Breaking Stereotypes

As the weather warms, clothes come off, revealing our wintertime sloth in the form of flabby stomachs and fleshy arms. Most people can deal with this reality; they exercise and diet to lose weight or simply look beyond the mirror to find self-worth and confidence.

For many girls and young women, however, that isn’t so easy. They find role models to emulate, as they try to figure out who they are and what they want to become. But among public figures, there are few women who are beyond a size 10. Not only are actresses thin these days, but so are highly publicized politicians (for example, Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi), writers (think Jhumpa Lahiri and Joyce Carol Oates), and dot-com trailblazers (Kim Polese and Candice Carpenter). Meanwhile, average Americans are getting fatter.

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