Doesn’t Jamie Lee Curtis just make you smile? Here’s a woman who will be 50 in November and who is not afraid to show her natural hair color or her natural, unaltered but healthy 49 year old body for all to see (see  May-June issue of AARP magazine).  Not because she’s an exhibitionist (though she is an actress) but because she’s on a mission to help older women to acknowledge how beautiful they are.

Do you remember that photo she had taken in 2002 (at left) that featured her in her underwear with her ever so slightly flabby tummy and healthy woman’s thighs? I can’t recall any major actress doing that for something that wasn’t an acting part.  She was doing that for us ladies and I thank her for it!

We get inundated with images every day of women in their 20’s with perky body parts and .02% body fat.  As we try to manoeuvre our less than perky breasts into contraptions that could break a finger in two, contemplating on those advertising images of unreal women can deflate the spirit.

Jamie’s campaign helped us to celebrate our bodies for what they are - bodies that have taken us through thick and thin, school and work, birth and babies, love and loss.  That’s what those stretch marks and curves tell us.  So we have to take care of our bodies, not starve or hate ourselves based on artificial images of perfection put forward by advertisers.

Seek to be healthy first and foremost.  Eat a balanced, well proportioned meal and try to do some exercise everyday. That’s all it takes to start caring for your beautiful body.