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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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Misty Copeland on Tavis Smiley

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To Fathers on : Talking to Your Daughter About Beauty

‘I still remember the names of two girls my father identified as pretty in a fifth-grade class picture.’

By Emily Heist Moss
The Good Men Project Magazine
If you’re trying to be a good dad (and you’re reading this site, so I think you are), you know that your children are sponges. We soak up everything we hear you say, everything we see you do, and many of the things you thought we didn’t notice.

I still remember the names of two girls my father identified as “pretty” in a fifth-grade class picture. My dad taught me a lot of things: how to find the North Star, how to make a perfect grilled cheese sandwich, how to drive in a New England winter. He taught me to value diversity of opinion and honesty of expression, to choose good, smart people to be in my life, to believe that I can do and be anything I want. But from the comment on the class picture 13 years ago? From that, I learned beauty matters.

♦◊♦

Although boys must also navigate the tricky waters of body image and beauty, I will stick to daughters for two reasons. First, I can’t apply any particular expertise to the father-son relationship (being a daughter and all), and second, the consequences for girls when health and beauty get distorted tend to be much more severe (10 times as many women battle eating disorders than men).

No matter how old your daughter is she is receiving messages from every angle that tell her that her primary path to success is being beautiful. Be it Bratz dolls, princess paraphernalia, Miley Cyrus, Gossip Girl, E! Red Carpet specials, Miss America pageants, Sarah Palin, or Lindsay Vonn in Sports Illustrated, women are judged and rated based on their looks. Our intellectual, athletic, artistic, or social successes are inevitably predicated on and qualified by our appearance. Even CBS correspondent Lara Logan, victim of assault while covering the situation in Egypt, is discussed as a “Warzone ‘It Girl’ ” and a “gutsy stunner”—rather than simply “reporter.”
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How to Combat the ‘I Hate My Body’ Thoughts

By Dr. Susan Albers
Licensed clinical psychologist

The new Glamour magazine poll revealed what most women already know. We can judge our bodies very harshly. At times, we are our own worst enemy. According to the Glamour poll, 97 percent of women experience daily “I hate my body thoughts.” On average, 13 of these negative thoughts pop up a day, according to the poll. If this sounds all too familiar, don’t give up hope. Mindfulness may be able to help you turn this around.

While most women would agree that they struggle with “I hate my body” thoughts, keep this fact in mind. Women who frequently look at magazine and media images of thin women tend to judge themselves more harshly. In the journal, Body Image, a 2009 meta-analysis of 47 experiments found that girls and women report greater dissatisfaction with their appearance following exposure to “thin idea” media.

The noted psychologist Dr. Ann Kearney-Cooke gave some wonderful suggestions for putting this inner critic to rest. I highly recommend you read over her tips if this rings true for you.
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In the News on the Web, Uncategorized

Prejudice May Stem From Low Self-Esteem

By Rick Nauert, Ph.D.
PsychCentral

Excerpt: Scientists believe a coping strategy for people with low self-esteem is to degrade other people, which improves how such people see themselves.

A new study published in the journal Psychological Science evaluates this premise and suggests that in some cases, low-esteem may be the cause of prejudice.

“This is one of the oldest accounts of why people stereotype and have prejudice: It makes us feel better about ourselves,” said Jeffrey Sherman of the University of California, Davis, who wrote the study with Thomas Allen.

“When we feel bad about ourselves, we can denigrate other people, and that makes us feel better about ourselves.”


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“If the problem was that people were having trouble inhibiting bias, you might try to train people to exert better control,” he said.

But his results suggest that’s not the issue. “The issue is that our mind wanders to more negative aspects of other groups. The way around that is to try and think differently about other people.

“When you feel bad about yourself and catch yourself thinking negatively about other groups, remind yourself, ‘I may be feeling this way because I just failed a test or something.’”
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Dance Studio, In the News on the Web, Uncategorized

How Much Do Calories Count?

BY David Katz, M.D,
Director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center

I am a proponent of calorie labeling, because I think having fundamental information is better than not having it — and because I think such information may confer educational value even when it doesn’t directly shift behavior. But that said, I am not at all surprised by the results of this study. I never thought posting calories would have much influence on food selection by kids, or adults.

The most fundamental of my reasons is that most of us don’t eat to fill a calorie quota; we eat to feel satisfied. A tally of the calories in a given menu item does not change whether or not that item satisfies you. If it doesn’t, you may have to eat two.

A second reason why calorie posting may not matter much is related. If the quality of the foods selected doesn’t change, the easiest way to reduce calories is to reduce portion size. But that simply means… eating less, which sounds a lot like dieting. We know how people tend to feel about that.

Yet another issue is that while calories on display may change awareness, and even attitude about food choice (as in: “I’m going to order what I want, but darn- it sure has a lot of calories and I wish it had fewer!”)- it may simply not be enough to change behavior. The fact that calorie posting does not change selections does not necessarily mean it is useless! Maybe it is a necessary, but not sufficient step to get all the way to meaningful change in food choice, diet quality, weight, and health. Maybe it is useful — just not a slam dunk.

