This week, you’ll get tips on wearing the best shoes for the coolest looks, working out with music, getting your body ready for summer, fighting menopausal depression, embracing your body whatever your shape, the best skin care products, and so much more. Just click on the pink-highlighted links below to get to each article. And save a few minutes to watch my newest AARP YouTube Channel video: “Running After 50” (YES . . . RUNNING!!).  It’s at the end!

Enjoy the articles from the fabulous women who come together each week to bring you FASHION FLASH!! Yay!!

Women over 40 are you looking for an updated hair style and color? Fab Over Forty went to the experts on the latest hair trends for summer.

Do you want to get into your summer clothes again and feel confident showing off a little arm or leg? Do you have 20 minutes to spare a day? Female Fat Loss Over 40 expert, Shawna K has a workout that will challenge you but change you.

Your workouts just got easier and more fun! Jackie Silver from AgingBackwards.com found some new high-tech headphones that do just about everything except work out for you.

“Live lives that are on fire!” Meet FOF Coach Lin Eleoff  at FabOverFifty.

Are you suffering from perimenopausal depression? Researchers have shown that hormones directly affect the brain chemistry that controls emotions and mood. Find out how you can manage depression at MenopauseMakeover.com.

Are you using a serum in your skincare regimen? Cindy over at Prime Beauty tells us about the benefits of Vitamin C for anti-aging, what to look for in a Vitamin C serum and why you should add this ingredient to your anti-aging arsenal!

This plus size model has a message for all plus size women (which she told exclusively to BlackCatPlus.com):  there is nothing negative about being plus size!

MovingFreeWithMirabai.com says: Spring again, time to shape up. Can you gain without the pain? Boomer Fitness Guru, Mirabai Holland shows the way.

Looking for fab shoes that are practical, stylish, and chic? Style expert Deborah Boland from Fabulous After 40 shares why block heels are a great in-between shoe if you don’t want to wear flats or high, skinny heels.

Which has more anti-aging power?  Retin A or antioxidants?  Deb of No-Nonsense Beauty Blog sorts it out.

Hey everyone! Check out my newest AARP YouTube Channel video: RUNNING AFTER 50! I learned the secret to running after 50 (and beyond). Please share it with your friends, and subscribe to the series! Leave your questions and ideas about living your best life after 50 in the comments section below the video. I’d love to hear from you! Yay!

* Cindy of Prime Beauty points out that aging doesn’t only show on our faces, our hair is feeling the years too.   She profiles Nexxus Youth Renewal Hair Care  line that helps fight eight visible signs of aging

* May is  Skin Cancer Awareness Month  and Kari of Fab Over 40  interviews  Dr Piasecki of the Skin Cancer Center on the best ways  to protect your skin from cancer causing UV rays.  Read this timely and important  post at http://www.faboverforty.com/skincare/skin-cancer-center-the-doctor-will-now-see-you/

* Its bold, its electric but can a mature woman wear it?  Find out what style expert Deborah Boland has to say about how to wea those bright green, pink or orange  neon colors at Fabulous After 40.

* Looking for warm weather fashion inspiration?   Jackie from Aging Backwards shares her shopping experience at  Coldwater Creek Store.

* Jane Seymour is upbeat and unstoppable.  Check out our one-on-one interview with her at Fab Over Fifty

* Barbara (that’s me!) at Best of Everything After Fifty is fuming mad and  wants to know when the media will get the message that women don’t have to be  thin, young, and perfectly gorgeous  to be beautiful, powerful and strong!

*  Menopausal?  Confused about management options?  72% of women have not received any treatment of menopausal symptoms.  Staness of Menopause Makeover  tells you how to find reliable information online.

*  Jodell of Black Cat  Plus  doesn’t understand   how its acceptable for a major retailer not  to carry plus size clothing when plus size  men and women make up almost  70% of the market.

* Mirabai of Moving Free with Mirabai  shares  easy and fun “prehab” exercises to get  yourself ready for the golf season.

Get ready for summer with our Glam Squad  line-up of great posts.  As Helena Rubinstein famously once  said ” There are no  unattractive women, only lazy ones”  Yay!!!

Tune in next week, too, when the BestofEverythingAfter50.com is the host!

This morning, she forwarded a video, explaining that it was required viewing for her class.

The professor used it as a springboard for discussion and debate about women, beauty, aging, self-esteem and the media. I urge you to spend a few minutes watching this powerful video, which conveys the tragicomical way society tries to convince women of all ages that we must be beautiful, thin, wrinkle-free and young in order to be desirable. The video does a masterful job of proving the point, while poking fun at the advertising, media, cosmetic and skin care industries, all of which are morally culpable. Click here to view the video.  What’s the lesson learned?

It’s time to change how we think about and talk about women, beauty, and aging in the media.

As someone who writes frequently about positive aging, the video resonated with me. It seems we can’t pick up a magazine, watch television or see a movie without being bombarded with messages at every turn urging us to join the war against aging, no matter what age you are! We listen to the “anti-aging sirens” sing sweet words of encouragement (and promises) in our ears. “Youth is beauty,” the sirens sing. “You don’t really want to age, do you? Who will hire you? Who will love you? Who will desire you? Come with us, and be young, young, young . . . forever.”

The media in which the ads appear are often just as guilty. A study finds that the absence of older women in magazines wreaks havoc with our self-esteem. It isn’t limited to just the images on the covers: An analysis of editorial and advertising images reveals that despite proportions of older readers ranging as high as 23 percent, magazines (even those supposedly geared to women over 40) show older women infrequently, if at all. Magazines geared toward older women generally show young, thin, wrinkle-free women on their pages (and based on the video, they are thin and wrinkle-free from a little tweaking, compliments of ‘Fotoshop’) an “ideal” that’s impossible to sustain, even with the use of Botox, fillers or plastic surgery. Now experts are saying these media messages threaten to cause eating disorders, low self-esteem and loss of sexuality in post50 women.

But, of course, it’s not just about women over 50. It’s about all women, of all ages, especially those who are young and emotionally vulnerable to the constant bombardment of media messages. We can’t let our young women believe that the perfect body and face equals the perfect life. We can’t continue to place such an outrageous emphasis on how we look as opposed to who we are. Our visual presentation of women in the media is distorted beyond all proportions and must be stopped.

What can you do? Share this article and video with every woman you know, of every age, and ask them to read, watch, think, and act.

Most importantly tell them they are beautiful, just the way they are.

For more tips on living your best life after 50 visit www.bestofeverythingafter50.com. Staying connected is a powerful tool! Keep me posted on how you’re doing by subscribing to me on Facebook and “tweeting” me on Twitter at @BGrufferman. Check out my weekly columns on AARP and HuffPost, too. My next book, “Take It Back: The Best of Everything Guide to Owning Your Body After 50 (and Beyond)” will be out in 2014!