Kelly Clarkson and Body Image

This past Tuesday I was at the Kelly Clarkson concert at Nokia Theater. What I noticed was that unlike many pop singers, her outfits were conservative, and throughout the performance, she made comments indicating that she was comfortable in her own body. She confessed that she did not like working out, because it hurt too much. These kinds of comments brought smiles to the faces of audience members. Kelly Clarkson is an example of a real role model- in body and actions. Clarkson was more focused on her art, rather than what the cruel critics had to say about her body. 

The media strongly emphasizes and enforces "thin-idealization" in which basically beauty is defined as being as thin as possible. In order to achieve this unrealistic thinness, the movie stars and models under the severe pressure of the spotlight undergo extreme diets, exercises and sometimes, starvation. Magazines especially tear apart stars if they have even the slightest hint of cellulite. We can think back to the Karen Carpenter story. Karen Carpenter is just one example of a star who under the pressures of society's thin-idealization, fell down the path of anorexia.