From high school to homemaker and through childhood to career, women across all ages and cultural boundaries are struggling with the same thing: trying to lose weight. While weight issues affect both men and women, in recent years it has been women who are at the center of the weight loss frenzy.Inch-Aweigh.com says that the average American woman is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds while the average American model is 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 117 pounds. The fitness website also says that most fashion models are thinner than 98 percent of American women.

While the motivation may be driven by either health or appearance, in recent years the definition of beauty has become synonymous with the definition of skinny, says Dustie Thomas, a young woman who says she has struggled with her weight all of her life.

“The media is the reason that weight has become such a big issue,” says Thomas, 23, assistant manager at Subway in Athens, Tenn. “If you turn on the television all you see are tiny little women showing off their money, power and celebrity. Of course every woman wants to be gorgeously thin because the media shows us that that’s what it takes to make it. If you want to be somebody you’ve got to be skinny.”

Women will go to great lengths to lose weight says Kasey Blankenship, 19, a sophomore at Radford University in Virginia. “Society has set a standard that women think they have to follow to be beautiful. If that means surgery or starving yourself, if women want it, they do whatever it takes to achieve that perfect body. I am guilty myself of looking at someone and wishing that I was like her or was her size.”

Although celebrities are at the direct center of the thin craze, even they are struggling to keep up with society’s expectations says Blankenship. In March of this year, The Oprah Winfrey Show featured actress Valerie Bertinelli who has lost 47 pounds in the last two years while doing the Jenny Craig program.

Bertinelli spoke to Oprah about her lifelong obsession with fluctuating weight.

“I have obsessed about my weight in some sort of way all of my life,” she says. “I used to write in my journal what I weighed every day.”

Identifying with Bertinelli’s weight struggles, Amanda Carroll from Decatur, Tenn., sees her weight as a battle that she has been fighting all of her life.

“I’ve been chubby since about first grade, says Carroll, 27. “It was after I started high school that I began to pack on the pounds. I figured it was the lack of exercise and unhealthy school lunches.”

Emotions played a bit part in Carroll’s weight struggles she says. “During my freshmen year in high school, I slimmed down to 145 pounds. However, I gained over 75 pounds from age 16 to 18 after a bad breakup. Looking back, I think it was emotional eating and a defense mechanism to make sure I didn’t get close to anyone else.”

Along with emotional eating, pregnancy, hormones and menstrual cycles are big factors in why weight is such a bigger issue for women than men says Victoria Stutes of Cleveland, Tenn.

“Pregnancy was my downfall,” says Stutes, 21, a pre-nursing student at Cleveland State Community College. “My husband was stationed with the army when I was pregnant and I sadly passed my time with eating. I gained 90 plus pounds and was at risk for a stroke which could have killed myself or my daughter.”

Birth control is another factor in why weight loss is harder for many women Carroll says. “Some of the weight I gained in high school was due to birth control shots. I stopped those after my first three-month run of them when I saw that I was starting to gain weight.”

With all of the many physical and emotional characteristics that are contributing to their weight gain, women are trying every method they can to get the weight off says Allison Herrell, who in 2006, had the lap band placed around her stomach to limit her food intake.

“I tried Weight Watchers, appetite suppressant pills, and every fad diet out there and they all failed,” says Herrell, 32, an insurance company medical reviewer from Soddy Daisy, Tenn. “I finally decided the weight had to come off so I turned to the lap band and it worked great. I weighed 254 pounds before and now I stay around 130 to 135 pounds. I went from a size 24 to a size 2 and have been stable in my weight for nearly a year. The lap band saved my life.”

While weight loss surgery helped Herrell lose her weight, she says that she is critical of some of the weight loss clinics and companies that are putting women on diets that are hard to maintain over a long period of time.

“Weight loss surgery isn’t the answer for everyone,” says Herrell. “However, fad diets may not be the answer either. I know a few people who have had success with them. They lost 20 to 40 pounds but when the calorie- or point-counting stopped the weight came back almost instantly. Fad diets are a quick fix but whether you go on a restrictive diet or have weight loss surgery, in the end it’s all about self motivation and life style changes.”

A lifestyle change is what finally made her weight loss journey a success says Meagan Taylor, 19, a sophomore at Cleveland State Community College.

“After being overweight all through my teenage years, I finally took control of my weight and health issues,” says Taylor, who is working towards her English degree. “I stopped eating out and stopped making excuses to not go to the gym. I hear a lot of people say that they couldn’t give up certain foods, or go to the gym because of whatever reason, but once you reach a certain level of self-loathing, you’ll do whatever it takes.”

After losing 30 pounds in seven months, Taylor says that she truly believes diet and exercise is the healthiest way to lose weight.

“With diet and exercise, you’re giving yourself a complete lifestyle change that is going to help you maintain your weight and health over a long period of time,” says Taylor. “My life has changed so much now that I’m eating healthy and getting exercise. A few years ago, I was the girl that fell down in gym class because she couldn’t run for five minutes. Now, I’m the girl that can run five miles, and I’m still standing.”

Diet and exercise can be harder for the every day woman than it is for celebrities Taylor says. “What I’ve done I’ve done on my own. I haven’t had a personal chef cooking me low-calorie meals or a personal trainer taking the guesswork out of how much and how hard I need to work out to reach my goals. I did this all by myself and I sympathize with other women who are looking at famous women and wishing they could be that thin.”

Actress and author Tori Spelling chose not to lose the weight she gained while pregnant with her daughter Stella by paying for a personal chef and trainer like other celebrity women, she says. “I didn’t do a super diet fad or a workout routine,” says Spelling in an Associated Content interview from July 22, 2009. “I literally did everything with my kids and my husband. Before I knew it, the weight came off.”

Although Spelling lost her weight without turning to fad diets or personal help, there are other female celebrities who say they lose the extra pounds by going on liquid diets and cleanses.

“I need to lose a few pounds of holiday excess,” wrote Gwyneth Paltrow, 37, on her personal blog last year. “Anyone else? I like to do fasts and detoxes a couple of times during the year, the most hard core one being the Master Cleanse I did last spring. It was not what you would characterize as pretty or easy. It did work, however.”

Fasts and liquid diets are more harmful than they are helpful says Carroll, who tried a fast several years ago. “I would be hungry and tired all of the time. I was hurting myself and I still can’t believe I even tried it. It’s really hard to believe that celebrities are doing these fasts and cleanses and they’re influencing women out there to go to the extremes that they are to get the weight off.”

Celebrity diets have brainwashed women into thinking that that’s the best way to lose weight says Carroll. “Women want a quick fix. They want to believe that they can take a magic pill or go on a celebrity cleanse to get the weight off because they don’t want to put the hard work into a healthy diet and exercise.”

The reactions from other women who watched her lose the weight by diet and exercise was almost too much for Carroll she says. “There was not much support from the women in my life. My co-workers were congratulating me, but I could see the jealous and evil looks they were giving me. None of the women in my life could understand what it was like for me. I not only went through a physical transformation, but a very emotional one as well. I am finally at a point in my life where I am confident and happier than I have ever been. It wasn’t an easy journey, but it is one that I am glad that I went on.”

Whether women lose the weight through diet and exercise or through fasts and appetite suppressant pills, the biggest part of their weight loss is going to be their ability to maintain it, says Taylor.

“Women want to get the weight off as fast and as easy as they can,” says Taylor. “I know now that because of the hard work I have put into learning how to eat healthier and getting in the gym on a regular basis, I will be able to maintain my weight loss for the rest of my life. I don’t worry about the scale going back up again. I am in control of it now.

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