If you think such is a surprising reality, then maybe you might try visiting the city, although “cow-cockie” fashion could be the next victim in the search for redemptive significance!
The header before you is a Reuters headline, which affirms the following details in a recent study in the US. Now while I am Jonny King’s introductory line may have given the impression that this is merely a humorous affair, take note of the following details, and if you have children, particularly young girls, but not exclusively, as there are plenty of masculine fashion victims, I would encourage you not to fool yourself, by failing the offspring’s-self, as this can be the stuff of serious dimensions.
Read these details, and begin to reflect…
Almost nine in 10 American teenage girls say they feel pressured by the fashion and media industries to be skinny and that an unrealistic, unattainable image of beauty has been created.
An online survey of 1000 girls aged between 13 and 17 for the Girl Scouts of the USA found that three quarters said they would be more likely to buy clothes that they see on real-size models than on women who are skinny.
But three out of four girls said that fashion is “really important” to them.
“The fashion industry remains a powerful influence on girls and the way they view themselves and their bodies,” said Kimberlee Salmond, senior researchers at the Girl Scout Research Institute.
“Teenage girls take cues about how they should look from models they see in fashion magazines and on TV and it is something that they struggle to reconcile with when they look at themselves in the mirror,” she said.
While these figures may sound alarmingly high, I would think that they are pretty representative of not only the way things play out in the various contexts around this world, but also, as it relates to this age bracket, in these given contexts.
However, note this perverse reality, where this article notes the following…
More than 80 percent of teen girls said they would rather see natural photos of models rather than pictures that had been digitally altered or enhanced.
Do you get what these young girls are affirming here?
Even though they are influenced and immersed by this culture, they do not like really like what they see, or the resulting pressure that such a context exerts, and such an admission affirms that they would prefer to be influenced by a more sympathetic, actualized, and real representation, which intersects with the real world. In other words, these young people are acknowledging the unreal world of this context!
What generally happens when someone does not like a certain situation or the context of a given moment?
At such a time, people will more than likely reject it! For example, offer someone Gherkins, and all those who do not like these “interesting” vegetables explicate the term, “Yuck,” and reject the aforementioned green slug on offer. They do not, on the other hand, accept these with delight… UNLESS, unless, a stronger motivation, a stronger inclination, a stronger and more pressing reality is exerting itself into this situation that makes accepting the Gherkins the lesser of any other motivating force!
Therefore, as it relates to the context beforehand, why do these young people accept the constraints and restraints of the present “fashionised” worldview, even when it really does not intersect with the reality of the lives of 99.999999% of these young people?
To put it simply, they want something else more! However, to tease this out some more, there are bigger issues involved with what is happening in these situations that are centered around subjects like social and cultural acceptance, peer pressure and peer approval, but while these may seem like the root of the problem, and many may want to point to these, they are merely another fruit of the root problem, as the root of the problem digs down deeper, into soul of humanity.
Yes, you also might want to affirm that this is evidence of an addiction to Pop Culture, however, what is really going on with these pursuits is the evidenced reality of an idolatrous pursuit that seeks to find its functional redemption in a counterfeit god!
What these young individuals are saying is that I really need to wear these clothes, look this way, and be this shape, to be accepted by the Pop Culture of our youth, and its interrelated sub-culture, as this is the context of life where I am getting my worth, acceptance… functional redemption, therefore, I must fit in. Because of this, they are prepared to pay the atonement of attempting to attain an unreal size, an overly expensive look, or a disastrously God dis-honouring design, as it is that important… it really becomes something in the life and death proportions, and you know that this is so, because when you the parent seek to stop such realities, or limit such a look, all hell breaks loose, as you are attempting to stop an ultimate thing in their lives, and we serve what we worship, for good and for evil.
What can be done about this?
The article does provide some possible hope for these individuals, with the following words…
Other top influences on body perceptions, aside from celebrities and models, are peers, friends and parents, the poll showed.
However, while this may sound more hopeful, as Parents at least get a look-in, this also presupposes that Parents won’t replace one redemptive fix, Pop/Peer Culture, with another, the Parents themselves, as the Parents only become profitable if they point their child to Christ. If they can not deal with the aberrant super-structure supporting this present platform, and de-construct what is happening in their child’s life and choices, showing why they are acting and re-acting in such a manner, all the while pointing to Christ as the only sufficient or warranted source for what their children are trying to source, then at best, they will remove the fruit of the pursuit, and at worst, merely replace one pursuit with another.
You see, the answer to this question and this issue is not another counterfeit god, but the True God of the Bible, which is another reason why we must Parent for the Heart… Read more about this HERE!
We need to be able to say to our young folk that the reason they are so concerned with body size, the reason they are so concerned with image, the reason they are so concerned with what they are wearing, is that functionally they are responding to what provides them meaning and fulfillment at that present moment, and such realities affirm and underscore that it is not Christ who is the source and content of their functional redemption at such times, as it is not Christ whom they are looking to for such a reality. This also explains and affirms why they will continue in this pursuit that will not end in their living, as it can not do what they functionally so want it to do, which is provide them with the flourishing-to-fulfillment from within. What they need, is not a object, but a person, and the only Person who can meet this need is found in the reality of Christ alone, and such a One will be the end of their searching, the end of their striving!
Such a present reality only affirms that they are slaves to a most servile and sterile object, which is truly sad, when there is One who offers so much more, so much now, and so much forever.
Only Christ provides cosmic redemption, and only Christ provides functional redemption, and such an example as the subject before us, illuminates why we need Christ to be the Lord of all, all of the time, in every moment, in every way, and that such a time in our cultural moment, the pursuit of idolatry is everywhere (as it always has), as people run after many things to give purpose to their lives!
The really sad and maddening question is this: why do they, why do we, too often, too many times, each and every day, sell ourselves to something so cheap? Why do we, buy into the lies that something else, other than Christ, can provide the answers, the solutions, and the functional moment-by-moment redemption?
One letter provides the answer, and it is the letter in the middle of the word “sin”… which both affirms the nature of this pursuit, and the source where we too-often seek for the answers…”I”
Run to God, in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, as the HOME that you are looking for, is found in HIM alone!
Until Next Time
I am Jonny King
Postscript: After reading this post again, I have realised that a subsequent post builds nicely on the themes within… see, The Self-Esteem Movement: The Latest Idol Move on the Dance Floor toward Deception
