Such a Negative Image

Like almost everyone else in the world, when I am waiting in agonizing long lines at Food City, Wal-Mart and any other stores with magazine racks beside of the check out isles. I skim the front pages of the magazines.
It makes me sick, but every time I see more and more magazines with pictures of "fat" and "thin" celebrities being compared on them.
As a teenager, I suffer from self esteem issues, I have a negative body image, its something I must struggle with everyday. These magazines don't help. Especially when I see celebrities, who in my opinion have great, healthy looking bodies, to me, healthy isn't stick thin with ribs protruding either, being compared to girls with bodies that its almost impossible for most normal people to achieve healthily.
Most celebrities have personal trainers, dietitians and a fully paid staff of people who help them maintain their bodies. I don't know very many teenagers who can afford this. I know I can't.
Teenagers have a lot on their plate. School, career and future planning, sports, clubs and activities, and not to mention the fact that the majority of families in 2008 are 'dysfunctional' so thats a lot of things that we have to worry about, and thats not even listing the one thing that almost everyone I know struggles with everyday. The need for acceptance. Now, I'm not a Coach purse carrying, Polo wearing social butterfly, and I really don't give a rats rear end what most of the people in the world think about me, but there is a select group of people, whom I care what they think of me, and of course the entire opposite sex. Well maybe not the entire population, but still.
When I see pictures of Kelly Clarkson or Christina Aquilara, and I look at them, I see a body image that is healthy, thin, but not too thin, curvy and sexy but not overly plump, the body image I myself would one day like to obtain.
But then, when I see Kelly Clarkson being called 'fat' or remarks being made that
'she's gaining too much weight' and I know that she weighs no where near what I do, it makes me feel bad about myself. It shouldn't but it does.
Not all magazines are this way. I subscribe to Seventeen, and they stress the importance of being healthy and not necessarily thin because the truth is some people are built with wider frames and more curves than others, making them seem even at a 'good' weight larger than smaller framed people at the same weight.
Personally I think that these magazines are outrageous and are helping feed the already negative body image that a lot of teenagers have.
I've seen many of my friends, who I think look great and have perfect bodies, freak out about their weight because of this 'pop-culture body image' and I think something should be done about this. Its not fair to us. Life sucks when you are a teenager, hormones are raging, mood swings are inevitable, and most of the time we already feel like we don't measure up to the standards we should.
All that these images give us is just another negative to add to our equations. I think that doing something to eliminate this image would help stop a lot of teenagers and even young adults from developing negative body images and eating disorders.

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