Next year, I will celebrate the half century mark.  Instead of obsessing about the growing metropolis of candles that populate my birthday cake, I’m grateful for each and every one of them.  Together, they illuminate the story of my life, revealing a series of  interconnected lessons accompanied by the piercing insights that can only be gained through life experience.

It is only  when we explore these recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings, behaviors that we begin to understand what it is we are here to learn and accomplish.  In these quiet moments of reflection, each one of us understands two important elements of a life well-lived:  our purpose and our potential.

For most of my life, I have been fascinated by the pursuit of excellence.  High ideals and standards thrill me.  These were,  in fact, the very reasons that attracted me to Tri-Delta in the first place. Thirty-one years later, though I still hold firmly to these principles,  I understand very clearly when they apply and when they do not.  It took some living to make that distinction.

Like so many  women, I got the pursuit of excellence mixed up with a quest for perfection.  For much of my life, I thought they were the same thing.  Looking back, I can see how the misunderstanding occurred.

Early on, I discovered a strategy that allowed me to excel.  This winning approach always required extreme levels of both discipline and focus that, when consistently applied, met with an outstanding outcome, usually  reinforced with praise, recognition and reinforcement.  I repeated this strategy with increasing levels of  success, again and again. And though  it benefited me greatly when it applied to my academic and professional  achievements, somewhere along the line I began applying the perfection ideal to areas of my life where it didn’t make any sense. Perfection as a goal or a way of being started in my teens with my personal  quest to a achieve the thin ideal.  Later, it progressed to other self-imposed standards that defined success:  being the perfect friend, the perfect daughter, the perfect hostess, the perfect mother. The list of roles that required perfection knew no bounds.  Without even knowing it, this approach had become a self-imposed lifestyle, applying to subjects from magnificent to mundane.

Herein lies the problem: There is no such state of being. There is no such standard.   We waste valuable time and energy because it is an ideal we can never live into or up to.  If anything, we become something we never intended to be  at all: alternatively self-absorbed, exhausted and disappointed.  It’s a terrible combination and the exact opposite of what we wanted to be in the first place: the best version of ourselves possible.

So what has been the life lesson? Pursue excellence but only in clearly defined areas of your life.  Make sure there are measurable positive outcomes in place that will let you know if you achieved that which you set out to accomplish.  It’s important that those benchmarks can be linked to the growth and development of yourself, of others or for causes you believe in.  If  what you strive for  has the potential to make a difference in the life of another human being , pursue it with everything you’ve got.  I have learned that when you begin to live outside yourself, that is the very moment when  you truly understand what it means to live into your full potential.  The pursuit of excellence and the acceptance of imperfection can co-exist.  They are, in fact, a much more effective and dynamic duo in helping anyone create a life of meaningful engagement and purpose. I encourage you to actively invite the participation of both of these elements in your life. You’ll be better for it and so will everything and everyone you touch. Carpe diem!

The Guest Experience

Like Tri-Delta, The Guest Experience’s mission is to mentor individuals to live into their full potential, providing innovative opportunities for personal growth.  We are particularly passionate about assisting students in the defining years from middle school through college. We know that identifying innate talent at an early age and creating opportunities for students to express those strengths is the way to promote the development of tomorrow’s leaders. As a channel partner to Talent Plus®, a world-renowned global authority on The Science of Talent®, The Guest Experience is uniquely able to bring the positive performance outcomes of talent identification and development from the corporate world to students.  Using each individual’s talents as a blueprint for success, students are better able to create a vision for the future while feeling a greater sense of their unique mission, purpose and ability to make a difference in the communities they touch.

As a proud supporter of the Fat-Talk-Free Week and Reflections program, Heidi Guest, Founder of The Guest Experience, will donate 25% of the student talent assessment service, or $75.00, in your name, directly to Delta Delta Delta.  For more information on the Student Talent Discovery Interview please visit them at: http://www.guest-experience.com/private-mentoring/

When you contact us, simply share that you are a Friend of Tri-Delta.

