In the category with white chocolate M&Ms for things that I wish I had thought of first, MissRepresentation’s #NotBuyingIt app is one of the coolest things I’ve heard of recently. It joins the ranks of other apps I just love.

From the same folks that brought us that eye-opening film a couple years ago comes an app that brings media literacy to your finger tips.

The #NotBuyingIt idea was first made popular as simply a hashtag on Twitter. PolicyMic reports that the hashtag accompanied over 10,000 tweets during this year’s Super Bowl and reached almost four million people. The app takes that kind of grassroots consumer power to the next level.

The app combines the power of social media (Twitter, namely) as a higher tech “complaint department.” Users of the app can slap “#NotBuyingIt” onto an ad that they find offensive or degrading and let the company using the ad know how they feel. The app also allows mapping of where the most offensive ads are originating and which communities are taking the biggest stand.

The app is still in development and the creators are working to raise money to make it available. If it’s something you want to support, check out the fundraising page.

Organizing the 2012 Nourishing Body Image Awards has been such a blessing. Each year I’ve hosted the awards, I’ve been introduced to so many amazing people, organizations, movements, and websites, which in turn has truly enriched my work and life. From inspirational posts that moved me in profound ways to organizations who inspired me to share, donate, and stand up, the work of the award nominees is truly amazing. I feel honored to get to recognize the incredible efforts.

I also humbled by those of you who took time to post, comment, email, and send messenger pigeons (okay, that was just one of you…) with your nominations. Thank you for taking an active part in recognizing how amazing this work is as well.

Without further ado, I’d like to share the nominations and winners of the 2012 Nourishing Body Image Awards.

 

Best Body Image Blogger

Nominees:

Arielle Lee Blair at Actively Arielle

Margarita Tartakovsky at Weightless

Sydney Bell at Body Respect

WINNER: Arianna Merritt at Arianna’s Random Thoughts

 

Best Body Image Website

Nominees:

The Kissy Project

My Purple Dreams

Voice in Recovery 

WINNER: Adios Barbie

Most Body Positive Magazine or Book

Seventeen

Vogue 

Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

WINNER: Operation Beautiful by Caitlin Boyle

 

Best Body Image Post or Article

Nominees:

Good Food vs. Bad Food on Baby Dust Diaries

The Art of Listening to Your Body on Weightless 

The Body Love Timeline on Already Pretty

The Power in Imperfection on Medicinal Marzipan

WINNER:  You Only Think the Bullies Are Helpful on Eat the Damn Cake

Best Body Image Boosting Organization

Nominees: 

Rewrite Beautiful

Endangered Bodies NY

Healthy At Every Size

Hungry for Change

Girls On The Run

Proud 2 B Me

WINNER: BE ME Foundation

Most Body Loving Company

Nominees: 

American Girl

Lane Bryant

Jean-Paul Gaultier

WINNER: Curvy Yoga

 

Best Body Positive Photo, Video, or Image

Nominees:

Be Weird, Be Random, Be You

Be Proud of

Media Spin

Some Thoughts on Confidence

WINNER: Self Esteem

 

Most Body Positive Celebrity

Nominees:

Demi Lovato

Lady Gaga

Christina Hendricks

WINNER: Ellen DeGeneres

I invite all of the nominees and winners to proudly display their recognition via the badges below. Thank you for all that you do. Because of you, I have confidence that my friends, family, patients, and self will live in a world more accepting and nurturing tomorrow than we do today.

 

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I’ve talked here before about weight stigma. I’ve shared my perspective on how weight stigma develops, how it exists among fat and thin women, and how our modern-day efforts to curb obesity are resulting in furthering the phenomenon. I’ve given lots of examples and even asked readers to share their own stories of weight stigmatization.

I’ve tried to use Nourishing the Soul as a vehicle for weight stigma awareness, because I think it’s so crucial. If we can’t see it, we can’t address it. And I want to put it in the face of each and every one of us, so that we can’t turn a blind a eye for one more day.

But in all this skill we’re developing to spot weight stigma — at the grocery store or in the boardroom or on an airplane — there’s often one place that’s sadly overlooked: the mirror.

When I say that weight stigma exists everywhere, that includes within each and every one of us. As progressive and educated and enlightened as we may be. As fat or as thin as we may be. As many friends of various shapes and sizes as we may have. We all have internalized our cultural weight stigma.

To deny this is to play the blindness card, and I can tell you how I feel about that. It gets us nowhere but further entrenched in our own biases.

It’s impossible to exist in our society and not have internalized at least some of the fear surrounding weight. This fear is often all-consuming for the patients that I work with; but even those without eating disorders are victims of the cultural obsession with thinness. Stand at a party or by a water cooler and you’ll hear it — the insidious whisper of fat talk.

It’s Weight Stigma Awareness Week. In honor of the occasion, I’m urging all of us –myself included– to take a long hard look at how our internalized weight stigma shows itself. It might be in the way that I treat the customer in line behind me at the grocery or the assumptions I make about my co-worker’s dating life. It might be in private ways or public ways; it might shout or it might whisper. But if you listen hard enough, you can hear it.

If you’re curious to learn more about weight stigma and get educated on the faulty assumptions about weight, I’d encourage you to start with some of these great pieces –

Weight Stigma: Notice Your Own Behavior First

In ‘Obesity Paradox,’ Thinner May Mean Sicker

Women May Suffer Fat Stigma Even After Losing Weight

The Skinny on Fat and Thin

 How do you observe weight stigma? 

NEDA Awareness Campaign 

I hate to admit it, I really do, but I’m one of those people who really loves to support philanthropic efforts, but then allows… life… to get in the way. It’s not that I don’t support the cause or the mission. It’s not that I think I have more important things to do. It’s not that I’m lazy or uninterested. I just get busy. And Saturday mornings feel like such a good time to sleep in. And I’m really trying to save for a new car. And… a hundred other things. Can you relate?

I’m hoping for my sake there are some nods going on out there. 

The fact is, the pace of life often doesn’t make supporting an important cause as easy as it seems it should be. But when something’s important, like really important, it’s time to get moving. At least that’s what I’m telling myself as I lace up my walking shoes and heading the 2012 Chicago NEDA Walk in just a few short weeks.

See, NEDA is an organization that I admire. And I want to help them continue to do the amazing work that they do tirelessly. At it’s core, NEDA’s mission is to support individuals and families affected by eating disorders. They do this through efforts around prevention, improved access to quality treatment, and increased research funding to better understand and treat eating disorders. I find myself on their website regularly, pulling information for parents of my patients, referring to toolkits they’ve put together, checking out the location of next year’s conference, and learning what issues are being lobbied in Washington.

And since NEDA does so much for my field, asking so little in return, I figure it’s my responsibility (maybe honor) to help advance the work that they do.

NEDA Walks started a few years ago as a way to unite communities around the awareness of eating disorders while fundraising for NEDA’s amazing programs. The walks are fun, family-friendly, and non-competitive. What’s most amazing, though, is the sense of power that can be created when people come together to stand up against life-threatening illnesses.

There’s so much work left to be done, and I know that organizations like NEDA can’t do it alone. We need improved and more widespread prevention efforts. We need more funding for research to understand these disorders better. We need more resources for people struggling and those who care about them. We need more advocacy so that eating disorders are given the acknowledgement they deserve by politicians, laypeople, and insurance companies.

If you or someone you know has been affected by an eating disorder (and chances are, that’s true), then join me in supporting this amazing organization. Check out the NEDA website to learn how you can join or create a walk in your town, or feel free to contact me if you’d like support me in my efforts!