But since I do have reservations about the utility of calorie counts on display for a variety of reasons, I tend to favor an alternative. An equally efficient, clutter-free display of overall nutritional quality. In fact, using a 1-100 scale, the higher the number, the more nutritious the dish- such a display would require less space on a menu board than calories. And convey a lot more information.

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T’ruth’s New Image!!!

1 Comment

Ok y’all I may not have a new body but I have a new image!

>

The Wild child is back!!!!


It’s what I call my rock star look…

It is the T’ruth of my crazy coming out of my head!


no but seriously…

Before you even ask….


Seriously..just kidding, not really Don’t!!!!

Dance Studio, Donnish Delights, Guilty (but forgivable) Pleasures, In the News on the Web, In Your Words, The T'ruth in Print, Uncategorized

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‘Mean Girls’ Myth: Why Can’t Some Women Let It Go?

Mean girls. It may seem a bit off topic, but it think- I know first hand that bullying and “mean” girl behavior can do major damage to a young person’s self image. I can recall being in 8th grade and there was a older girl who was quite popular (mainly because people were afraid of her) we were in the locker room and she kept calling me ugly and pointing out all of the ugly things about me. Of course the others (happy that they weren’t her target) sniggered and laughed. I was truly hurt, mainly because all of the things that she was saying out loud were thing I already felt inside. Later she put her arm around me and said she was just joking, and I feigned acceptance of her apology but I never got over it. In fact to this day whenever I feel “ugly” I get an emotional flash back to that locker room day.

Today with the advent of Reality TV the concept of Mean Girls has been elevated, promoted, and rewarded. Paris Hilton was the first in this generation of Mean Girls 4.0. She became famous not only for her sex tape but for vile behavior towards other women, throwing drinks in faces, starting feuds through the press and encouraging others to do so. Who can forget how she tortured Lindsey Lohan back in the day? She was a part of her whole “Firecrocth” branding. No she did not say it but it can be argued that she instigated it.

Whether it’s the embarrassingly entertaining Bad Girls Club on Oxygen or The Housewives of any City on Bravo, the entertainment and intrigue on theses shows always comes from catty mean girl behavior, cutting comments, talking behind someone’s, back or being a plain ol’ beayotch to someone’s face. Women tear ourselves down from the inside out then we strike out and tear down other woman. We have to change this behavior, first by not being, or raising mean girls, and by not glorifying bad behavior, towards ourselves and others, maybe then we’ll feel better about ourselves. So ladies the next time you want to hurl a snide remark, a pause and flip it, toss a compliment instead, or like the saying goes, if you don’t have anything nice to say…

by Laura Stepp Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

Excerpt:

Sometimes I despair over women’s opinions about women. How can females move upward if they’re always tearing each other down?

But despite the research studies and first-person stories I included, many of the female readers taking part in last Friday’s web chat didn’t buy my thesis. They wrote about being bullied by female work colleagues. They talked about going into therapy, taking anti-depressants, and developing eating disorders as a result. One said mean women treat men as badly as other women. Another described a bully sister-in-law of 30 years “who qualifies, corrects, challenges, denigrates and dismisses whatever comes out of my mouth.”

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Dance Studio, In the News on the Web, Uncategorized

Glamour Mag Poll on Negative Body ImageThe Today Show

A few days ago I posted a link to the poll. Glamour Editor in Chief and Psychologist discuss the poll with Meredith Vieira. I found the part about building Neurons that promote negative thoughts. Just STOP!!! very interesting.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Diet, Genes and Jeans With Debbie M.

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As much as it may pain or please us, when we look at our parents or older relatives we see glimpses of what is to come. “I am the ghost of your future body” I have my mother’s hands and feet, and she has her mother’s. As a little girl I would look at my grandmother’s hands riddled with arthritis and shiver at the thought that those gnarled twisted phalanges would at some point belong to me. There are some of us who know that our bodies will probably bounce back from childbirth and those who have witnessed the inevitable post baby spread in aunts and our own mother’s. Looking down at teen aged photos of them thin happy with their whole lives (and us) ahead of them we look to the portly, serious minded mother we have always known and say “Mom, that’s you?”

We see our future faces in our parents, aunts and uncles, where the age will begin to settle and show, perhaps it is in our skin that will show a road map of our lives lived, or in our bones with the stoop of the shoulders, perhaps we will get bonier and frail, or plump and round. We see if it will land in our bellies or our hips or both…more importantly and far more seriously we see what we are medically predisposed to. I have a friend whose family is highly prone to strokes, or perhaps in your family it’s heart disease, cancer, or maybe your people are built like tanks impervious to all ills that swarm around them.

Today with more knowledge, better medical care and technically enhanced products we have opportunities that generations before us never had when it come to prevention both medical and cosmetic. We can be genetically tested for cancer, we can be diligent about making certain our blood pressure, sugar levels and hearts are healthier both through monitoring by a doctor and through a healthy lifestyle and diet. We know that the adage, “Move it or Lose it is true” the importance of exercise at all ages is a key to health and mobility and strength. Yogi says “You are only as young as your spine”

Debbie is a young woman who had looked at the mirror of her family and decided she wanted to take some things in hand (before they possibly get outta hand). Here is her story and her plan!!


To see her journal