The first person I'd nominate would be my friend Constance. As part of the True Beauty campaign, she went a month without makeup, posting a new plain beautiful photo every day on Facebook. I have to believe that her experiment did more to help women than all the unbelievable reassurances in the world that God doesn't care how you look.

I'm of the mind that this sort of thing needs to happen more often than it does. Kids need role models who walk the talk. We need to lay eyes on teachers, bus drivers, doctors, accountants, pastors, parents, custodians and clerks who set us free by keeping it real.

Real Life or Photoshop?

If you've lived on this planet for any length of time, you're most likely aware that the media bombard teens daily with images of flawless, digitally altered bodies that don't exist in real life.

Perhaps you've attempted to pull the curtain on this madness by giving a talk that exposes the myth of digital perfection for what it is. When you were done, chances are your teens still wanted to look like Taylor Swift and Zac Efron. Neither your inspiring insights nor the fact that your teens' sincere grandmothers have told them they're "beautiful on the inside" has transformed them yet.

Though our words might not seem to be changing lives, our actions are. As we take our eyes off ourselves and our own appearances and turn them toward teens, we practice what Tim Keller calls "blessed self-forgetfulness." As we draw teens into this kind of other-centered living, they're sprung free from the suffocating bind of self-preoccupation.

Gospel Self-Esteem

My friend Travis gets this. He's on staff at Remuda Ranch, a center specializing in the treatment of those living with eating disorders. Travis is also a cofounder of the True Campaign, which sponsors a program called "true:shift." The program gives women the opportunity to partner with Food for the Hungry, through which they get to participate in this liberating shift toward helping others in need. In the process, they become free from a crippling preoccupation with themselves.

Travis recently blogged about a new study claiming that college girls suffering from eating disorders who became involved in compassionate, "other-centered" activities saw a decrease in the symptoms. Pretty cool, huh? Travis continues, "I'm not suggesting a degrading of oneself or promoting passivity. In fact, what I like to call ‘gospel self-esteem' is far more powerful than simply trying to convince yourself that you are valuable through positive self-talk and affirmations. Based on an understanding that we have incredible value as creations of God and that He is committed to our good without ignoring our failure, gospel self-esteem means trusting that what God says about me is true. That is the basis for incredible boldness and liberating humility."

Travis continues on to share what Tim Keller calls "blessed self-forgetfulness": a healthy self-image where you are not thinking more of yourself or thinking less of yourself in false humility, but thinking of yourself less.

Adapted from Unsqueezed: Springing Free from Skinny Jeans, Nose Jobs, Highlights and Stilettos by Margot Starbuck. Copyright(c) 2010. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515. IVPress.com. Check out Margot's blog, Thoughts on Hair, Shoes & Other Stuff, at MargotStarbuck.blogspot.com. If you e-mail her a picture of a youth worker who keeps it real (i.e., doesn't try to fit into the pop culture mold) she'll post it on her site!