All Articles by truth

Theresa Ruth Howard Dancer/Writer/Teacher Theresa Ruth Howard began her professional dance career with the Philadelphia Civic Ballet Company at the age of twelve. Later she joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem where she had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Africa. She has worked with choreographer Donald Byrd as a soloist in his staging of New York City Opera's Carmina Burana, his critically acclaimed Harlem Nutcracker, as well as the controversial domestic violence work The Beast. She was invited to be a guest artist with Complexions: A Concept in their 10th anniversary season. In 2004 she became a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance. As a writer Ms. Howard has contributed to Russell Simmons’ One World magazine (art), and The Source (social politics), as well as Pointe and Dance Magazine. While teaching in Italy for the International Dance Association she was asked to become a contributor for the premiere Italian dance magazine Expressions. Her engaging, no nonsense writing style caught the eye of both the readers of Dance Magazine and its Editor in Chief who not only made her a contributing editor and has collaborated with Ms. Howard in See and Say Web-reviews. Her articles about body image prompted her to develop a workshop for young adult (dancers and non-dancers) My Body My Image that addresses their perceptions both positive and negative about their bodies and endeavoring to bring them closer to a place of Acceptance and Appreciation. She recently launched a blog by the same name to reach a broader audience (mybodymyimage.com) As a teacher Ms. Howard has been an Artist in Residence at Hollins University in and New Haven University in addition to teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, Marymount, Shenandoah, and Radford Universities, and the historical American Dance Festival. As a result of her work at ADF Ms. Howard was invited to Sochi, Russia to adjudicate the arts competition Expectations of Europe and teach master classes, and in Burundi, Africa where she coached and taught the Burundi Dance Company. Currently she on faculty at The Ailey School but also extensively throughout Italy and Canada. Ms. Howard's belief in the development, and nurturing of children lead her to work with at risk youth. At the Jacob Riis Settlement House in Queensbridge New York, she founded S.I.S.T.A (Socially Intelligent Sisters Taking Action) a mentoring program for teen-age girls where she worked to empower them to become the creators of their destinies. In addition she developed a dance program, which lead to an exchange with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Through her teaching and travels Ms. Howard began to observe a universal disenchantment and disconnection in teenagers that disturbed her, thus she set out to address it. Combining her philosophies of life and teaching, with the skills she garnered through outreach programs with diverse communities, she developed the personal development workshop Principles of Engagement: Connecting Youth to the Infinite Possibilities Within which gives teens a set of workable tools to increase their levels of success at tasks, and goals not only in dance, and all aspect of their lives. Theresa Ruth Howard is certainly diverse and multifaceted as an artist, and is moved to both write and create work; however she sees every student she encounters as a work in progress, and the potential to change the world one person at a time. The only was to make this world a better place it to be better people in it!

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50 Reasons Why You are Beautiful

hosted by thefriskycom

I love this idea I think that everyone should make their own list. If you make one send it in and I’ll happily post it!!!
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When legendary sex symbol Bo Derek appeared on Oprah a few months ago, Oprah kept pressing her to tell the world something profound about being a beautiful woman, and Bo kept brushing off the questions, saying, “It’s just about the way the bones line up.” That felt pretty profound to me. In our culture, the standard of beauty is narrow, and every day we face countless reminders of the ways we fall short. When it comes down it, though, our society’s definition of beauty is simple and unromantic: it’s high cheekbones and a button nose and long legs and a small waist and so on and so on. We can only congratulate or punish ourselves so many times for the way our bones line up. Here are 50 vastly different definitions of beauty that I know to be true…

1. It is beautiful to speak another language. It is beautiful to try.

2. Beauty is long hair, and short hair; brown, black, pink, yellow, or white. Beauty is a smooth bald head.

3. If you have been to hell and back, your resilience is beautiful.

4. Asking questions—especially “why?”—is always beautiful. Why? Because curiosity is beautiful.

5. You are beautiful when you are afraid to do something, and you do it anyway.

6. Flat stomachs are beautiful, sure, but big, soft bellies are beautiful, too.

7. If you can string words together into a sentence, and you’re brave enough to let someone else read it, that’s beautiful.

8. Beauty is putting paint on canvas, or strumming a guitar, or baking bread, or dancing with your eyes closed.

9. Creating is always beautiful.

10. Your bare face in the morning is beautiful. Ask the person who loves you. It’s true.

11. Beauty is the slightly horrifying realization that you still remember all the lyrics to your favorite song from 6th grade.

