Taking action against unrealistic body images
Throughout this post, you’ll see pictures of beautiful curvy, chubby or overweight women. Love them! Anyways…people in the world are taking action against the corporate media bullshit involving skinny women. More and more young women and even little girls are being fed these lies and believing them, thinking that the only way they can ever be accepted or be beautiful is by being dangerously skinny. Activist groups are sprouting up to defend these girls and reverse the idea that only skinny women are beautiful–and you can to. Read on!
A while ago I posted this on Current.com:
There’s nothing new about TV and fashion magazines giving girls unhealthy ideas about how thin they need to be in order to be considered beautiful. What is surprising is the method psychologists at the University of Texas have come up with to keep girls from developing eating disorders. Their main weapon against super skinny (role) models: a brand of civil disobedience dubbed “body activism.”
Since 2001, more than 1,000 high school and college students have participated in the Body Project, which works by getting girls to understand how they have been buying into the notion that you have to be thin to be happy or successful. After critiquing the so-called thin ideal by writing essays and role-playing with their peers, participants are directed to come up with
and execute small, nonviolent acts. They include slipping notes saying “Love your body the way it is” into dieting books at stores like Borders and writing letters to Mattel, makers of the impossibly proportioned Barbie doll.
According to a study in the latest issue of the Journal of Consulti ng and Clinical Psychology, the risk of developing eating disorders was reduced 61% among Body Project participants. And they continued to exhibit positive body-image attitudes as long as three years after completing the program, which consists of four one-hour sessions. Such lasting effects may be due to girls’ realizing not only how they were being influenced but also who was benefiting from the societal pressure to be thin. “These people who promote the perfect body really don’t care about you at all,” says Kelsey Hertel, a high school junior and Body Project veteran in Eugene, Ore. “They purposefully make you feel like less of a person so you’ll buy their stuff and they’ll make money.”
As part of the program, Hertel and a friend posted signs in a school bathroom saying YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. DON’T BE SOMEONE THAT YOU’RE NOT. BE YOURSELF. The girls then watched their classmates react. “They’d see the signs and say things like ‘That’s encouraging because I always feel so fat and gross and ugly,’” Hertel says. The study’s lead author, Eric Stice, designed the Body Project betting that a crucial element in preventing eating disorders lay in getting a participant to critique a fashion ad or other negative influence in front of her peers. “If I write down 10 things bad about it and post it on MySpace so anyone can view it, I’m accountable for it,” says Stice, now at the Oregon Research Institute.
Psychologists are excited about his study because there’s not a lot of other data measuring the effectiveness of such programs, let alone their long-term impact.
Others are taking action against unrealistic body images and the lies that corporations feed us. Dove launched a campaign a while back glorifying real, curvy women. Curvy and sexy celebrities are starting to pop up, with a great deal more personality and spirit than the usual anorexic celebrities. Anorexic BMIs are being banned from high-profile fashion shows in many places like Milan, and powerful fasion designers are beginning to take action as well:
Italian designer Nolita is celebrating Milan Fashion Week with a number of billboard and newspaper advertisements featuring a naked anorexia woman in an effort to warn the public of the effects of the disease.
The ad features twenty-seven year old French woman Isabelle Caro, an anorexic who weighs just 68 lbs. Isbelle blames a “difficult childhood” for her bout with the deadly disorders: “I’ve hidden myself and covered myself for too long. Now I want to show myself fearlessly, even though I know my body arouses repugnance. I want to recover because I love life and the riches of the universe. I want to show young people how dangerous this illness is.”
I greatly respect the bravery of this woman–self aware of her disease and how skinny images hurt the body images of young women, she has taken action in a deeply personal and touching way.
I’m inspired–if everyone who knows the body image lies of the corporate media is wrong takes action against it, more and more young women will be helped. We can all do our part–women, stop referring to your weight as ugly. This is a huge challenge, because we’ve been trained from the beginning to think that skinny equals beautiful and curvy, chubby and fat does not equal sexy. Comment on your friends’ curviness in a positive way–’your hips are so curvy and lush! You look like a Greek goddess!’, ‘your face looks so youthful and soft’, or even ‘your breasts look larger! It looks great!’ Don’t lau
gh! Women like to comment on eachother’s thinness, and thinness has become a social thing. If you make a curvy person feel beautiful, and encourage them to keep the look, you will be making change.
Men, try to make these same comments towards women! I’ve been told men really do like wide hips. Thinness takes away many beautiful, youthful features–soft cheeks, large breasts, soft and plush skin, large lips and a cute butt! Make sure to comment positively on those aspects in your female friends, not the thin aspects. Speak of curvy women more often as sexy. If you have posters or pictures of beautiful women up, and they are skinny, try replacing them with more realistic ones. Encourage your female friends to eat more.
