Images are so powerful as they can inspire us to imagine potential. This is why my presentations include a plethora of pictures. I show audiences all kinds of girls: different ages, ethnicities, and expressions – so they can embrace the message that girls are unique – beautiful, valuable, and enough – just as they are, no changes required. Images can also be detrimental in our media saturated society because they can convince us there is an ideal look to conform to for acceptance. Flip through a magazine at the grocery store or explore your social media sites for 5 minutes and you will see – polished and perfected images, teaching us about our “potential” to be prettier, thinner, younger, and happier – if we just change (and buy the products they are selling). Hating our bodies is entrenched in Western culture so much so we barely notice its toxicity. Society’s obsession with the body is a distraction from the real work of loving our bodies and girls are paying attention and buying into this obsession. Girls at younger and younger ages watch us; and they emulate what they see. They are learning to poke and prod their bodies and focus…...