Teens Like It Big Marie !!BETTER!!

It sounded like summer camp. "You're going on vacation to the desert to meet other girls and eat sweet food," Tijanniya Mint Tijani's mother told her. Tijanniya was excited. "She said that by the time I returned home, I'd be a beautiful woman."

teens like it big marie

The ideal of feminine beauty in Mauritania, a country one-and-a-half times the size of Texas and blanketed in desert, is like America's cult of superthinness in reverse. Mauritanian tradition holds that among women, rolling layers of fat are the height of sexiness. The preference originated centuries ago among the Moors, nomadic Muslims of Arabic and Berber stock who make up two-thirds of Mauritania's 3.1 million people. To the ancient Moors, a fat wife (much like fat livestock) was a symbol of a man's wealth, proof that he had enough riches to feed her generously while others perished in the drought-prone terrain.

Now big women are back in vogue, and the custom of funneling rich food into young girls like geese farmed for foie gras is once again thriving unchecked. Elhacen, a droopy-eyed professional force-feeder, estimates that around Atar, a commercial hub 250 miles from Nouakchott, the proportion of girls undergoing force-feeding has climbed to over 80 percent. Government figures from before the 2008 coup put the rate at 50 to 60 percent in rural areas and 20 to 30 percent in cities. "The practice is re-emerging because men still find mounds of female flesh comforting and erotic," explains Seyid Ould Seyid, a Mauritanian male journalist. "The attraction is ingrained from birth."

How do small girls eat these gargantuan amounts of food? "I'm very strict," boasts Elhacen. "I beat the girls, or torture them by squeezing a stick between their toes. I isolate them and tell them that thin women are inferior." Desert settlements like this 1000-strong farming community with no electricity or running water are popular spots for leblouh because there are no distractions and no easy ways to escape. But Elhacen denies that her work amounts to child cruelty. "No, no, it's for their own good," she almost shrieks. "How will these poor girls find a husband if they're bony and revolting?"

"I was force-fed as a child. I vomited and suffered heartburn and diarrhea, but I gained weight fast," Zeinebou recalls, reclining in her ramshackle two-room home. At 13, she was married to a much older man, and by 16 she had two sons. Then, like any normal teen, she rebelled, prompting her husband to divorce her. Newly single, she was flooded with romantic offers. "I suddenly saw how much Mauritanian men adore very fat women. Men told me I had the most beautiful body in town, and they fought over me." With her huge eyes and charismatic smile, Zeinebou would be a great beauty whatever her size. But the male reaction to her figure transformed her self-image. "When I realized the power I had over men, I started to enjoy being fat." Zeinebou's current boyfriend, Baba Slama, 29, who is, like many Mauritanian men, rail-thin, agrees that she's in charge. "She's gorgeous; I love her," he says.

Yet Zeinebou's weight slows her down: "I'm always tired, and I wheeze when I walk. I want to be slimmer so I can be more dynamic." A fan of TV soaps beamed in from France and Morocco, she confesses she's drawn to the lifestyles of the female stars. "They seem so independent," she says. "I'd love to be able to wear jeans and high heels. I want to diet, but I'm scared men won't like me anymore."

Zeinebou also frets that she would lose her It-girl status among her female friends. "My first thought when I met Zeinebou was, Where did she get that incredible body?" says her best friend, Hawer Sessay, 26. "I was so jealous." Although hardly skeletal at 5'6" and 180 pounds, Hawer says she has trouble piling on weight, and was teased by plumper girls as a teenager. Recently, her husband told her that he "didn't like sleeping with a bag of bones." Desperate to be bigger, Hawer uses drugs to aid weight gain. She produces a bottle of pills whose active ingredient is cyproheptadine hydrochloride, an allergy medication with a side effect of increased appetite. Misused, the drug can cause low blood pressure, blurred vision, kidney failure, and other problems. "I bought this one because the pharmacist told me it was the least dangerous."

