Are African woman becoming to westernised?

Gone are the days when a full figure was considered the ideal shape for any black woman or are they? It certainly seems so. Read any newspaper or magazine and count the number of pages that are dedicated to new diet fads alone.

It’s not just in print. Many of the women (black woman) that you see on South African television are skinny. Being the perfect size 8 is now considered the norm.

The worst part is that there are so many contrasting massages form everywhere. One minute you are told that curvy is in and we should all be happy with how we look and the next moment you are being told about Halle Berry’s latest diet.

Let’s take Noeleen Maholwana-Sangqu for instance, one day she has a psychologist on her show talking about self esteem and how we should love ourselves no matter what ,the next day the is a dietician or some socialite telling people to stop eating carbs and next she has a chef preparing the most calorie dense food you can find. What is the massage that women are supposed to get from that?

Anorexia nervosa among black girls was almost unheard of ten years ago, yet now there is alarming increase in the number of young black woman entering eating disorder treatment facilities.

Who is really to blame for the change in the way African woman view themselves? Is it the media or society? Is it African woman themselves? What is it in us that make us feel that we are less than just because some woman on television is smaller than you are? Aren’t our differences what make us as woman so beautiful?

It would be pretty boring if every other woman looked like Bonang Matheba don’t you think?