5 ways to pretend it’s summertime.

Anne Hathaway and Kelly Osbourne get dressed up.

The most obvious Oscar snubs.

Madonna makes a poor fashion choice.

Jimmy Fallon sued for hiring … a woman?

Must see fashion documentaries.

How to have healthy relationships.

Do you remember 2gether!?

It’s ok to fight the jiggle.

Everyone hates Barbie. Is it because she’s tall, leggy and disproportionately well-endowed? Or is it because her lashes are permanently curled to perfection and is always matched up with the incredibly good looking Ken? Banish the biatch from shelves for good (or at least hide them behind a bunch of much uglier toys). Do what you gotta do, Iran—this pernicious piece of Western culture is eroding morality codes everywhere!

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Learn to love your body

How you can stick to an exercise plan

Biebs mans up and agrees to take the test….the DNA test

10 fictional places we wish were real

Kate Gosselin proves why she’s mother of the year

Snooki debuts her scent…and this awesome video

Nothing like a guy in a suit

Who we’d approve as a real life Carmen Sandiego

Paris Hilton, motorcycle racer?

So you think you’re fat.

Rihanna gets hospitalized.

Kelly Clarkson is not a lesbian.

How old were you when you lost your virginity?

We know who the Slutty Pumpkin is!!

Take a peek at Leo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby.

What did Beyonce decide to wear for Halloween?

Someone feels sorry for you, Edward Cullen.

How to decorate a dorm room.

I always hated the day when we would watch movies involving a girl with an eating disorder in middle school and high school. Suddenly people would be leaning back in their chairs and furrowing their brows at me. I could never escape their concerned glances, the way they watched me eat my salad I had packed that day. Sometimes I’d even hear them whisper to each other about how I was unhealthy. Usually I would react by rolling my eyes and getting the greasiest pizza slice the cafeteria had to offer. This wouldn’t stop them from shaking their heads when I headed to the bathroom after lunch. Read More »

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. Last month Tiffany spent a month at Outward Bound and challenged her physical limits. This month, Ashley's going to try to stop hating on her body so much. Can she do it!? Could you?]

This week I got some outside help for my challenge that was very interesting and very helpful. Coincidentally, I had mandatory work meeting/training title “Overcoming Negativity in the Work Place”. Everyone had to go and no one was looking forward to it. The training turned out not to be so bad because it was nothing like what we all assumed it would be. The lady training us/giving the presentation studied psychology and neurobiology and pretty much gave us a 101 on negativity and the brain. I learned that negativity is a natural response in the brain and a bunch of other brain related information. It was super interesting to get the 411 on where our negativity stems from and it put a lot of my negativity issues in perspective.

So what does this mean in terms of this challenge you ask? For me, a lot.

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[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. Last month Tiffany spent a month at Outward Bound and challenged her physical limits. This month, Ashley's going to try to stop hating on her body so much. Can she do it!? Could you?]

So here’s another thing this challenge has taught me about myself — It’s REALLY hard for me to keep my promises. But only when it comes to me, I always follow through with promises I make to other people. This is probably because when the person on the other end of the promise is me, there’s no one to hold me accountable for that promise. To be perfectly honest, I’ve fallen off a little this week. Here are the actions and comments that were not very “I love my body” friendly:

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[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. Last month Tiffany spent a month at Outward Bound and challenged her physical limits. This month, Ashley's going to try to stop hating on her body so much. Can she do it!? Could you?]

As everyone knows, college is the time that most of our bodies go through changes. Some of us develop our feminine curves because that puberty thing didn’t happen when they said it would (hooray for boobs and hips!), some of us gain the “freshman fifteen”,  and those special others get active and involved and get the best bods they’ve ever had. Of course there are those who remain more or less the same, but that wasn’t the case for me. I fell into all three categories — my hips widened, my boobs got bigger, I gained the sophomore sixteen, and I eventually got motivated to get to the gym and get in the best shape I’ve ever been in. Somehow I went through all of these changes and I still find myself hatin’ on my body. It recently dawned on me that all the negative comments I have to say about my body don’t reflect the way I really feel about it. I do love my body, now more than ever, I’ve just developed a really bad habit of putting myself down when it comes to my figure.

