John T. Molloy, author of Dress for Success, conducted an interesting experiment while writing his book. He panhandled money at New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal and Grand Central Station. During rush hour, he stopped people and said he was embarrassed but had lost his wallet and needed 75 cents to get home. He did this for two hours. During the first hour, he wore a suit but no tie. During the second hour, he wore a tie as well. In the first hour, he made $7.23, and, during the second hour, his net was $26 dollars — nearly five times more. Molloy’s conclusion? The public perceives the tie as a symbol of respectability and responsibility. People trust and respect someone who is well-groomed and cared for. Why wouldn’t you want this for yourself and your child? Obviously, I’m not saying you must wear a suit every day, but putting your best foot forward can only improve your life.
A study done in part by New York University sociologist, Dalton Conley, found an increase in a woman’s body mass directly correlated to a decrease in her family income and job prestige. Men, however, experienced no similar negative effect. The study, sponsored by the National Bureau on Economic Research, found a one percent increase in body mass as measured by using BMI results in a 0.6 percent decrease in family income. This isn’t right, but it’s reality, and is something that should be taken into consideration for yourself and your children.
I’ve known many mothers who are persistent, committed, self-sacrificing, attentive, driven, methodical, motivated, creative, competent, bright, self-critical and perfectionistic. These adjectives make them wonderful mothers, wives, employees, and so on, but also tend to make them very poor in the self-care department. Too much stress, including the stress of being a day-to-day caretaker, jeopardizes health, happiness, productivity, goals, and relationships. Working with little variation or a high demand for productivity and recurring pressured deadlines over an extended period of time will create a lot of stress. It’s time to start taking care of you regardless of deadlines, soccer games, and everything else you have going on at any given moment. This may sound like blasphemy to the typical mom, but attempting to perform all these daily tasks while feeling overburdened and unwell simply makes you ineffectual. It’s time to start living and enjoying life, cultivating a fulfilling life that involves what you want and caring for your own needs, as well as those of your family. Self-care is a well-understood and universally-affirmed concept, with a history of poor implementation. Like most everything else, life is a game of balance. Finding that balance is key to taking care of yourself while, at the same time, taking care of those who depend on you.
In a study done by the Journal of Economic Psychology, University of California researchers found that attractive people make, on average, 12 percent more money than their less good-looking coworkers. This may not seem fair, but wouldn’t you want to give your child every possible advantage in life?
Remember, when you look good, you feel good. I know that sounds incredibly simplistic, but it is so important for you to understand that how you look strongly drives your own self-image and the way that others perceive you. This fact impacts you, not only as an individual, but also as a parent. I taught my children that life has challenges that must be met and conquered. When I was fat, my children began to gain weight, and I knew it was my responsibility to not only show them new ways to eat and stay active, but also to show them that, despite my weight problem, I would be able to conquer and solve it. I know to this day, my son’s daily runs and his incredible endurance, were borne from my decision to start running. The small changes I made in my own life have endowed him with a life of prudent exercising.
It sounds cliché, but your body really is your temple. You’ve only got one body in this life; you have to live in it, and others will judge you based on how you care for it.
The world is much like a job interview. At the office, your child’s school, even the grocery store, the people you interact with see your outside, not your inside. Job interviews give the employer a chance to see firsthand what you are all about and much on this first encounter. So what does your physical resume say about you? In this competitive world, does your physical resume say you lack motivation, you are trapped in the past, suffer from a host of medical conditions and that you don’t care about yourself? Not selflessness — that is something different. A slovenly appearance says you don’t care. To an employer, someone who can’t even take the time to show up clean and well groomed represents someone unorganized, irresponsible and lacking confidence. This scenario also applies to the world at large. You need to stop thinking, “Well if people love me they will simply love the inside me.” Good luck with that. Your “inside” you is only part of you, but it is the less obvious part. Make the whole package great. Don’t drive around life in a crappy-looking car just because it runs well, have it all.
I was surprised I did not see more men at Jenny Craig. The draw of pre-prepared meals means and even less work and thinking involved in the dieting process definitely appealed to my guy sensibilities. I simply picked up my food each week, worked on regularly amping up my exercise program, and then watched the steady progression of lowering numbers on the scale at each weigh-in.
I’m not saying that losing weight through even such a streamlined method as the Jenny Craig program was an easy process by any stretch of the imagination. But, had I paused to study page after page of dieting books, and then embarked on some sort of liquid diet followed by only foods green, white, or red in color, I can’t imagine I’d have ever dropped that extra sixty pounds I was carrying around. I would have become so mired in the process that I would have been unable to achieve any real results.
Young women, in particular seem susceptible to this need to procrastinate via research and preparation. A while back, I came across an advertisement for a patch for dieters. Similar in concept to the nicotine patch for smokers, this patch could be applied to the skin. It would then, in theory, send out some type of natural appetite suppressant that would be absorbed through the skin and into the body, thus rendering the patch wearer less hungry.
The ad also said the patch served as a great “reminder” that its wearer was on a diet. I started looking into this patch and found that most of the advertising was directed at young girls — preteens, teens, and those in their early twenties. The ads for the patch were all over social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. And, the girls modeling the patch in the ads were stick thin and looked about fifteen years old. I found the idea of this new dieting scheme simply amazing.
First, it targets very young women; this magic fix will simply jump start the next generation of miracle seekers. And, advertising and products such as these further divert attention away from the value of exercise and nutritious food for the target demographic – young, teen girls – still growing bodies. Second, a sticker is not going to change anyone’s eating and activity habits. Despite the “appetite suppressant” claim, no one ever gets fat simply because they are so hungry they have to eat all the time. Even fit people occasionally get the urge to devour an entire box of Krispy Kreme’s. They just don’t. It’s a matter of willpower, not hunger.
