“I think the standard for female beauty has always been unrealistically thin,” said Brooke Whisenhunt, a psychology professor at Missouri State University whose research specializes in obesity, eating disorders and body image. PHOTO: Woman takes care of her healthy body at the gym in this undated stock image. STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images Woman takes care of her healthy body at the gym in this undated stock image. “Now I feel like we’ve added another variable that is difficult for most people to obtain,” she said. “We’ve made our ideal less realistic for women over time.”

The women's decision to make the pledge, and to do so publicly, shines a much-needed spotlight on the topic of females and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), according to Dr. Chris Nowinski, co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. “This has always been an important topic for female athletes but because football has received the most coverage, females don’t get enough attention,” Nowinski told ABC News. “A female athlete has yet to be diagnosed with CTE but that’s primarily due to [not having] many female brains donated.”

“I had been following the Flint, Michigan, issue for about two years,” Gitanjali Rao told ABC News. “I was appalled by the number of people affected by lead contamination in water and I wanted to do something to change this.”