Now I’m not going to lie, I’m a fairly picky and particular person who more or less has something to say about everything (yeah, I’m that girl…but I swear I don’t ACTUALLY comment on everything), but this habit goes beyond that part of my personality. As unhealthy as it is, I put myself through some sort of mean-girl-high-school-hell  for absolutely no reason! I could blame this habit on “the media” or the socialization of girls but pointing the finger at society when I’m well aware of what I’ve been doing to myself won’t get me anywhere. I’m all for critically analyzing why we do the things we do and what influences us to be the way we are (GWS major here), but I’m more for personal responsibility. Now that I’ve noticed just how unhealthy and negative the comments I make about my body are, it is up to me to change them. I am determined to shake this awful habit!

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Although the 2011 VMAs that took place this past Sunday were somewhat boring and uneventful, there was a lot of buzz about Demi Lovato’s new look. The “Skyscraper” singer walked the red carpet wearing a tight, body-hugging silver mini-dress with a plunging neckline. She accessorized with some metallic bangles and a pair of Louboutin pumps, and even though 99% of us would never be able to pull off a look like that if we tried, Lovato was subject to a lot of criticism that night.

So what was everyone upset over? Her body.

Before entering a treatment center in October of 2010, Demi was a completely different person. The stress of constantly being in the public eye had really taken a toll on her, forcing her to develop an eating disorder in the process. She had a very, VERY slim frame and almost looked a little unhealthy. After entering the rehabilitation clinic, Lovato was able to recover from her disorder and also recovered from a lot of mental problems. That being said, she obviously gained a little weight.

The weight-gain and her new curvier figure caused the star so much Twitter hate, that she eventually had to tweet out the following:

• @ddlovato: I’ve gained weight. Get over it. That’s what happens when you get out of treatment for an EATING DISORDER.

• @ddlovato: Guess what, I’m healthy and happy, and if you’re hating on my weight, you obviously aren’t. #UNBROKEN

Thing is, I’m a little confused. Sure, Demi definitely gained weight (as you can tell by comparing before and after photos), but who in their right mind would classify her as “fat?” I’d kill to have that body, and I know I’m not alone.

…Or am I? Even though Hollywood has been trying to embrace more full-figured women in the past few years by promoting healthy lifestyles and promoting plus-size stars, I can’t help but feel like people are still constantly pressured to be a size 2. After some of the most beautiful bigger women in the industry shed all their weight (Jennifer Hudson, Raven Symone, Jordin Sparks, etc…), it makes me wonder if that really is the key to success. It’s no secret that Demi has an amazing voice, but will her new body boost or shrink her fan base?

Aside from the Hollywood aspect of it, what does it mean for female body image as a whole? If some people look at Demi’s body and think “fat,” what hope is there for girls who are her size or larger? Should we be embracing healthy bodies instead of just skinny ones? I think as a society, we should embrace and encourage more women to go for the healthy look and not the impossibly tiny look. Maybe if there were more women who looked like Demi proudly flaunting their stuff, we could save a lot of young women from the stress of negative body image.

What do you think about Demi’s new look? Do you think women should aspire to be healthy or just to look their absolute skinniest? 

Take a look at this Playtex tampon ad. One of these women is not like the others.

This popped up on my Pandora page, and I couldn’t help but be distracted by it.  Playtex’s current ad campaign is based on the idea that “every woman’s body is different,” and at first glance it’s a pretty standard tampon ad. Lots of pink and girly girls – note the skirts and long hair. But if you look at this ad, you’ll see that two out of the three female figures depicted here are almost identical, just posed differently. The woman in the middle and the one on the right are both very slim. They are ideal according to the “thin is in” mentality glorified in the media, but in all likelihood quite a bit smaller than the average American woman. The woman on the left is the only who looks “different,” as her silhouette is significantly more curvy than the others featured in the ad. (I’ll be using “curvy” as a very relative term – obviously, the “curvy” woman here is really pretty average, but she’s rather curvy in comparison to the other women in the ad.)

This is a tampon ad, and obviously a woman’s physical appearance has nothing to do with what type of tampon is right for her. But because it presents a picture of female silhouettes, in which we can see only the superficial outlines of three bodies, the focus of this ad becomes female body size and shape. Read More »