12. Remember the time your best friend called you crying? Because only your voice could calm her down? That was beautiful.

13. Beauty is laughing so hard your eyes are watering and your stomach hurts and you’re yelling, “Stop, stop! Seriously, I’m peeing!” (Yes. Peeing your pants can be beautiful.)

14. Beauty is telling a teenage girl that she’s going to be OK.

15. Beauty is calling someone out for saying something hurtful, even if you weren’t the one getting hurt.

continue the list

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I Like my Bigger Body Better- Rachel East

I just came across this article written by Rachel East on the Frisky. I thought that is was very interesting to hear her talk about how she viewed her body and the changes it went through as she matured. As I got further into the article I was at first a bit leery of the fact that one of the reasons she started to appreciate her fuller form was because her boyfriend loved her curves:
“He told me that I had a body like an ancient Greek statue. It is by far the best compliment I’ve ever received, solely because I studied art history in college”
I thought “Well that’s nice but why does it take a man telling you that you are beautiful for you to get it” A part of me instinctively went on the feminist defensive, but then I took a breath. So what? Who really cares how you get there so long as you do! Is is so very different from your mother and sisters telling you that you are beautiful until you believe it? Is it different if your girlfriends tell you? I suppose you can say that it is about the objectification if women by men and our insatiable need for their acceptance and validation that creates a great deal of these issues, but in t’ruth the same could be said for how relate to other women. It has been proven that most women dress more for other women then for men, and that women are harder on each other then men are on women so if we were really going to be honest it all boils down to the same thing. Sometimes we need other people (male or female) to get us out of our heads, and help us see things (including ourselves) in a different way.

Here is Rachel East’s article:
Five years ago I had an “ideal” body.

I don’t mean to say that my body was free of imperfections, but rather that I had a body that most women are taught to believe is close to perfect: I was 5” 5’, weighed barely 115 pounds, and wore a size 2. I had a tiny waist, medium-sized breasts, a taut stomach, round bottom, and cellulite that was practically nonexistent. I was extremely slender, yet still somehow carried a feminine hourglass figure. I could never have been a contestant on “America’s Next Top Model,” but for a perfectly normal girl I had a perfectly enviable body.

Flash forward five years. Though I don’t own a scale, I’m probably 20 pounds heavier thanks to a slower metabolism, college drinking and a dire love of cheese. I now wear a size 6, my waist isn’t quite so minuscule, my stomach jiggles, I have cellulite swimming on my thighs, and I have ample junk in my apple-bottom trunk. My breasts have gotten ever-so-slightly bigger, but for every tiny bit that they’ve grown, my ass and thighs grew 10 times that … leaving me much more of a pear than an hourglass.

He told me that I had a body like an ancient Greek statue. It is by far the best compliment I’ve ever received, solely because I studied art history in college.

Size is all quite relative, of course. Adriana Lima would cry if she had my current body, but a contestant on “The Biggest Loser” would probably be thrilled to pieces. You, who I’m confident are somewhere between a Victoria’s Secret Angel and a 500 lb. man, would probably just call me normal.

Some might think there wouldn’t be a question about which body I prefer, right? If given the choice, clearly I’d go back to that younger, slimmer version of myself. But to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t. I didn’t like that body when I was in it as much as I like the one I have now. It’s a bit scary to admit that the reason doesn’t have much to do with me.

Five years ago, I was in a long-term relationship with someone who was completely wrong for me. I remember that he told me I was beautiful pretty often, which I never truly believed. I saw flaws when I looked in the mirror, and I hated them. My thighs weren’t muscular enough; the lines on my forehead were too deep for someone so young. More than anything, I always got the feeling that he was telling me what he thought he was required to by boyfriend law.

Two years later, I was at least 10 pounds heavier and had a new boyfriend, who I’m still with now. This time around I saw even more flaws—flabbier thighs, a stomach that wasn’t really flat, deeper lines in my forehead. Maybe it’s because I’m with the right person, and maybe it’s because he loves me more than the old guy, but my current boyfriend has never made me feel that he was feeding me lines or telling me what he thought I wanted to hear.

read the read here

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Estee Lauder Model Suing over photoshopping

We know that virtually every image we see in print has had a little Photoshop magic worked on it, but it’s easy to forget just how much. Former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Caroline Forsling is here to remind us. She is currently suing Estee Lauder over an ad she appeared in for Origins Plantscription, an “anti-aging serum.” The stuff is meant for mature skin—but Forsling is only 35. The ad shows Forsling’s face without makeup, one side supposedly treated with Plantscription and the other side without it. Check out the ad above on the left. On the right, the way we’re used to seeing Forsling.

