• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Body Truth
  • Juleeta

Juleeta C. Harvey

Empowering Women to Believe Body Truth

  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Speaking

Two Words that Tear Down Our Kids (That Aren’t Even True)

April 3, 2019 By Juleeta 6 Comments

Thanks to Alexis Brown on Unsplash for capturing happy teenagers.

Recently, I met with young women, ranging in ages from 11-18. More insightful than anything I shared with them about the steady growth of negative body image in today’s culture were the responses they shared with me. Specifically, their response to one question keeps coming to mind.

In two different breakout sessions, I asked, “What words have you heard that negatively describe a girl’s body?” and these were the first two responses.  In both groups.

Fat.

Ugly.

In that order.

Now, those answers didn’t come immediately after I asked the question. In fact, I waited a long quiet minute before anyone spoke up. In both sessions, the group of chatty girls were initially silent after hearing the question. No one wanted to speak the words that they had either said about someone else or had heard about themselves.

And these two words, spoken aloud, fat and ugly, opened the floodgates of discussion concerning negative body image talk. How hurtful it is. How deceiving it is. How destructive it can be, if believed.

If our young people wake up in the morning thinking they are fat or ugly, if they go to the restroom and see fat or ugly as they glance at the mirror before walking out the door, if they believe they are fat or ugly as they brace themselves to stand in the ever-changing opinions of their peers, if they believe they are fat or ugly as they return home and sink into their beds for some much needed reprieve, then they live overwhelmed by lies.

From the moment they wake up until they close the day with some shut eye, our precious young people need to hear the truth from us. The twinkle in their eyes and the smiles on their faces are beautiful. The growing statures of their bodies are strong and can serve in life-changing ways. These growing people need to hear that their bodies are good.  [Read more…] about Two Words that Tear Down Our Kids (That Aren’t Even True)

Filed Under: Eating Disorders, Food, Healthy Bodies

This is How Women Advocate for Healthy Body Image

March 1, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Advocating for each other, we advocate for a healthier female body. Photo credit: Thanks to the very talented, Omar Lopez.

Why We Need an Advocate

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, “by age 6 girls especially start to express concerns about their own weight or shape, and 40-60% of elementary girls (ages 6-12) are concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat” (Smolak, 2011). While all genders, ages, and cultures are at risk for body image issues, young women today are struggling quietly. Girls do not want to bother their friends or their parents with questions about their changing bodies (much like their mommas don’t want to bother their friends with their own body image concerns).

We need to empower each other to speak up. If we, as adult women who serve as aunts, mothers, sisters, friends, and daughters, continue to hide our body image concerns, how will our young women learn to speak up? How will anyone know that we need help if we remain silent?

If we empower the next generation to speak, then we will know better how to help them. We will know how to advocate for them. When questions of value and identity mount, one thing is true for all of us. Every girl, young or old, needs an advocate.

When reflecting on some of the most courageous and dynamic advocates in history, I can’t help but remember the first powerful female literary character I encountered in college. Paulina is one of Shakespeare’s finest women, and one of her most famous lines in The Winter’s Tale commands even the most Shakespeare-weary audience member to perk up and listen.

In a passionate moment, Paulina commands the stage and advocates for her spurned queen: “It is a heretic that makes the fire, not she which burns in it” (2.3. 115-116).

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

In one of his final plays, The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare introduces us to Leontes – a passionate, angsty, and jealous king who is convinced that his wife, the gorgeous, pure-hearted, and compassionate Queen Hermione, has been unfaithful in their marriage (Sound kind of like, Othello, right?). King Leontes spends the first half of the play making a full-hearted fool of himself and eventually banishes his wife for her alleged unfaithfulness. His madness overtakes his reason.

In this kingdom ruled by men, Queen Hermione has one advocate – Paulina. She is force and a storm. She speaks honestly and courageously for her queen, and she puts her life at risk to advocate for good. When Paulina calls Leontes to the mat and straight-faced calls him out for being “unworthy and unnatural,” all he can respond with is a childish threat. “I’ll ha’ thee burnt,” King Leontes bullies.

And this is where Paulina shines. She keeps her composure, raises herself even taller, and fearlessly looks him in the eye. She responds masterfully.

“I care not.

It is a heretic that makes the fire,

Not she which burns in it” (2.3. 115-116).

Paulina speaks up. She stands by the Queen’s side, acknowledges what she is suffering at the hands of her lunatic husband, and she remains determined to help in any way that she can.

This is what we need, Ladies. This is what our daughters need. [Read more…] about This is How Women Advocate for Healthy Body Image

Filed Under: Eating Disorders, Healthy Bodies, Moms and Daughters, Uncategorized

Good Food vs. Bad Food and the Battle Eating Away at Women

February 21, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Photographer Alex Loup captured this beautiful food moment, and my mouth is watering.

