Eighty percent of fourth grade girls have been on a diet. Two thousand women and girls begin smoking every day, many motivated by weight control. Since the onslaught of tobacco advertising that links liberation with smoking ("You've come a long way, baby") and connects thinness with cigarettes, lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as a leading killer of women.
"We have come a long way," said NOW Foundation President Patricia Ireland, "but progress is not equality. Seventy-nine years ago today, women won the right to vote. Now we're fighting to break out of the cookie-cutter images of women that say we need to be one size, one shape, one color, one age, one race, one sexuality to be beautiful."
NOW traveled with Lilith Fair this summer to promote awareness about the Foundation's Love Your Body Day. Thousands of concert-goers around the country signed the Love Your Body Campaign petition, saying "Enough!" to beauty standards that are impossible to achieve and images in media and advertising that do not represent women in all our diversities. "Women and girls at the Lilith Fair concerts were excited to see a national campaign about body image and women's health, and they want to get involved in Love Your Body Day," Ireland said.
September 22 will mark the second annual Love Your Body Day. Love Your Body Day 1998 was a huge success, with various actions and rallies held in nearly every state.
"The harmful and negative images of women can be damaging to our sense of self worth and keep us focused on our body parts rather than on our whole selves. These images distract women from pursuing full equality. Through this campaign we will take the power to control our own images and lives," Ireland said.
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