Last winter, while spending time with family in Colorado, my visit happened to correspond with that of a family friend. She was 14-years-old at the time, very petite and sadly completely visually impaired as a result of an adverse drug reaction known as Stevens Johnson Syndrome. She had lost her sight around the age of 3.

My cousin also experienced the same reaction, resulting in her partial vision loss which is what brought these two young women together as the best of friends.

I spent a lot of time with them over the trip, taking the teenagers sledding and to the mall.What stood out to me the most was that despite her lack of sight she was just as concerned about her appearance as any other teenage girl.

One evening when dressing up in cocktail dresses she asked if the dress made her look fat.

At the end of meals she would suggest not accepting dessert, because she did not want to gain weight.

I was floored.

This was a 14-year-old, 90-pound girl, who had no concept of what being ‘fat’ would look like.

Obviously these conceptions of weight and social standards must be coming from somewhere, beyond magazines, fashion designers and movie stars. Fat Talk is the only reason a visually impaired child would have this perception of body image.

After this experience, I found new realization in why we need to work to remove Fat Talk from our conversations. Not only are unrealistic images of beauty being portrayed in the media, they are also portrayed in our homes, with our family and friends.

This has to change. We have to present ourselves as strong, empowered women not only to ourselves, but to those around us. We need to challenge those stereotypes in our own conversations and we need to have meaningful conversations with those we care about who struggle with this issue themselves.

I’m going to share the message of Fat Talk Free week with the girl I mentioned as well as the rest of my friends and I hope that you will decide to join me.

In seventh grade, I was a vibrant young athlete. I was involved with school activities, had a great group of friends and excelled with my academics. However, regardless of my successes, even at the age of 12, I fixated on my flaws. In my tweens the only “flaws” that really got to me were those related to my body image.

I vividly remember the day that a handsome classmate of mine chose to ridicule me and point out that I had calf muscles that were far larger than not only my fellow female classmates, but larger than his as well. If I knew then what I know now, I would have shrugged my shoulders, brushed it off and attributed it to the fact that he was envious of my strength; but for many years after I was extremely ashamed of my legs.

Growing up as a competitive baton twirler and dancer, I pushed myself at the gym. The stronger I was, the higher my leaps were and the longer my endurance lasted. Until that moment, I never paid any attention to my physical attributes. If anything, they were one of my favorite qualities. I became very hard on myself and very self conscious. Although the core of the eating disorder that I developed didn’t originally stem from wanting to lose weight or change my physical size, the lack of self esteem certainly didn’t help me at any point along the way. However, for many, a few careless comments coupled with self doubt and poor body image can begin harmful behaviors and habits that can manifest themselves in the form of an eating disorder.

To make a long story short, I battled with bulimia and eventually anorexia for over three and a half years during high school. My illness stemmed from a lack of control, a lack of self esteem and the inability to communicate my feelings. My intentions were never to lose weight. In fact, I didn’t even realize what I was doing to myself for the first two years.   I had become so entrenched in and addicted to my eating disorder behaviors that I couldn’t stop. It didn’t help that no one talked about bulimia, anorexia, binge eating disorder or any of the eating disorders not otherwise specified. The extent of my education was based on a few paragraphs in my health book.

After finally addressing the situation and a very difficult recovery period, I made a commitment to myself, my family and my community that I would do everything in my power to prevent others from traveling down that path. So in 2001, I started Helping Other People Eat (HOPE) and today we are a 501c3 nonprofit that works for the prevention and awareness of eating disorders.  We have personally spoken to over 50,000 people about eating disorders, living a healthy lifestyle and the importance of a positive body image. After all, eating disorders are not choices, they are illnesses and they are the leading cause of death among mental illnesses.

