Star-Struck Teens

Celebrities influence what we do, buy, and say from fashion trends to music to clichés to destructive behaviors. They are trendsetters. They teach teens to be cool and how to succeed. They have the very things most teens want: power, money, freedom, sex, clothes, toys, and a whole lot of (perceived) fun!

The question is, do today’s celebrities serve as a more positive or negative role model? If a teenager learns behaviors enabling him or her to make productive and positive choices more easily and more often, that’s a good role model. Most parents agree, however, positive role models are hard to find in the entertainment, sports, music, and political industries.

Adolescents are very impressionable, and young adults often leave the strongest impressions on them. Celebrities who are perceived as rebels, breakers of rules, or outcasts that made it are alluring. Those types of celebs can easily become an object of affection. Take Lady Gaga—she is an idol for kids who feel like they're on the fringe. She appears to not care what anybody thinks, and that's an important message for her fans who most likely care what everybody thinks about them. In fact, on Facebook, as of July 2010, she surpassed the ten million mark, the highest number of fans for a living person. The president, Barack Obama, was running second, and Oprah Winfrey third.

Many celebrities are wonderful, gracious people and make a positive impact in our world with their desire to make things better. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to the stargazer, there are far too many awful celebrity role models being emulated with disastrous consequences. It is this type of celebrity modeling we—parents, youth leaders, mentors, and teachers—need be concerned with.

Like cockroaches, the bad role model celebrities find their way into the hidden crevices of life: the computer monitor, children’s schools, college campuses, doctor’s offices, the gym, and the workplace. From print media to radio to television to Twitter, their message is always the same, “It’s all about me.” Not only are celebrities and the pop culture feeding our teens narcissistic messages, but their contemporary brains are massively remodeled by such technological exposure.

Adolescence (from the Latin adolescere meaning "to grow up") is a time of soul searching for identity and acceptance. For many teens today, being famous is an elusive goal. Compared to the generations before, there has been a dramatic shift in the way teenagers perceive success. Pew Research finds 81 percent of young adults say getting rich is their most important life goal; 51 percent say the same about being famous. The voices of influence tell them fame is a cure for all of life's challenges. Searching, they are vulnerable and easily influenced; exposed to unattainable beauty standards, sexual temptations, alcohol abuse, violence, illegal drugs—a variety of toxic influences that threaten to undo all we teach them.

There is hope! Mom and Dad, you have the greatest influence over your children. When asked what influences adolescents the most, more teens answered, “my home,” rather than celebrities, school, friends, religion, music, television, movies, or magazines. Our challenge is to model how we want our teens to behave. They learn not from how we tell them to act but how we act in their presence.

This is an excerpt from my book, Torn Between Two Masters: Encouraging Teens to Live Authentically in a Celebrity-Obsessed World.

I Want a New Face & Body

Twenty-year-olds Mike and Matt believed the only thing holding them back from Hollywood were their faces. They thought if they looked like Brad Pitt, they’d be able to make it big and women would desire them. On an episode of the 2005 reality television program I Want a Famous Face (MTV) they both got rhinoplasties, chin implants, and porcelain veneers. Mike got cheek implants.

In her quest for a better body image, twenty-three-year-old reality star Heidi Montag unveiled on MTV’s The Hills’ sixth season premiere the effect of plastic surgery addiction. Obsessed with perfect, Heidi had ten procedures done on one day, all in an effort to convert herself into a real, live Barbie doll. In the Huffington Post, Heidi said, “I was made fun of when I was younger, and so I had insecurities.”
It is understandable why you may desire plastic surgery. We all have a deep need to feel we’re beautiful or handsome, and to fit in and be considered popular. In that quest, many teens believe changing their appearance and facial features will do this. When asked what issues are making young girls consider plastic surgery, they overwhelmingly answered, as Heidi Montag eluded to, “being picked on at school about a physical appearance attribute.” One in four indicated they would change their appearance so they would no longer be bullied about their defect.

Without a question peers can be cruel! Other kids don’t think about how their comments hurt someone else. "Hey, baseball nose!" “Check out pancake chest!” The pressure to conform to what friends, peers and the media describe as “perfection” gives you the message that it is not okay to truly look like or express your real self.

Many teens report that their self-image and confidence improves when their perceived physical shortcomings are corrected. What every person needs to know is that despite cutting-edge cosmetic procedures, there is no guarantee of a perfect result or happiness. Unrealistic expectations about plastic surgery can set you up for major disappointment.

