As you might recall, I am reading Dara Chadwick’s awesome guide for moms and their daughters as they navigate the roller coaster of adolescence, You’d Be So Pretty If …

(Review to come soon!)

One of the things she talks about is how media consumption can play a role in how we (and our daughters) feel about ourselves/themselves … but that ignoring media or banning it isn’t the solution. Rather, keeping an open dialogue is — and I agree with her 100 percent.

Like Dara, I can’t imagine giving up my magazine addiction — though lately I’ve been annoyed by the same stories circulating in publications..

But I hope to be able to do what Dara has done with her daughter: sit down with her and talk honestly and openly about air-brushing, how models/actresses/celebrities are paid to look a certain way and that it’s unrealistic of us to feel inadequate next to them, etc.

However, I literally cringed this morning when I saw this headline: ‘Hills’ Star Says Thin Co-Stars Brought Her to Bulimia

I admit I used to love The Hills, so I knew who this pseudo-starlet was, but in case you don’t know — Stephanie Pratt is the sister of sinister Spencer Pratt (one half of “Speidi”). Love her or hate her, she’s quite a character!

Anyway, she is a size 0-2 girl who claims that she felt “fat” next to Lauren and Audrina and Whitney on the show, and it led to bulimia.

Now, I’m not annoyed that she was bulimic — of course not — and I’m not doubting that pressure to be thin in Hollywood can spark/incite an eating disorder. I hope she’s turned things around (I haven’t gotten my hands on the full article yet; online there’s just a blurb).

But it just kills me that this is what is out there for general consumption: starlets (or in her case, wannabe starlets) who are skinny already out there talking about how they felt pressure to be even thinner.

Plus, she’s posing on the cover in a bikini! Hello, what kind of mixed message does that send?

Worse, as part of her article, there’s a link to “Scary Skinny Stars” — does US Weekly not realize that this is “thinspiration” for some?! Sure they do … but it sells magazines.

The thing is, we know that for so many, ED is psychological, it’s about control … We know it’s not always about vanity or wanting to be thin. But in Stephanie Pratt’s case, it was peer pressure that led her to bulimia.

It’s a vicious cycle, and it seems to just keep going on and on in the media. Skinny stars trying to get skinnier. Young girls looking up to these women, admiring them. Wanting to be like them. And the obsession with “thin” rages on.

Fortunately, self-acceptance is a growing trend here in the blogosphere — hopefully it’ll translate into real life, too. It’s like a backlash against all the hype to be skinny, to embrace yourself as you are now.

Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point started Operation Beautiful. Take a look, it’s an awesome initiative to end “fat talk one anonymous post-it at a time.”

In fact, just today Heather at Hangry Pants posted her mantra, “You are enough,”.

I love it!

We can’t make media go away (life would be boring without it!) but we can learn how to absorb it, dissect it and talk about it in a healthy manner.

If only someone had said to Stephanie, “You are enough” instead of suggesting she put on a T-shirt (vs. just posing in a bikini) maybe she wouldn’t have gone down the path she did.

I know it’s something I personally struggle with, but I’m all for promoting positive body image, one day at a time, one step at a time.

(Hope you like my little memo to myself in my journal :))

How about you? What do you think when you read about celebrities and Hollywood’s obsession with thinness? How can you love yourself today?