I am so incredibly proud of what Tri Delta has achieved through the Reflections Program and for spear heading the Fat Talk Free Initiative. It’s not only empowering others to feel good about themselves, but it’s helping to raise awareness of just how “image focused” our society has become. I encourage you to not only spread the Fat Talk Free Message during this week, but make it a lifestyle change. If you make a conscious effort to eliminate certain statements from your daily dialog, I guarantee you will feel better about yourself and set a positive example for your family and friends. Remember, your own self doubt can cause others around you to become self conscious of their own body image. Instead of tearing yourself down, put your efforts in more meaningful pastimes that will not only enrich your life, but the lives of those around you.

Allison is a Tri Delta Alumna from the University of Florida and Miss Florida 2006.

Nine years ago, I was in the dining room of my parents’ house with my then seven-year-old cousin who was standing with her hands on the table sucking in her stomach and holding in her breath. When I asked her what on earth she was doing, she told me that she wanted to look like a very famous singer whose image appeared on the cover of every popular magazine at that time. She told me that this celebrity was so popular and if she looked more like her, maybe then more people would like her. As someone who had struggled with eating disorders for more than ten years, this clearly made me very, very upset.

It makes me so sad that we live in a world where boys and girls, men and women are taught to aspire to look like the extremely airbrushed sometimes very unhealthy images they see every day in the media. We are constantly bombarded with unrealistic images of what we’re supposed to look like, and then, when we fall short—which we will because these images are unrealistic—we feel bad about ourselves and punish ourselves for being unable to achieve the impossible.

All our lives we’ve been told that it’s completely normal to be dissatisfied with the body we have, and that we should always be striving for better: less weight, firmer thighs, clearer skin, and/or shinier hair. My question is who wins in this scenario? Is it the advertisers who are trying to sell us skin firming lotion, the diet industry that is trying to push yet another new diet, or is it the magazines that are attempting to acquire just one more subscription?

What would happen if we really did stop hating our bodies? What if we stopped beating ourselves up for everything we were not? What if we actually starting being our body’s friend and not its worst enemy? How would we feel? Take a moment to think about all the things you would do if you were your body’s ally.

Believe it or not, it is actually a great thing to feel good about ourselves. In fact, it’s simply fabulous! It’s okay to love and be grateful for the body we were given despite all those years and millions of television and radio advertisements that have told us otherwise. It’s okay to value our health, respect of bodies the way they are, and be satisfied in our skin.

We need to take a giant step back from those unrealistic ideals and start being real – which we cannot forget is different for everyBODY. So, the next time you are in the car listening to one more advertisement that is telling you just how much happier you would if you were 5 pounds lighter, turn the radio off and say out loud, “I am fabulous just the way I am.” Let’s focus on our strengths, be proud of who we are, and give ourselves that pat on the back we all deserve for simply being who we were meant to be.

There is no question that the movement to recognize fat talk, to name aloud its destructive messages, and to work with others to put an end to it is picking up momentum. I can’t describe how excited I am that this multigenerational and national, if not international, phenomenon “has legs,” so to speak. Nevertheless, any impetus for dramatic change raises the question of what will replace the status quo. What will we talk about instead of indulging the unconscious “does this make me look fat?” habits that seemed at one time so “obvious” and indeed “normal”?

I believe that, although no single group of people or set of institutions (e.g., mass media) is “the cause” of fat talk, negative body image, and disordered eating, all of us have a responsibility as citizens who care about ourselves and about others to help create a world that replaces fat talk with “free speech” – speech and ideas that free us to be healthy, stylish, sexy, and caring – that is, alive and engaged. Here’s 4 things you and I can do, sometimes together – and whether we are female or male – to speak in a manner that is free the prejudices and ignorance that fuel fat talk.

