Blog #3 5/6/09

For this literary blog post on 3 Willows, I want to make a connection from the book to the Media/world. In the book, Polly aspires to be a model which is due to the pressures from her friends. I would like to make a connection to the pressure of body image and conforming to a certain mold, especially in modeling. For example, in the book, during modeling camp Polly is very much forced to go on extreme dieting and other appearance extremes. This is shown through the online article, "Pressure mounts for ban on size zero models." The article explains that people are beggining to realize how much pressure there is on models to be unhealthily thin but that people still are against making changes to improve the standards and expectations on models. In the article, a 22 year old Ramos from Uruguay died from eating a diet of only lettuce and diet coke for 3 months! Of course, it is also not good because models on the runway are also role-models for kids and teens, such as Polly whom it has gotten to. Fortunately, after the modeling camp, even though Polly went to a runway show, she realized who stupid it was and that she was tired of trying to be someone she was not. As theorized by Polly, "She was never going to be a model. Never, never. Even if she did look like her grandmother. To want it was the same as hating herself. That was the truth"(Brashares, 291).