not blonde, and – gasp! – she’s not thin.

This is a pretty great article with a focus on Mindy trying to embrace a healthier lifestyle now that she is in charge of her own television show. Mindy talks about how challenging it is to balance a career and healthy goals, such as finding time to exercise. She talks about how easy it is to fall into patterns of eating junk food and sweets, especially when you’re working crazy hours. These are things we can all relate to.

She also talks about how body image issues aren’t just for the larger among us. “Every woman I know has issues with eating or with food. It’s not just celebrities or female actors. It’s almost everyone I know,” she says. Apparently, the show will delve into these issues. I hope they’re handled well.

Mindy talks about wanting to keep both herself and her staff healthy, and how she wants to lose 15 pounds. She says: “The only reason I think about my health is that if I’m sick, 150 people can’t come to work. So every morning I make sure we have this green shake mixture of vegetables, fruit and ginger available so everyone can drink it. I want them trim and alert.”

I wish that Mindy would focus on how she feels, and not how much weight she’s hoping to lose. And if she encourages her staff to eat nutritious foods, that’s great. They’ll likely have more energy and be more focused on the tasks at hand. I’m not sure, though, why a “trim” staff is necessary. Are trim people more alert? More focused? Better at their jobs?

You could say I’m nitpicking. But when enough people perpetuate the myth that being thin (or skinny or trim) will make us better – better employees, better friends, better spouses, better children – we start to believe it. It’s sad to me when anyone pushes the idea that thinner = healthy and thinner = better.

All Mindy has to do is replace that word “trim” with “healthy.” It’s that simple. I truly believe that this vocabulary change will make a difference to everyone’s body image and mind set. Try it yourself.

It looks like The Mindy Project is going to touch on some issues that are relevant to us here at BFD. Let me know if you tune in, and how you think the show handles these important topics.

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