blog
Navigating Double-Standard Dress Code Dilemmas
Between the viral tweets about girls at summer camp being required to wear T-shirts over their swimsuits (while the boys go shirtless) and the dozens of messages we receive weekly about how to handle double-standard dress codes for girls, we decided to share a brief...
Our Book: More Than a Body
Our first book, More Than a Body, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is available everywhere! Get your copy today! Find it anywhere books are sold, including every retailer linked below: Amazon Barnes & Noble Bookshop Books-a-Million Hudson IndieBound...
Adele as a Savior or a Threat to Your Body Image
As singing icon Adele is being celebrated worldwide for her significant weight loss, the body positivity world is grappling with what it means when a "full-figured" icon no longer fits the bill. That's a lot of responsibility, and she never asked for it. Without...
Objectification & Loving Relationships Are Not Compatible
By Lexie Kite, Ph.D. One of the biggest barriers many women face when working to improve their body image and heal their relationship with their bodies is the judgment and rejection they fear from their romantic partners. This seems to be particularly true for women...
J-Lo and Shakira’s Halftime Performance Was Both Empowering and Objectifying
By Lindsay and Lexie Kite, PhD So many people have been writing and asking us to weigh in on the Super Bowl halftime headline about whether the performances were empowering or objectifying. (You know that question is generally our forte!) But our input here is more...
Raising Girls with Better Body Image: FAQs
By Lexie Kite, Ph.D. Some of the most frequent questions we're asked about body image revolve around teaching and raising young girls. The reasons why are obvious: It is extremely difficult to live in a female body, let alone raise girls growing up in this wildly...
The Bikini Tyranny of Body Positivity
By Lindsay Kite, PhD How did wearing a bikini become the gold standard for demonstrating body positivity? Yes, every body is a bikini body if that’s what you really want to wear, but why are two-piece swimsuits (and posting pictures of ourselves in them online) now...
Save Your Girls From Instagram
By Lexie Kite, Ph.D. I know a 12-year-old girl who is the embodiment of our famous Beauty Redefined mantra: My body is an instrument, not an ornament. She is kind, innocent, active, and largely free from the burden of living to be looked at that is placed upon women’s...
Dress Codes Trying to Desexualize Girls are Actually Sexualizing Them More
By Lexie Kite, PhD and Lindsay Kite, PhD Church Prom Dress Code Boys: Tie and button shirt required. No low-rider pants. Girls: Sleeves should cover the shoulder and top of the arm. No cleavage showing. No bras or bra straps showing through sheer fabrics. No low...
Searching for Scraps of Power, One Swimsuit Pic at a Time
By Lindsay Kite, Ph.D. The most-liked pics of women on Instagram are the body-baring ones. When lifestyle bloggers post casual swimsuit pics of themselves in front of a cool brick wall -- looking off to the side, toes turned inward, hips pushed back to subtly...
Our TED Talk: Body Positivity or Body Obsession? How to See More and Be More
In September 2017, Beauty Redefined Co-director Dr. Lindsay Kite presented a TEDx talk at Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City, Utah. This 16-minute talk summarizes nine years of body image research and personal passion for promoting increased understanding of the...
When Curvy Appreciation Turns to Objectification
By Lindsay Kite, Ph.D. We don't ever get too pumped about the latest viral body positivity stories, because we've found that if it's quickly embraced by the masses, it probably doesn't challenge the status quo in any substantial way. The story about the man gaining...
Modest is Hottest? The Revealing Truth
Women and girls are more than just bodies. But you wouldn’t know that if you looked to media, or even sometimes well-meaning religious* rhetoric, for the truth about females. And you wouldn’t know that if you listened to the way so many of us discuss the topic of...
Not Picture Perfect? Bounce Back from a Body Image Blow
By Lindsay Kite, Ph.D. 1 New Notification: [Someone] added a photo of you. Oh wow. It's not good. It's so not good. Whatever the reason -- bad angle, unflattering position, weird filter, googley eye, whatever. You HATE it. We've all experienced this one way or...
How I’m Winning the Body-After-Baby Battle
By Lexie Kite, PhD My amazing baby girl, Logan, turned one this week. Having been fed a lifelong diet of how humiliating “bodies after babies” are and how important it is to “get your body back” after birth, I was not thrilled about living a life with a post-baby bod....
