Katie Couric, leadership, and telling the truth

When an icon like Katie Couric tells a personal story does it really matter? Is she telling a long buried truth to help people or merely to boost her ratings?

Are those in the media models of leadership or merely just talking heads?

Couric did put the spotlight on a serious problem for modern living, especially among western females, about her struggle with bulimia. Here are some of the ugly facts about what it takes to be pretty:

1. Most of bingers/purgers tend to be female
2. On average those who binge do so 11 times per week
3. Number of men following the path of bulimia has increased dramatically
4. Self-induced vomiting relieves anxiety briefly and then self-loathing takes over
5. Students who enter college in the U.S. from another culture become bulimic when they absorb the western view of diet and beauty

What in the world are we doing? In my book, “GUTSY: How Women Leaders Make Change”, I take today’s females through a series of questions about the messages they were given as children from their families, from their specific culture, and from crises that may have frozen their emotional growth.

That Katie Couric talks about her personal issues when she was a college student and young emerging reporter is, in fact, helpful. The more we can get leaders to talk about their own weak spots and how they overcame them gives hope to those facing their demons today.

I do believe that women need to stand and be counted in the face of so much superficial baloney about what are the ingredients of beauty. So, thank you Katie for revealing your dark side. If you touch only one young woman on her quest for fame through the binge and purge cycle and get her to get help, your ratings will, in my eyes, be ever high.

 

Also posted on www.examiner.com.

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