By creating so many illusory images of physical perfection, whether on store aisles or storefronts ads, magazine covers or TV show, we speak more to the profit margins of companies than the self-esteem of today's girls.
Every time you suppress some part of yourself or allow others to play you small, you are in essence ignoring the owner's manual your creator gave you and destroying your design.
The focus on my appearance has really surprised me. I've always been a size 14 to 16, I don't care about clothes, I'd rather spend my money on cigarettes and booze.
I like having my hair and face done, but I'm not going to lose weight because someone tells me to. I make music to be a musician not to be on the cover of Playboy.
In five years' time I'd like to be a mum. I want to settle down and have a family, definitely sooner rather than later. I'd like to have finished my second album too, maybe even my third. I'd like a sound that sticks around that other people are inspired by and that people know is me.
Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.
If we choose an external marker as the measure of our inner worth, whether it is the amount of money we make, or others' opinion of us, or the success of some project we're involved in, sooner or later we're bound to be battered by life's inevitable changes. After all, money comes and goes, and thus is an unstable source of self-esteem, an unreliable foundation upon which to build our identity.
The greatest difficulty is that men do not think enough of themselves, do not consider what it is that they are sacrificing when they follow in a herd, or when they cater for their establishment.