When “You Look So Skinny!” Does More Harm Than Good
By Lexie Kite, Ph.D. (Originally posted in Feb. 2014) POP QUIZ: If you know a girl or woman who has lost weight but you don't know how or why she did it, what do you do? A: Compliment, compliment, compliment! The more praise about her fab new bod, the better. B:...
Stop Cheering for the Objectification of More Women
By Lindsay Kite, PhD, and Lexie Kite, PhD In addition to the very young, very thin, surgically and digitally augmented and idealized bodies Sports Illustrated has always featured with or without swimsuits in its "Swimsuit Issue," the leading sports magazine now deems...
Help us #CuttheCarls Because Women are #MoreThanMeat
(This was originally posted in August 2014. We're republishing as a refresher following Donald Trump's selection of Carl's Jr. CEO Andrew Puzder as U.S. Labor Secretary. See Puzder's very telling quotes about objectification below. See Lindsay's remarks in the Boston...
Your Body is Not a Before or an After
“Before and after” body transformation photos used to be relegated to late-night infomercials or old magazine fad diet ads, but now you can’t click on IG or FB without seeing the dramatic comparison pics from your old friend selling those shakes and skinny wraps or...
Are Body Positivity and Fitness Compatible?
By Lindsay Kite, Ph.D. *Trigger Warning: If you struggle with overexercising or orthorexia, please be cautious and mindful of how this discussion might affect you. If you want to improve your body image, but you have trouble prioritizing regular exercise ... join the...
From Body Anxiety to Body Image Activism: Our Story
We are Lexie and Lindsay Kite, PhD, identical twins and co-directors of Beauty Redefined, a nonprofit working to help girls and women improve their body image and self-worth as they wade through harmful cultural ideals. We want to tell you about our (very twin-like)...
Podcast Interview: Empowerment, Body Positivity and the Internet
This interview was transcribed and then edited for clarity (thank you, Rachel Garrison!) based on an audio interview featured on the Feminist Current podcast earlier this month. It was conducted by Meghan Murphy, founder and editor of Feminist Current with Lindsay...
Empowering or Objectifying: The Clashing Camps of Body Positivity
By Lindsay Kite, PhD Because our culture teaches that women's bodies and faces determine our worth, and that only certain rare bodies and faces are worthy of anything good, people who want empowerment for women are stuck in two conflicting groups. The first group is...
Body Image Baby Steps (and an announcement!)
One of my most important missions in life is to help girls and women understand their value and rise up in the face of objectifying ideals that come from media and other people. Being an advocate for women feels like something I am called to do, and I've spent the...
This Post is About Volleyball Shorts.
Here’s a fun game: Google Image search your local school’s men’s volleyball team. Now Google Image search the women’s volleyball team. Now ask yourself why the guys are drowning in all that extra fabric!? We’re concerned about the men here. All that extra shorts...
Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. Let’s Misbehave!
"Well-behaved women seldom make history." Many big industries want us to behave. They want us to be live “stylishly ever after,” they want our “girl power” to come from marketing that phrase on our push-up bras, they want our health to be defined by how good we can...
Female Objectification: Who’s Really to Blame
Women are constantly being dehumanized and reduced to objects to be groped, harassed, catcalled and evaluated -- and some men feel comfortable doing all of those things and then boasting about it, or deny it by mocking the appearance of the women as unworthy of their...
Watching Women Want
Written by Autumn Whitefield-Madrano of The Beheld I’ve been watching a lot of the Women’s World Cup, with a fervor that surprises even me. I’m an unlikely soccer fan to begin with; sports, personally speaking, have traditionally been something to be avoided and/or...
Cleanse Your Mind, The Rest Will Follow: Transform Your Health With a Media Fast
Have you tried the latest health cleanse? It's SO great. It'll help you feel better about your body inside and out, and jump-start your healthy choices so you'll have the motivation to be active and feel A-MA-ZING. THIS cleanse is brand new. None of the celebrity...
Invisible Women Over 40: Anti-Aging and Symbolic Annihilation
If you lived on another planet and everything you knew about humans came from mainstream media, you’d be absolutely shocked to find out a couple of facts: Female humans do not die or crawl into caves to disappear at age 40 while male humans live much longer, active...
Our 3 Issues with the Swimsuit Issue: Sports, Sexualization and Side-Effects
Since the debut of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is being celebrated on the Today Show and the Tonight Show and everywhere in between, we have to counter that excitement with a reality check about this supposed sports magazine's serious blow to female...
