"Kjerstin Gruys, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at UCLA, took a vow that most women would never dream of: to go one full calendar year without looking in a mirror, no cheating allowed. And that includes her upcoming wedding.Gruys' project and corresponding blog is called "Mirror, Mirror... OFF the Wall," and was created after a stressful weekend searching for the perfect dress for her October wedding. Fearful that the event's pressure would push her to relapse into an eating disorder that plagued her in college, Gruys considered what it would be like if she changed her habits to reflect research she conducted on beauty and inequality while studying for her degree — namely to shift her focus away from outward appearances.
"In my case, I am avoiding the mirror so I can get on with my life and do other things," Gruys told The Huffington Post. "I hope to take the emphasis away from my body and just focus on other things."
The goal of Gruys' project is to get women to rethink their body images and the definition of beauty, but she has also used her newly free time — Did you know we spend up to five full days per year staring in the mirror? Maybe we are vain after all! — to volunteer at the nonprofit About Face, which aims to help women and girls deflect media messages that could be harmful to their self-esteem."
By Erin Skarda/ TIME NewsFeed/more
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