Yet some young women in the capital refuse to bulk up. "I've always been thin, and I love my size," says Aminetou Kane, 28, a bright-eyed social worker. "I can work, I can dance, I can walk three miles to the beach." Many of her girlfriends, educated career women like herself, prefer to be slimmer, too, she adds. Another encouraging sign is the success of Nouakchott's first women-only gym, where around 300 women exchange their mulafa robes for sweats. "The membership is still tiny, but I'm hoping it will expand," says the owner, Zahoura Kajouane. "Some women join on doctor's orders, but others are image-conscious. One woman hopes to be the Shakira of Mauritania."

If you have ever searched for girls' golf clothing, the Goldilocks story likely resonates with you. It certainly strikes a chord with Ellen Krissman, founder of Marie Birdie, a new golf apparel line tailored for tween and teen girls. As a mother of two young golfers, Krissman has spent many an hour each year looking for just-right golf attire for her two daughters often coming up short.

Jones, who originally had no acting aspirations,[2] was discovered at a bodybuilding competition by Shirley Eson of American Gladiators fame.[5] Eson urged Jones to audition for the Gladiators-like Knights and Warriors, and Jones got the part, becoming one of the few female warriors. Jones was also offered a position in professional wrestling, but turned it down because, she said it was "too fakey."[7]

While boys and girls generally share personal information on social media profiles at the same rates, cell phone numbers are a key exception. Boys are significantly more likely to share their numbers than girls (26% vs. 14%). This is a difference that is driven by older boys. Various differences between white and African-American social media-using teens are also significant, with the most notable being the lower likelihood that African-American teens will disclose their real names on a social media profile (95% of white social media-using teens do this vs. 77% of African-American teens).316% of teen social media users have set up their profile to automatically include their location in posts.Beyond basic profile information, some teens choose to enable the automatic inclusion of location information when they post. Some 16% of teen social media users said they set up their profile or account so that it automatically includes their location in posts. Boys and girls and teens of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds are equally likely to say that they have set up their profile to include their location when they post. Focus group data suggests that many teens find sharing their location unnecessary and unsafe, while others appreciate the opportunity to signal their location to friends and parents.

Twitter draws a far smaller crowd than Facebook for teens, but its use is rising. One in four online teens uses Twitter in some way. While overall use of social networking sites among teens has hovered around 80%, Twitter grew in popularity; 24% of online teens use Twitter, up from 16% in 2011 and 8% the first time we asked this question in late 2009.

Continuing a pattern established early in the life of Twitter, African-American teens who are internet users are more likely to use the site when compared with their white counterparts. Two in five (39%) African-American teens use Twitter, while 23% of white teens use the service.

Overall, teens have far fewer followers on Twitter when compared with Facebook friends; the typical (median) teen Facebook user has 300 friends, while the typical (median) teen Twitter user has 79 followers. Girls and older teens tend to have substantially larger Facebook friend networks compared with boys and younger teens.

Teens, like other Facebook users, have different kinds of people in their online social networks. And how teens construct that network has implications for who can see the material they share in those digital social spaces:

Older teens are more likely than younger ones to have created broader friend networks on Facebook. Older teens (14-17) who use Facebook are more likely than younger teens (12-13) to be connected with:

Those teens who used sites like Twitter and Instagram reported feeling like they could better express themselves on these platforms, where they felt freed from the social expectations and constraints of Facebook. Some teens may migrate their activity and attention to other sites to escape the drama and pressures they find on Facebook, although most still remain active on Facebook as well.

Beyond general privacy settings, teen Facebook users have the option to place further limits on who can see the information and updates they post. However, few choose to customize in that way: Among teens who have a Facebook account, only 18% say that they limit what certain friends can see on their profile. The vast majority (81%) say that all of their friends see the same thing on their profile.5 This approach also extends to parents; only 5% of teen Facebook users say they limit what their parents can see.

Teens with the largest networks (more than 600 friends) are more likely to include a photo of themselves, their school name, their relationship status, and their cell phone number on their profile when compared with teens who have a relatively small number of friends in their network (under 150 friends). However, teens with large friend networks are also more active reputation managers on social media.

Unwanted contact from strangers is relatively uncommon, but 17% of online teens report some kind of contact that made them feel scared or uncomfortable.7 Online girls are more than twice as likely as boys to report contact from someone they did not know that made them feel scared or uncomfortable (24% vs. 10%). 041b061a72