She is calling foul.
read full story after the Jump

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Who is the Oldest Working Model in the Biz?

1 Comment

The answer is Carmen Dell’Orefice!

She turned 80!
Git it Girl!!!

She is absolutely amazing, beautiful, elegant and sexy, this is what women should think about when they start freaking about getting older. Madame Dell’Orefice is clearly only getting better. If women- or men can manage to age and look like this we wouldn’t end up these fearful, youth crazed middle aged people clinging to our fading youth like a crackhead to a pipe! we truly need to get over it and embrace the beauty of aging and the wisdom that it brings.

Go Carmen!!

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In Case You Missed it- get the Hot Links!

Here are a collection of posts that you might have missed but might be interested in:



Italian Vogue Features three +sized models on Cover!!

There is no such thing as a “Bikini Body” (Thank Goodness!)

Banning Bitchfests By Jenny Stahl

“Dark Girls” Preview: Documentary Exploring Color Bias Against Black Community! [Video]


Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks a Modern Day Body Image Superwoman

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Vogue Italia Features 3 +Size Models on COVER!!! Finalemente!

Via Huffington Post
Always ready to up the body image ante, Vogue Italia’s June issue celebrates curvy models, with a trio of plus-sized beauties posing for the cover. Tara Lynn, Candice Huffine and Robyn Lawley lean over plates of spaghetti in their lingerie, and inside, Marquita Pring is added to the mix for Steven Meisel’s lens.


OK OK I love this, and the ladies are giving it!

However my only issue is– Why did they have to have them hovering over plates of Pasta? It’s as if to say “Yeah this is how e got this big ( oh yeah and sexy)” It’s like they giveth and they taketh away. Its a bit insulting, for me it’s akin to putting three black women on the cover and having them sit over a plate of Fried chicken and Watermelon.
WHY!!!!

Who really thought that that was a good idea, or a good image? Who thought that that concept was going to empower real women) (I won’t use the plus size label in this context because the majority of women look closer to this then the standard sized model–at least in America) I am sure that the less than subtle irony was not lost on any of the ladies. I am sure that amongst themselves between shutter snaps they whispered under their breath to one another that because they are plus sized they pose with food- I am sure that they probably wanted to say “You know do we really have to pose with pasta?” But were stifled by the fact that this may be the first and last Vogue cover any of them ever gets and we have all watched America’s Next Top Model and Tyra and Mr&Ms Jay always tell the girls not co complain- comply.–

Although it is not perfect I am happy for the start!!!

That Having been said the editorial spread it MAJOR!!! HOT HOT HOT! It is Italian Vogue so they went there with the nude photos that really show the zaftig curves of the women and I have to say, they are full and sexy!! It’ s what most real men prefer, a hand full check it out here (NSFW)


And they gave us a Choco Bella!

Kudos Molto Bene Vogue Italia Grazie a Voi!

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Your Body Image is all in your head: Like Really- in your Brain!

Well we all knew that the way we see ourselves was all in our head, meaning the way we think, but a new study has shown that the cause might not just be the mind but the actual brain. The results basically suggests that people with Body Dysmorphic disorder have general abnormalities in visual processing which means that the brain has issues processing visual information. This could explain why a person suffering from Anorexia who is dangerously thin looks in in the mirror and sees themselves as fat. Which also means that the disorder may not be completely psychological, which may create more insight as to treat the disorder. If your brain has issue processing then perhaps traditional methods of treating the disorder, like therapy might be just one element of treatment. Where the study may not answer all the questions, (in fact it may pose more) it does provides important insight that could lead to a better more successful method of diagnosis and treatment for sufferers.

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In their research, investigators at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that people with body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD, have less brain activity when processing images as a whole — what they call “the big picture” — than they do when looking at things in detail.