1. Practice taking people – and girls and women, in particular – seriously regardless of their size or shape – and speak freely with each other about what this requires, how it feels, and what happens as a result.
2. Read and discuss with your family and friends – that is, speak freely about – provocative books that address basic issues in fostering a healthier lifestyle, better parenting, and a more ethical society. Three excellent sources of ideas and inspiration for speaking and living more freely in everyday life are Margo Maine’s (2000) Body Wars: Making Peace with Women’s Bodies—An Activist’s Guide (Carslbad, CA: Gürze Books), and Joe Kelly’s (2002) Dads and Daughters (NY: Broadway Books); and Michelle Lelwica’s (2010) The Religion of Thinness: Satisfying the Spiritual Hungers Behind Women’s Obsession with Food and Weight (Carslbad, CA: Gürze Books). When you take these small but important steps, talk to your family, friends, and co-workers about your commitments and what they mean to you. Note also that these resources would be excellent for book clubs operated by friends or by libraries, as well as for discussion groups at church or synagogue. And, remember, these books contain important, thought-provoking information for women and men, that is, anyone who cares about the development of girls and boys.
3. Speak freely to your friends and family about commercials and advertisements that you find offensive because they objectify women or men, or glorify slenderness, or treat fat people in disrespectful ways. Once or twice a year, write to companies to protest such business practices, or to praise positive ads that feature, for example, people of diverse size and shape.
4. Speak freely with your friends about the women in your lives who are clearly “women of substance.”  These could be parents, grandparents, teachers you admired, writers, or even the woman next door who holds a full-time job and cares for her children and her disabled husband. A “woman of substance” is a woman who, regardless of her size and shape, has the talent, the character, the passion, and the courage (i.e., “the ovaries”) to take a stance and to make significant contributions to society. These women can be present, that is, can take up space in the world, as real people in the everyday lives of children and families, as historical personages associated with pictures on the walls, and as fictional characters in narratives of talent, character, passion, and courage. Groups of women friends or family members can work, with the support and encouragement of the men, to be those women and in so doing to locate and create inspirational stories that, from many different angles, speak freely to girls and boys, reaffirming that women are not defined solely in terms of their sexuality and dress size. If you don’t know where to start, the story of Dr. Carolyn Becker’s work in collaboration of with Delta Delta Delta, and its culmination in Fat Talk Free Week and all it means is just such a narrative.

Let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Stacy Nadeau and I was a model in Dove’s campaign for real beauty. I stood proudly on billboards across the nation in my underwear, un-airbrushed and un-retouched, to encourage all women to feel great about their bodies; flaws and all! I’m a proud partner of Tri Delta’s Fat Talk Free Week and most importantly, am a proud new sister of Delta Delta Delta.

I’m so proud to be a part of an amazing organization with such strong women. I’m excited to be a partner with the Fat Talk Free Campaign because it’s a message I believe in so much. As women, we tend to beat ourselves up and focus on the negatives when it comes to our bodies. It’s time for a change of pace. In fact, it’s time for a revolution. I believe all women deserve to feel great about themselves; All women deserve to live a life without fat talk; and all women deserve to have friends that don’t let their friend fat talk!

I’m so looking forward to posting and chatting with you ladies. Check back often for blogs, vlogs, and postings about Fat Talk Free Week, current events, and just plain old-fashioned girl talk!

DL,
Stacy

Last week I was sitting down to eat with two of my favorite girlfriends at one of our favorite Tex Mex restaurants. I love Mexican food. I also know to prepare myself for it. I know I’ll be very full…I know that even though I’ll fill up on chips and guac early on, I will still attempt to eat my meal…and I know that while the thought of a sopapilla sounds amazing in theory, there will just be no more room. I also know that it’s a perfect recipe for conversation and with these two particular friends, lots of laughs.

