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The Progressive

NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact:

Mai Shiozaki, 202-628-8669, ext. 116

NOW Foundation's Love Your Body Day Promotes Message of Self Acceptance

Statement of NOW Action Vice President Erin Matson

WASHINGTON

Today marks the NOW Foundation's 13th annual Love Your Body Day. With a message to love yourself and an imperative to eliminate dangerously unrealistic standards of beauty, our campaign remains urgent, relevant and inspiring to women and girls around the country -- and even the world.

Eighty percent of women are dissatisfied with their appearance, and a startling 49 percent of 3 to 6 year old girls worry about being fat. By the fourth grade, more than 80 percent of girls have tried a fad diet. Research has demonstrated that after watching TV and reading magazines women feel worse about themselves than before they started.

NOW chapters, sororities, high school clubs and women's advocates everywhere are getting together to avow that we are beautiful as we are, no Photoshop or unhealthy products required.

This year NOW's Hollywood chapter is joining forces with America's Next Top Model winner Whitney Thompson to celebrate beauty as it comes in every size, and our University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign chapter is taking photographs of women enjoying their favorite foods. Recently, NOW Foundation made a presentation to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on the impact of media commodification of women and girls on the exercise of their human rights.

We are worth so much more than a society that consistently tells women and girls they are worth less. No woman or girl deserves to feel ashamed of her appearance. To the many who do, NOW Foundation urges you to love yourself as you are. Having nearly lost my life to anorexia as a high school student, I know how difficult this can be. But I also know:

Loving yourself gives you the power to make the world a better place.

For more information, visit the NOW Foundation's Love Your Body website.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.