Xpress, the Coolest Section of the St. Petersburg Times, is the home for features, news and views of interest to young readers. Most of the work in Xpress, which appears on Mondays in Floridian, is produced by the Times' X-Team. The team of journalists ages 9-17 from around the Tampa Bay area is selected every year at the end of the school year to serve during the following school term. The current team of 12 was chosen out of 150 applicants. Watch for X-Team application forms in Xpress during the month of May.
Read the reviews by Xpress Film Critic Billy Norris
Guidance for girls
Struggling with your self-image? Successful women offer advice on how you can realize your dreams.
By THERESA LINNERT
Published June 9, 2003
As you leaf through the new edition of your fashion magazine, you see picture-perfect faces on twig-thin bodies. The same thought goes through many teens' minds: "Is this what I'm supposed to look like?"
The brand labels on your friends' clothes may have cost them a pretty penny. "Do my clothes need brand labels to be in?"
In See Jane Win for Girls - a Smart Girl's Guide to Success by Dr. Sylvia Rimm (Free Spirit Publishing, $13.95), teen girls are encouraged to place emphasis on self-worth and personality. This book focuses on how successful women got to where they are now. There is advice and experience from women to help girls set goals and follow their dreams.
Some of these women include astronauts, TV journalists, lawmakers, scientists, teachers, actors, authors and illustrators. "Even if you think you're ordinary or average, the truth is, you're full of potential," Rimm writes.
I think this book is worthwhile reading. Many teens will be able to relate to most topics.
In the chapter "Exercising Your Self-Esteem Muscles," Rimm writes about how you measure your self-worth and how to have a healthy self-esteem. You should have pride in yourself, yet be humble about it. It is important to ask for help when you need it, be persistent, accept your weaknesses, use your talents and strengths, and give back to the community as much as you can. It discusses how you should feel inside, rather than how you should appear on the outside.
The chapter also focuses on how important it is to accept the things about yourself that you have no control over, such as your height or skin color. You should set goals to help improve the things about yourself that you do have the ability to change.
In the chapter, "My Role Model, My Mentor," girls are given advice on how to respond to magazine advertisements and commercials. It says that magazines and commercials often give the impression that the thin and beautiful women are the happiest, most popular and healthiest women. Obviously, this isn't true. These ads are usually meant to sell something, so girls should just keep a healthy perspective about that.
Katie Astle, 12, a seventh-grader at Westlake Christian School in Palm Harbor, does not feel she needs to look like the supermodels in magazines. "God created everyone in a unique way, and each of us has a purpose," she said. "I don't really care if the models are super-skinny, because it's not me."
Katie does not find it essential to wear brand-label clothing, but she doesn't see anything wrong with it.
"I just think that your clothes should fit, and they should look decent," she said. "Brand labels are okay sometimes, though."
Perfect? Merriam-Webster defines perfect as "being entirely without fault or defect; flawless." Obviously not many are capable of attaining that perfect body or perfect wardrobe that so often is depicted through the media.
However, Rimm, who has interviewed many successful women, tells us that these women "were inspired and motivated to put self-doubt aside, develop their potential through hard work, and make positive choices that helped get them where they are today."
- Theresa Linnert, 13, is in seventh grade at Westlake Christian School in Palm Harbor.