9 Reasons to Ignore Every Mascara Ad Ever and Embrace Your Own Eyelashes
When we see this mascara ad (one of HUNDREDS just like it in any media directed at women), we have a few thoughts: Natural extension-free, insert-free eyelashes on women are unbelievably rare in all media today, and it has exerted some serious pressure on girls and...
What Will You Gain When You Lose (Your Scale)?
How often do you come up with health goals that often have a lot to do with how you look and little to do with real health and happiness? Profit-driven companies are busy bombarding us with slimy weight-loss slogans like Cheerios' "More Grains, Less You" and Special...
Your Body is Powerful. Use it as an Instrument, Not an Ornament.
*Trigger Warning: If you struggle with overexercising or orthorexia, please be cautious and mindful of how this discussion might affect you. Our research points to one particularly awesome way to experience real empowerment, decrease self-consciousness, and embrace...
Really Want to Feel Better About Your Body? Here’s Your 5-Step Game Plan
Developing positive body image — or feeling positively about your body, regardless of what it looks like at the moment — is key to health, happiness, progress and empowerment. When you're feeling especially self-conscious, it's hard to focus on much else or make...
Dying for A Tan
Two years ago, we at Beauty Redefined published a popular post arguing that the soaring increase in the number of young women with skin cancer is a beauty issue above all else. It has to do with young, light-skinned women believing tanned skin is equivalent to looking...
Starving and Stifled: Women are Counting Calories Instead of Changing the World
By Vanessa Garcia (Originally published Sept. 5, 2014 in the Washington Post) I was lying in bed in my New York City apartment when the world went black. My breathing had gotten sluggish, and my heart felt like it was slowing down. I didn’t feel pressure in my chest,...
Food, Fat and Fear: Recognizing an Eating Disorder and Recovering
In the U.S., 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from a life-threatening eating disorder during their lives. Many of those millions will never seek help and will die from the disorder. The No. 1 contributor to the development of anorexia and bulimia is poor...
Running from Self-Objectification
When we grow up surrounded by appearance-obsessed media's “Weigh Less, Smile More!!” and “Perfect Your Parts, Perfect Your Life!!” headlines plastered everywhere, those messages rake in billions and get us nowhere closer to real health and happiness. Instead, these...
Body Image and Bonding: Healing the Mother-Daughter Hurt
Far too many mother-daughter relationships are suffering under the lie that we are just bodies to be looked at, judged, and fixed. This painful belief manifests itself in moms appearing to be judgmental and overly critical, and daughters feeling like they will never...
Shedding for the Wedding? Shed the Lies Instead!
Every bride is reminded her wedding day is all about her. But instead of focusing on the happy relationship, major industries keep women focused on one new aspect of being a bride: becoming as small as possible for the big day. I, Lexie, got married while I was a...
Thinness, Happiness and the Illusion of Control: Let Your Heart Break
By Geneen Roth (Originally published here.) When you accept that hurting and healing are part of living, you can give up the fantasy that being thin controls your happiness. His name was David, and I was crazy in love with him. The way his shiny dark hair curled...
Selfies and Self-Objectification: A Not-So-Pretty Picture
Selfies aren't inherently evil. And taking 55 pictures of your own face at slightly different angles and with varying expressions is not fundamentally wrong. BUT (you knew that was coming) ... when we put this female-driven phenomenon in the context of the culture in...
Photoshopping: Altering Images and Our Minds
Photoshopping, digital alteration, image manipulation, blah blah blah. Everyone talks about the fact that so many images of women are “perfected” with the help of technology, but we can't just toss it aside as a non-issue everyone already knows about. Whether or not a...
Mind the (Thigh) Gap
Ever heard the phrase "Mind the gap?" It’s a warning to train passengers to take caution while crossing the gap between the train door and the station platform that began in London. Today, it’s time to use that phrase as a warning of a different kind of life-or-death...
Why Breast Implants Are Not “For You”
"I did it so I could feel better about my body. I did it so I could feel more like a woman. I did it so my clothes would fit better. I did it for ME." This is the text of a current TV commercial for breast augmentation, spoken by a beautiful, thin, middle-aged woman...
#Unapologetic: Barbie and Sports Illustrated Teach Sexual Objectification for all Ages
If you were an evil mastermind that wanted to convince the world that girls and women were only on earth as decorative ornaments to be looked at and lusted over, what would you do? How would you convince as many people as possible – both men and women, girls and boys...