One year after Heidi Montag’s drastic plastic surgeries, the former reality star came forward to show the world her battle wounds and to express her deep regrets. "Parts of my body definitely look worse than they did presurgery…This is not what I signed up for,” twenty-four year-old Heidi told Life & Style. Inside the magazine she revealed the gruesome scars, lumps and bald spots her ten plastic surgery procedures left behind.

Many psychologists say it's a myth that how you feel about yourself is related to how you actually look. Often counseling, encouragement and some lessons in makeup and beauty is all you need. Many teens still carry “baby fat’ so exercise is the preferred choice over liposuction.

No doubt, appearance is important to building your identity and confidence. But I believe the amount of emotion and energy poured into desiring plastic surgery is a way a person is tempting to fill an inner void which can only be filled by God. I speak from experience. I had rhinoplasty surgery…three times! The second two procedures were to fix the first. Actress Jennifer Grey, best known for receiving a first place title in ABC's Dancing With the Stars and for her role as Baby in Dirty Dancing (1987), chose rhinoplasty. What many people don't know is she needed a second surgery to correct the first one. She commented in an interview that having rhinoplasty was the worst mistake she ever made. Some would agree her bridge was a bit long and had a hump, but it was “her.” It cost her her career. Other stars who received the same type of negative comments after having plastic surgery call it the "Jennifer Grey" syndrome.

The Bible says, “It's your life that must change, not your skin… What counts is your life” (Luke 3:8-9, MSG). The book title You’re Born an Original, Don’t Die a Copy by John Mason says it all. God Almighty only creates originals—not duplicates.
God has created you already with immense value and a unique purpose. Jesus said, “All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers” (Matthew 6:28, MSG).

Jesus didn’t want his listeners to stress out and focus on personal worries and problems. He wanted them to focus on God the Father. When you look into a field of colored wildflowers, they all look the same. Get up close, you will see real subtle differences in each flower. Some have more leaves. Some are taller. Some are more vibrant and the hue is faintly different in each petal.

The truth is, God took great care in designing you. No one can ever duplicate what God created and purposed. Learn to listen to God by making a commitment to study the Bible so you can see for yourself that real beauty and excellence comes from deep inside of you, from God himself.

This is an excerpt from my book, Torn Between Two Masters: Encouraging Teens to Live Authentically in a Celebrity-Obsessed World.

Casual Sex & God's Forgiveness

Last week I talked about the state of casual sex. I’m going to continue the dialogue and speak about our future relationship with God if we are not married and sexually active.

If you have been, or are sexually active, in your quiet time with God tell him how you feel—he already knows. We call it confession. Hebrews 10:22 says: “Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.” Ask for his forgiveness and his help and guidance.

God loves you so much. He will forgive you and heal you. Once he forgives you—you are clean and pure in his eyes. Psalm 51:7 says: God swill wash us whiter than snow.
But it doesn’t mean he will wipe out the consequences. One example is King David. He
committed adultery which led to murder and set into motion consequences that were irreversible.

David asked God to forgive him. God forgave David’s sin and restored their relationship, but he did not wipe out the consequences. That’s part of life! We must never take on the attitude that, “I can do this—get drunk, try marijuana, have premarital sex—because if I tell God I’m sorry, he’ll forgive me.” If we choose to live this way we must remember that we may set into motion events with irreversible consequences. God will forgive you but you may get a DUI charge and jail time, a pregnancy or STD, the loss of a college scholarship, loss of good friends. That happened to me. I know!

The clincher is, despite what David did, God still used David. Despite what I did—God is using me today in a powerful way. In fact, David was found to be worthy enough in God’s eyes to generate from his seed Jesus Christ. We will all, at one time or other, fall into temptation because we are human beings with a sin nature. Everyone, including Mom and Dad and Pastors and youth leaders blows it. With God, forgiveness means more than a second chance; it means a fresh start. It’s like getting an F on a test and the F gets erased as if it never happened. COOL!

We don’t have to be embarrassed or be afraid of what God thinks about us. We are fully forgiven and totally loved by him—no matter what we have done! But he expects us to follow his commands to keep us healthy and safe. The psalmist asked God: “How can a young man [woman] keep his [her] way pure? Answer: By living according to your word” (Psalms 119:9). This is the key: the only way we can know what God wants from us and what is healthy and safe and good for us is by learning and following God’s Word—doing bible study.

God wants us to be sexually pure way we do that is by maintaining our virginity.
If you are not a virgin you can still make a commitment to God to remain pure until you get married. He will honor that commitment.