As we’re talking about our weeks, and our dates, and our jobs, and our lives, one of my friends makes a comment about her weight and how she doesn’t need to eat anything more because she’s so fat. My ears sort of perked up like a cat. First of all, our dinner hadn’t even arrived yet! Secondly, I thought, “Here’s my chance! I talk to women about this topic every day! Here it is! Impress her with your knowledge. Hand her a cling. Motivate her to love herself!!!” And I just froze. And I just sat there. And I listened. And I tried to think of the perfect thing to say. It there wasn’t one…

Now mind you, this girl may weigh 100 pounds soaking wet in a ski suit and I listened to her talk about how she just wants to look the way she used to look. (I can remember times that I’ve wished I looked like her now!) She pulls out a bottle of pills, followed by another bottle and complains that they just aren’t working. I was astounded. I was baffled.

At this moment, my mind started spinning about the dozens of different approaches I could have taken with her…do I get on to her about her negative self image? Do I scold her for taking the pills? Do I tell her she’s beautiful? Do I get mad at her for not wanting to eat perfectly decent queso? And as I sat, and I sat, I chose to go with all of the above. She’s my friend. And while I didn’t lecture and I didn’t force, I did tell her she is beautiful. I did tell her that these particular pills that she pulled out of her purse were not healthy. I did tell her that she needs to take a better look at herself in the mirror next time…and I did remind her how amazing the queso is.

But when I got home, I decided to take all of my own advice. And as I washed my face and got ready to end my day, I looked in the mirror myself and thought again about my friend, and how many times I’ve seen her and wished I could look just like her. And then it occurred to me…size has nothing to do with happiness. We all have moments of insecurity. I know that when I have mine, I turn to my friends. It’s my friends who make me feel beautiful. It’s my friends who make me feel loved. It’s my friends who make all of the other cares I thought I had in the world seem to disappear.

And so that’s what I’ve decided I would like to be to her…just a friend…who helps her feel as beautiful as I know she really is…just the way she is…

This is what 14 very brave collegiate and alumnae women did at Tri Delta’s 54th Biennial Convention in Orlando, FL. After months of planning, conference calls, emails and favors, it was finally time to sit back and enjoy the show.

Let me back up for a moment. Last year, during Fat Talk Free Week 2009, Tri Delta had the opportunity to work closely with the women from Colorado State University in planning a fashion show that focused on real women rather than on the clothes they were wearing. Models were chosen based on who they were on the campus rather than the size clothes that they wore. Models ranged in size, ethnicity, age and backgrounds, and instantly the show was a hit.

Soon after, chapters and members showed their support and interest in the show and began asking how they too could host one.  Just like that it was determined that with the success of the program, the success of Fat Talk Free Week, and the success of the Colorado State Show, that maybe there was an opportunity for more women to participate in a similar opportunity.

A couple of months later, fourteen models of all shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities were on board with the program…and so was Macy’s!!!!

Macy’s, established in 1858, is the Great American Department Store and they found our program to be one that they were intrigued by!  Macy’s provided clothes for our models from their signature lines, agreed to work with us throughout the entire process and every step of the way.

So, there I sat, backstage, with Rob the tech guy, several television monitors, laptops and buttons that he made very clear I wasn’t allowed to push.

Stacy Nadeau, one of the original models who posed in her underwear in Dove’s headline making Campaign For Real Beauty kicked off the event by sharing her journey with the audience. I was in awe as she told her story and I watched as people cry and smile and laugh at every word she said from the tiny monitors behind the stage.

And then the music started.
Loud…fun…fast…and engaging.

Stacy introduced our models, not for the clothes that they are wearing on the runway but for who they are, why they love Tri Delta, providing us a piece of their story and making every person in the audience realize…”She’s just like me.” One by one they danced down the runway, waved, blew kisses and the crowd clapped and cheered for the liberating message that the show made them feel.

Halfway through the show I noticed I was standing, clapping and dancing. I felt great.

I was so proud, not because the show was going so well but because people loved it. There was a feeling of confidence in the air.

I turned to see our phenomenal representation from Macy’s, Terry, who just a few of hours earlier was steaming clothes and teaching the women how to change outfits without getting makeup on anything.