Loving Your Body 101: The 3 Questions of Positive Body Image
The comments section of anything body image-related proves there is LOTS of confusion around the idea of "loving your body." Some jump to the panicky conclusion that promoting positive body image is promoting obesity -- like we're telling people to forfeit positive...
Vanity Fair-Skinned Only? The Race Issue in the “Hollywood Issue”
I guess the last few years of backlash weren’t enough to convince Vanity Fair to stop whitewashing beauty out of its pages. Here's a refresher: the “Fresh Faces of 2010” featured a lineup of nine beautiful young stars, all of whom had one...
So Much for Your “Body Peace Treaty,” Huh Seventeen?
If you needed any more ammunition to fuel your boycott of Seventeen magazine and your fight for media literacy for all, let this month's cover be the final blow. The magazine features "Pretty Little Liars" actress Troian Bellisario, whose cover story highlights her...
Victoria’s Secret War on Women. Nothing Sexy About It.
One of the things we at Beauty Redefined hate most in this world -- even more than Bratz dolls or people asking if we've seen the latest Dove video -- is when companies try to commodify girl power or empowerment to sell sexist, objectifying baloney. One of the most...
You Had a Baby? This is How You Get Your Body Back!
If you haven’t seen an ad on how to “get your body back!” after giving birth or seen a “news” story on how some celebrity new mom “got her body back,” you have not LIVED! Seriously, it means you are probably not alive. You should get that checked out. Because the rest...
Physically Photoshopping Ourselves Out of Reality
When the digital world of female faces and bodies looks nothing like the natural world, is it any wonder that women have turned to physical alteration to meet the unreal standards? The possibility of achieving unnatural ideals through enhancements, procedures and...
Pageants, Dance, Cheerleading, and Sexual Objectification: It’s Nothing to Cheer About.
If you are female or care about anyone who is, here are a few fun facts we all need to know now: Sexual objectification takes place when girls and women are viewed primarily as objects to be used and looked at. Environments where women are required, often by a...
Body Wraps Work! To Promote Body Anxiety and Unreal Ideals, But Not Real Health or Weight Loss
Instead of uniting with women as more than bodies to be looked at, fixed, and judged, why are so many of us preying on each others' insecurities by selling objectifying, unrealistic ideals to our social media contacts? Friends, we need to be more kind and...
To the Mom Who Taught Me Everything: A Body Image Breakthrough
The mother-daughter relationship can be either incredibly helpful or dangerously harmful to a daughter's body image. We stress the message that we are all more powerful than we realize and our influences matter. When a mother, grandma, sister, friend, or teacher...
If You Must Think About Your Weight, Think These 10 Things
By Tracy Moore, originally posted at Jezebel.com Another day, another opportunity to think about how much space you, as a woman, take up. That's how it feels when you can't throw a fat-burning supplement without hitting a visual about the losing of the weight or the...
Cellulite, Rimples and Dimples: A Beautiful Reality Check
It’s everywhere in real life and absolutely nowhere in TV, movies or magazines. It’s unrelated to health, yet constantly depicted as a sure sign of lazy slobbiness. Large or small, the vast majority of women have it, but it gets depicted as shocking headline news in...
Photoshop Phoniness: Hall of Shame
Photoshopping, digital alteration, image manipulation, blah blah blah. Everyone talks about the fact that so many images of women are “perfected” with the help of technology, but do we really understand how serious this issue is? Like exactly HOW MUCH these photos are...
Healthy Redefined Part 2: Forget About Fat and Get Fit!
*Trigger Warning for readers who struggle with overexercise or orthorexia. Please be cautious and mindful about how the discussion below might affect you. This is Part 2. Read Part 1 of this "Healthy Redefined" Series HERE! In a world where health successes and...
Healthy Redefined Part 1: Measuring the “Obesity Crisis”
Georgia’s “Strong4Life” Fat-Shaming Ad. “It’s hard to be a little girl when you’re not.” Note: This young girl does not have any of the health problems the campaign i s working to fight. Trigger warning for readers struggling with overexercise or orthorexia. Please be...
To BE or To Be Looked At?
You are capable of much more than looking hot. Have you thought about this statement? Do you understand the gravity of it? This phrase gave me goosebumps when I let it sink in. Women are always being looked at. And when we aren’t being looked at, we are too often...