Hi Nigella,
I realize you’re very busy so I only need a minute of your time time to THANK YOU for doing what you did last week concerning the promotion photos for your new show The Taste. When I heard that you actually spoke out and said NO to photoshopping your picture, I practically stood up and cheered! What may seem like an insignificant move to some, is actually a HUGE deal for so many more of us. It’s important that you know how inpsiring and powerful an act that was.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/nigella-lawson-photoshop-the-taste_n_2506022.html)
We live in a society obsessed with being THIN and as a result, boys and girls as young as FIVE years old are engaging in dangerous behaviors in an effort to measure up to the unrealistic images they’re being bombarded with. If we want our kids to grow up with the self-esteem they deserve, we need to show them how it’s done. Instead of judging our bodies we need to celebrate them, instead of focusing on how we look, we need to start recognizing the value in WHO we are.
By doing what you did you sent the message that you appreciate your body as it is and feel no need to “fix it” to appeal to anybody else’s perception of beauty. You’re telling people that food is not to be feared but enjoyed and that being genuine and authentic beats being “perfect” everytime.
I survived an extreme eating disorder that controlled my life for the better part of 20 years and am now a body image advocate. I work with kids to help them avoid the trauma I experienced and am moved everyday by the stories they share with me. They are killing themselves to be who they see in magazines and on TV screens, which is why insisting that your pictures not be manipulated through photoshop was so much more important that you may even realize.
I always tell parents that the negative messages our kids hear from society and the media will be loud, which is why our positive messages as their parents, need to be even louder!
THANK YOU for standing up and speaking out.
xoxo
Marci Warhaft-Nadler
Founder of Fit vs Fiction
Author: Body Image Survival Guide for Parents: Helping Toddlers, Tweens and Teens Thrive”