As we envision a world where women of different sizes can thrive in their God-given bodies, we ask ourselves: How can women advocate positive change for the female body?       

One place to start is examining our relationship with food.

Currently, we live in a culture that demonizes some foods and idolizes other foods.  Meat is bad; veggies are good.  Starches are bad; fruit is good. Fruit is bad; lean dairy products are good.  Who can keep up with all of the latest “research”?  Choosing good food over bad food is a constant battle, and I, for one, am tired of fighting a battle that threatens to eat away at any more of my time and energy.  Ain’t nobody got time for that. [Read more…] about Good Food vs. Bad Food and the Battle Eating Away at Women

Filed Under: Control, Eating Disorders, Food

#2 of 5 People We Need in Our Corner: A Friend (Who is Altogether Different Than Us)

February 14, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

We are not lovers
because of the love
we make
but the love
we have

We are not friends
because of the laughs
we spend
but the tears
we save


I don’t want to be near you
for the thoughts we share
but the words we never have
to speak


I will never miss you
because of what we do
but what we are
together

A Poem of Friendship, by Nikki Giovanni

Poet and activist, Nikki Giovanni, reminds me that friendship makes me a better person.  A good friend listens to my heartbreaks and knows the intent of my words when I fumble over the “dumb thing” I said five minutes ago. Some of my closest friends are not always happy with me, and sometimes we disappoint each other, but so goes any relationship that adds value to my life.  Conflict is inevitable, but with friendship, hope patiently waits on the other side.

Friendship is so vital to our human development that even Jesus, who was perfect in every way, chose to seek out friendships.  In the week leading up to his death, Jesus admonished his friends to love one another as He loved them.  He valued his friends so dearly that He chose to die for them.  “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

When choosing friends, Jesus did not reach out to individuals who were like him.  The people he invited into his inner circle, the disciples, were a collection of sinners, of whom the Jewish elite disapproved. They were fisherman, a tax collector, and some, we don’t even know their occupations. But we know they were not like Jesus.  They may have looked similar in stature, but they did not think like him, speak eloquently like him, or love anywhere near as generously as he did. 

And many others he befriended in the New Testament, those he reached out to serve and comfort and heal, they were in no way like him.  The women, for example, were completely different in physical stature and cultural situation.  Consider the Canaanite woman that prays for her daughter’s healing in Matthew 15, the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter is possessed by a demon in Mark 7, the poverty-stricken widow in Mark 12, the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, and the woman, described in John 8, who was drug into town for stoning, her consequence for being accused of adultery.

Jesus spent his life seeking out people different than him.   Widely known as “the friend of sinners,” Jesus chose to befriend people altogether different than him.

And although I am far from maintaining that we have Jesus’ capacity to serve and love and die for the sake of our friendships, I am challenged to consider:  How many friends do I have that look and act and understand life differently than me, in almost every way?

Presently, that number amounts to 1.  We will call my friend Bee.

She is a 21 year old, African young woman — curvy, tall, and gorgeous. In her Instagram post, you’ll see her swaying her hip left, posed in a leopard print mini-dress and her smile beams, wide and proud.  My latest post shows me in tortoise shell glasses and a red cardigan. My smile exists, but maybe doesn’t beam 🙂

She is from Rwanda, and she is currently raising her three younger siblings completely on her own, working 70+ hours a week to support their family. Me? I am a native Texan, raising the Fantastic Five with the help of my God-fearing, extremely fun, and hard-working husband. I am a stay at home mom. Writing a blog.

She sees the world completely different than I do.  She throws in veggies and fruit for meals when she can, but Takis and soda are some of their kitchen mainstays.  She’s not shopping at Whole Foods, assessing “her kids” healthy choices, or comparing them to the other kids at school. 

I love that we are living different lives, in almost every way.  As a result of living differently and simultaneously choosing friendship, we are growing as women in our communities in ways that we could not grow without each other.

Most of my close friends look like me, are well educated, have disposable income, go to church, and are married to loyal and capable men. They are dear to me, but they are so much like me that I sometimes forget the bigger world out there that is the majority.  Most women, living their own stories in the day-to-day, are different than me in almost every way.

And when I operate in my small world for too long, Satan gets a foothold. His voice too closely scrutinizes the details of my reflection, and I compare myself to the aging women around me who have had more surgery, who have more money, who have more time and propensity for shopping, and who spend more time toning their glamorous figures at the gym. Surrounding myself with good friends is good for me, but all of my friends shouldn’t “look like me.”

