Role models

[Jraven]

What does everyone think of the spice girls as role models. Apparently over half of 8 year old girls aspire to be Victoria Beckham. My niece is definitely one of them and is starting to worry about her weight! Is this a worry or only to be expected? What if anything can you do about it?

Don't ban anything this side of the law. Don't you all remember Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax" being banned and we all felt obliged to buy it just to show how grown up we were? I had absolutely no idea what it was about at all but just knew it had something to do with sex!
Kids / teenagers have to explore a bit otherwise they wouldn't develop a personality of their own. I listened to all sorts of grim rubbish as a teenager: "Peter and the Test Tube Babies", "the Guana Batz" and other minor league bands which I would probably rather have teeth extracted than listen to now but it didn't do me any harm. I was a bit too young for the Sex Pistols but I'm sure there are loads of current mums out there now who thought that they were really "cool" and the stuff they got up to on stage and in private was alot worse than Eminem.

Ha ha Bugsy, I do remember the Sex Pistols with nostalgic affection even though their music was crap. The group that really caused arteries to bulge in our house though, was Soft Cell. All that "decadent moaning", apparently.
Early Depeche Mode, Bow Wow Wow, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, vintage Duran Duran, Haircut 100, Level 42, Sigue Sigue Sputnik: they just don't make them like that anymore. Today's charts are filled with tuneless rubbish in comparison. Oh dear, I sound just like my father.

At the moment, my older son's musical taste is dependent on what he hears in his father's car. I always know, from the 'cool' poses he strikes and the mutterings under his breath, when he has been listening to Eminem. Wish I could get his father to throw the wretched CD away. My son's much more amenable when the Kinks have been playing and hearing him sing the lyrics reminds me how good they are. He's also quite into singing Moby songs and copies the sound effects, like Phil Jupitas in that quiz, 'never mind the b***s'.

Michael Jackson. Now there's a problem. Son loves his videos when they appear on TV and went through a phase of copying the famous trouser fly movement. Yuk!

Lil - on the whole I agree with you regarding diets, although some people do seem to put it on more easily than others. My dad is stick thin and can eat like a horse and I am pretty much the same. However I am sure I don't eat a lot, or at least not a lot of biscuits/cakes etc. A friend came to stay with us once who is "pleasantly plump" - actually she was one of these people who suited being a bit overweight. She kept on saying how hungry she was and commented on how little we ate particularly in the evening when we were just sipping wine till our late dinner. Indeed fat is just the surplus from amount of food intake minus amount of energy expended and there is no magic cure. Personally I don't like all these stick thin models because they don't look very nice. I also read in a magazine of a survey of different body types and who liked certain types best. Most of the women liked the thinner ones but nearly all the men liked the much larger ones - size 14/16. Also men prefer women to look healthy/happy regardless of their size. Isn't that the kind of role model we should strive for?

Star, my anthem is Independent Women LOL!