How else can we take action on an individual level? I personally look disgusted when I see an obviously fake or anorexic portrait in the corporate media, whether or not I mean to. My fri
ends will say their beautiful, and I’ll point out why they are not. Telling curvy girls you don’t know they are looking good today or something similar is another great way to im prove their self confidence. Smiling at curvy girls is another way to boost their confidence! People smile more often and lock eyes with ‘attractive’, skinny women more often than they do with curvy, chubby or overweight women. These women never have strangers, men or other girls lock eyes with them and smile, and can feel isolated and depressed because of it. Take my word for it.
How else can we take action on an individual level to reverse this destructive way of thinking?
(P.S. You are beautiful, love your body!)
Is this REALLY such a problem, though? I mean ,come on…..now they’re saying almost half of Americans are obese!!! I agree, we shouldn’t encourage anyone to starve themselves to a skeletal state. However, I don’t think encouraging them to be fat is good, either. Many of the people I’ve seen who identify as “curvy” are in fact seriously overweight, which puts them at risk of serious health problems. Overeating and obesity is a much bigger problem than anorexia is.
Wow, the first comment to this old thing.
Are you sure almost half of Americans are [i]obese[/i] or do you mean overweight? I’m interested in your source for this information.
This may very well be true in older age groups, but my age group is anything but obese. I think I’ve seen one girl my age obese, and one very overweight, but beyond that most girls my age are extremely skinny and still dieting.
According to studies completed in 2004 by the CDC, 66.3% of adults over 20 are overweight, and 32% are obese. In the 12-19 age group, only 17% are overweight.
Speaking from personal experience, I know very few women who think positively about their own body image. I find it rather disconcerting when very attractive women think of themselves as ugly or unattractive.
I must say, I don’t understand this whole thing with trying to look like the models in adds. firstly, they’re models. Secondly, they’re photoshopped to shit. Thirdly, if your friends won’t talk to you unless you’re wearing the latest fashions fresh from the hands of an indonesian child (That totally show off your personality and individuality) you may want to find some new friends.
Agreed.
Honestly, fashion irks me. We really do not need as many clothes as consumerism tells us we do — and fashion (as in, changing fashions by the seasons, not general clothes design) just makes that even worse.
How can people honestly just decide what to wear based on what’s “in”?
I agree about fashion. It’s really quite ridiculous.
I have polo shirts that are probably six years old that I still wear to work regularly. Yay for SoCal weather where winter clothing equals summer clothing plus a windbreaker.
The idea of it is awkward, too… I mean, it’s supposed to show your individuality, but you didn’t make it- It’s something produced by slave labor, and you’re charge hundreds of dollars to wear what THEY say will make you unique? The whole thing isn’t very well planned, if you think critically. Fortunately for Abecrombie and Fitch, this system frowns heavily upon deep thought.
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/
Here’s a link to some of the statistics I mentioned, and they come from the CDC. I’m not saying anorexia (which is really a mental illness)isn’t a problem for a small group of people, but it’s nowhere near as prevalent or dangerous as the obesity epidemic. Everyone, men AND women, needs to be encouraged to exercise and watch their caloric intake as well as eating a healthy diet. I think often times, so-called “self acceptance” groups are really promoting the idea that being overweight or obese is somehow healthy or ok. It’s not. Encouraging people to “eat more” in a world of super-sizing and gastric bypass is a horrible idea. I also think that it plays into an “every woman is a victim of something!” trend, which I don’t think is a healthy or empowering message.
The trend to overweight and obesity is especially troubling in children, who are now showing up at the doctor with diseases formerly found only in obese adults, such as type II diabetes. I suppose it varies in different parts of the country, but it’s still a major problem (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/299/20/2401) In some studies, they found that 17% of children 2-19 years old were overweight (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/overweight/overwght_child_03.htm)
In another vein, social pressure to look a certain way is hardly limited to women, either. Men are also encouraged to be perfect, and male models are all either very thin (think heroin chic) or extremely muscular, with tanned skin and perfect teeth. Think A&F. Male film stars are expected to have perfect bodies, and are regularly ridiculed in the tabloids when they go bald, pack on a few pounds, or otherwise deviate from what people demand from celebrities. “Lookism” affects both sexes, and I am unsure why it’s talked about as though only women were under pressure to be attractive.
I think a little less “blame the fashion/diet industry!” and a lot more “self responsibility” is in order. So many people talk as though they are the victims of Big Business, who simply MAKE them go out and buy those 300 dollar jeans. Of course that isn’t the case. In all things moderation. You can dress nicely and be attractive without spending thousands of dollars. Don’t starve yourself, but don’t get fat and out of shape either. A good hairstyle, some classy-yet-affordable clothes, and a healthy exercise program can go a long way in improving self esteem