“Many psychological researchers have long believed that people with body-image problems such as eating disorders only have distorted thoughts about their appearance, rather than having problems in the visual cortex, which precedes conscious thought,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Jamie Feusner, assistant professor of psychiatry and director of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Intensive Treatment Program at UCLA, said in a university news release.

“This study, along with our previous ones, shows that people with BDD have imbalances in the way they see details versus the big picture when viewing themselves, others and even inanimate objects,” Feusner continued.

For the new study, Feusner and colleagues scanned the brains of 14 people with BDD and 14 healthy participants without the disorder (“controls”) as they looked at digital pictures of houses. Some of the photos included fine details while others were changed to show only general shapes. When looking at the less-detailed photos, less activity in the parts of the brain that process visual information was noted among BDD patients than among control participants. The authors noted that these findings were even more pronounced in more severe cases of BDD.

“The study suggests that BDD patients have general abnormalities in visual processing,” Feusner explained in the news release. “But we haven’t yet determined whether abnormal visual processing contributes as a cause to developing BDD or is the effect of having BDD. So it’s the chicken-or-the-egg phenomenon.”

Read complete article after the JUMP

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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi wears Makeup?

Berlusconi is 74 years old, he is the Prime Minister of a country, owns television and news papers, has billions of dollars and is a MAN (and we all know that the world is much kinder to men when it comes to aging and the rules of attraction and acceptance just doesn’t apply to them) So the fact that Berlusconi feels that he needs make-up and hair implants only proves that it’s really about how a person feels about themselves, and not who they are how much power they have or the amount of money they amass. I guess it’s cool, I mean Italy has Berlusconi and America has Donald Trump, who between his –well can you even call that a comb over? It’s more like a fold over and over, and the orange tanner they certainly could give Berlusconi a run for his money or at least to the make-up chair, or perhaps the two could swap make-up bags. Hey I shouldn’t make fun, after all Prince is almost fully beat and he is one of the sexiest men alive, and there other musician who wear make-up daily too like Dave Navarro, so maybe it shouldn’t be so shocking then…

Reporter Ariel Levy profiled the PM for The New Yorker and here is a short excerpt:

When I finally met Berlusconi — “Mr. Winner, Mr. Machismo,” as Flavia Perina described him — I was shocked. He is tiny, no more than five feet four inches tall. He wears white eyeliner on his lower lids to make his eyes pop in photographs, and he uses heavy foundation on his face, which renders him the same orangey-brown color as the cast of “Jersey Shore.” His hair is thinning–“because I had too many girlfriends,” he once said, before he got implants — and dyed a vivid burnt sienna. Despite these efforts, he is not a young seventy-four; Berlusconi, in the words of his best friend, is a bit dilapidated.
Read the Full Article Here

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Former Model Yasmin Le Bon Comes Clean about her Body Image and Exercise Addiction…

Most of you Youngins might nor remember the hot 80’s English Band Duran Duran or Simon Le Bon and you might not recognized his supermodel wife Yasmin but during the reign of the Amazons (Cindy, Naomi, Christy and Linda) she was pretty high up there. high enough to land one of the hottest lead singers of the hottest pop band. Yasmin is now 46 years old and with those years in the spot light and on the runway behind her she reflects on her struggle to find balance- between her body, self image, aging and of course food and exercise.

Supermodel (and wife of Duran Duran’s lead singer Simon) Yasmin Le Bon sat down with June’s Harper’s Bazaar UK to talk about her personal regimen these days. The 46-year-old seems to have ditched a slew of bad habits for a life of Wing Chun kung-fu, Ashram retreats and, well, eating.

On keeping fit: “I’ve definitely had an issue with over-exercising at times, and I had to give it all up for a year or two to let my body mend. It sounds ridiculous, but exercise is addictive — it draws you in and you ignore the pain, so I’m careful now.”


On aging:
“As we get older, there are things we have to accept. I know that now my body needs to be heavier — I’m over a stone more than I used to be.”

On her diet:
“What suits me better is eating lightly through the day, then having a proper, but not huge, meal at night. It’s a less extreme version of how I ate when I was modelling full time — although, back then, I lived off the odd bread roll if I was lucky. But I just love food. I’m not a fussy eater, and I love wine — it’s a great, quick fix.”

We, too, have found wine is a great, quick fix for just about everything. For more, head over to HarpersBazaar.co.uk.

Take a look at photos of Yasmin over the years.
Check out photos here