86 HEALTH & BEAUTY


Oh Grow Up I


Health & beauty advice from Rowena Kitchen


can guarantee that we have all thought that being a grown up really totally and utterly sucks at some point. If we had known what lay ahead


would we have rushed into it with such alacrity? Racking up the milestones - a teenager, driving license, 21, leaving education behind for ever. Look out world here we come! Funnily enough when we get there being fully


grown and responsible is not always the way we want to behave. How blissful to lie on our bed watching TV while someone else cooks the supper and clean clothes magically appear in our drawers……… some- times wishing we were back at school which really did turn out to be some of the best days of our lives. Although at the time we thought anyone who thought that to be quite mad. Starting in nursery school where play time lasted all day and counting out coloured wooden bricks was the


most taxing task we faced. Juice and a nap were the order of the day. Fabulous. Next primary school, where we learnt our ABC’s, how to tie shoe laces and ties and the dreaded times tables. This was the middle ground where we found out who we were going to be. Good at sports or music or art, popular or shy or unable to catch a ball or start a conversation. I still remember the girl who bullied me with her glossy hair and non ‘Start Rite’ shoes! I will restrain from naming her…. Those memories are locked in and can surface unbidden bringing back the same feelings of dread and being inadequate in some way. Unless you were the bully, and, while I like to think that all the bullies out there regret their actions, sadly I doubt that this is the case. Life is not a Hollywood film where the person who twisted your arm painfully finds you years later and atones for their ways…… As we skipped on into our final school years we made choices for our bodies and faces that can be now firmly stuck in time and place. Along with put- ting away our toys we also have to put away the notion that the eye shadow, (Rimmel, electric blue), we wore proudly at thirteen is the right shade for us today. We must change as the decades rack up. The people we admired in the media, in films and


even older girls at school directed our every choice and thought of how we regarded ourselves. It’s a shock to realise that the very people we idolised had insecuri- ties of their own. As you continue growing up your world revolves very slowly and not very far from your own self. You cannot imagine that anyone else could possibly have the worries that you have. Each person you see is thinner, prettier, smarter or better off than you in some way. We know that being thin does not make you make better decisions but we have been fooled into believing that having legs like match sticks is an unspoken holy grail. When the magazines seem to exist solely


Illustration by Lisa Wyman


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148