Thomas Cash, PH.D., maintains that an individual’s private body talk significantly affects one’s mental health.  Specifically, in The Body Image Workbook, he points out a commonly held belief that too many people mistakenly assume.  It is: If I Could Look Just as I Wish, My Life Would Be Much Happier.

This assumption is especially prevalent in the private conversations that women are struggling with today. But what if part of our challenge is to look in the mirror and not only see ourselves, but the generations of women who went before us to bring us to the place we find ourselves standing?  What if we choose to see ourselves in a context of the woman working behind the Target checkout counter and the female refugee who is learning English for the first time and the woman who always sits a pew over but doesn’t look anything at all like us?

“What we are together,” the last lines of Ms. Giovanni’s poem, challenges me to see my reflection differently when I look in the mirror and envision my young Rwandan friend beside me.  We look and act and believe differently than one another, but “what we are together” is more than what we would be without each other.

When I step outside of my safe places and make friends with people altogether different than me, might I experience the generous, dear, friendly love of Jesus in a new and different way?  I’m thinking, yes.

Because my mindset changes.  And my worldview grows. And my capacity for love goes out, beyond myself.

 

We’re starting our Recovery study about Body Image tonight at Northwest Bible Church.  If you’re in the area, join us at 7:30 on Thursdays for our open group.  

 

Filed Under: Control, Grateful Moments, Healthy Bodies, The World Out There

#1 of 5 People We Need in Our Corner – A Good Physician

February 7, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Thankful to rawpixel.com for this image.

The world is desperate for healers.  Not the kinds of people who wave their arms around a stranger’s cancer-ridden body and shout prayers for a miracle, pointing to you on the other side of the television screen. Those kinds of healers are scary.

The world is desperate for healers of a different kind.  For the kinds of people who welcome our fragile bodies into their waiting rooms, closely examine our physical weaknesses and listen to our nervous-to-utter questions.  

For the kinds of people who make us feel at ease when we are sick and when our people are sick.  They ask thoughtful questions. They are thorough when they offer suggestions and prescriptions. 

If you have a good physician in your corner, you know what I mean.

Your good physician most likely resembles Luke of Antioch, the author of the third gospel in the New Testament.  In the introduction to Luke, my ESV Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible points out that Luke was widely known as “the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14).  He was known for his medical expertise, but what made him beloved was: [Read more…] about #1 of 5 People We Need in Our Corner – A Good Physician

Filed Under: Healthy Bodies, Moms and Daughters, The World Out There

When Jesus Says, “Arise!” How Will We Respond?

January 30, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

This image, captured by Casey Horner, points to a personal lesson I’m learning. Light has the power to penetrate the darkest places, if I choose to open my eyes to see.

I did not know I was asleep.

Four days before our wedding, I moved to a new place. I drove my gold ’96 Saturn northbound on I-35, from Austin to Dallas.  My car was packed tight and high with boxes, and behind me, my parents’ truck hauled the rest of my belongings. 

And for most of the three hour drive, my insides felt like a witch’s bubbly concoction, brewing and unsettled. My excitement about moving somewhere new brought a smile to my face until the cackling sound of Fear reminded me I wasn’t moving somewhere dreamy like London or Madrid.  You, my pretty, are moving to Dallas. Ha, Ha, Ha!  

My excitement about finding a new job would last a few minutes until Fear plopped into the black cauldron of my swirling emotions.  Fear threatened, The only job left for you will be teaching English to a room full of hormone-driven, entitled middle schoolers. Ha, Ha, Ha!

Excitement and fear swirled together down deep in the pit of my stomach, and the condition of my heart was murky, at best.   

But at least I was going to get married.   

The first few years of marriage were tougher than I could have imagined.  I scrambled to get home early in the afternoons in time to cook dinner, often overreacting if my husband was running a few minutes late. In my spare hours, I attended graduate school at night and trained for triathlons. In Dave’s spare time, he watched ESPN. We had more than a few arguments about how low the television volume really needed to be so that I could still study and he could still watch football. Or basketball. Or hockey.  We disagreed on almost every financial decision — the grocery budget, the clothing budget, the eating-out budget.

Keeping my nose to the grindstone, my head down and focused on the next task ahead, I stayed busy.  Busy was my distractor.  If I could stay busy, I could close my eyes, refusing to see the girl in the mirror who was growing more lonely and confused in her role as wife.  I look back and see her standing quietly in front of the flimsy, full length mirror clipped to the top of the doorframe. She stares ahead, confused and hurt, wondering, Why don’t I feel like I’m enough?  I have everything I want. [Read more…] about When Jesus Says, “Arise!” How Will We Respond?

Filed Under: Eating Disorders, Grateful Moments, Moms and Daughters, The World Out There

  • « Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • …
  • Page 17
  • Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Topics

About Me

Copyright © 2021 · Twenty Seven Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in