I saw the tremendous smile on her face. She looked back at me as she was now also dancing to the beat and said, “This is just so fun.”

And it was. It was just so fun.

The models visited the stage one last time.

They joined hands and paraded the runway one last time in their Fat Talk Free Week shirts, infectious smiles and sassy attitudes.

Just as quickly as it began the show was over, but there was something about the way it ended that you could see that the way people would continue to spread the message was just beginning.

Some of my friends, family and colleagues are tired of hearing me say “Friends Don’t Let Friends Fat Talk.” Sometimes when I blurt this out, others look at me with a puzzled look, and I am convinced they are probably thinking…..”What is she talking about?”

I want to remind them of the power and success of the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” slogan. This campaign revolutionized societal attitudes and actions related to drinking and driving.

My hope is that the Reflections Fat Talk Free Week campaign will have the same culture-changing effect. The concept is so simple and well-intentioned, but often meets with resistance.

I was recently dress shopping with a friend who had been actively trying to get in shape for her son’s wedding. She had lost twenty pounds. My friend is 65-years-old and is extremely active and productive; she is an exceptional friend, mother, wife and grandmother. She is a talented seamstress, a fabulous cook and a fiercely competitive tennis player. While trying on clothes, she complained to me about the size of her hips and thighs and asked me if I knew a procedure that could fix them. I answered her with a discussion about how healthy, beautiful and active she is and that we all have to learn to accept our genetic gifts.

She then pointed to a picture of a model in the store and said, “See they all have long thin legs!” I replied to her that most media images are computer-generated and not real. She gave me a blank stare and I stopped talking.

I have another friend who shared with me that she couldn’t meet me for dinner because she wasn’t allowing herself to eat out at restaurants until she lost 10 pounds. My initial thought was, “what a waste of time and friendship.” This is another talented, intelligent, beautiful and productive woman.
Most days I feel like I’m alone on this issue. I won’t give up though.

If I can convince one college student each semester to stop fat talking, then I have been successful. Getting students to talk about the issue and acknowledge there is a problem is the first step. My goal is to educate them that pursing a “thin ideal body weight” is paralyzing, expensive, self-sacrificing, unhealthy and degrading. The majority of the students I talk to have grown up in diet-obsessed households or in families where physical appearance is often judged or criticized. Some students have reported hurtful comments made by family members about their body size and shape, frequently reminding them not to eat this or that.

Let’s start a revolution with the following strategies:

• Compliment your friends, co-workers and family members on qualities they possess that are not based on physical attributes.
• Think about the qualities that you admire in a real life role model. Chances are those qualities will not be based on physical attributes.
• Model “fat talk free” behaviors for everyone in your life. Be conscious of your actions, comments and behaviors.
• Don’t purchase magazines or products whose advertising you find offensive. Check out about_face.org to find out how to become a media activist. About-Face equips women and girls with tools to understand and resist harmful media messages that affect their self-esteem and body image.
• Never reinforce someone’s weight loss by saying, “You look great, have you lost weight?”
• Don’t judge people based on size and appearance. Size discrimination is real and harmful.
• Appreciate all that your body does for you. Take extra special care of it!

Here are some more resources to improve body image and combat fat talk:

• Read and contribute to a body image and wellness blog created by a University of New Hampshire student Anne Mathe:
• http://www.unh.edu/health-services/ohep/anniesblog.html
• Sign No Weigh! A Declaration of Independence from a Weight-Obsessed World http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/nedaDir/files/documents/handouts/NoWeigh.pdf
• Post a copy in a visible place of Ten “Will-Powers” for Improving Body Image: http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/nedaDir/files/documents/handouts/10WillBI.pdf
• For more resources check out the University of New Hampshire Health Service’s website section on Body Image: http://www.unh.edu/health-services/ohep/body_image.html

“Let me listen to me and not to them” Gertrude Stein