"I struggled with an eating disorder through high school and college and landed in inpatient treatment 6 months after I got married."
"It's funny because as a kid, I didn't worry about it at all. I played with Barbies and watched Charlie's Angels and didn't think about body image at all. As a young adult, I started the 'comparison game' and for the past 20 years, the media has not helped with regard to this issue. Yes, there is more info regarding health and diet, but the standard is still unachievable for most. You don't see any older, hefty women anchors/reporters. It's all boobs, boobs, boobs. Now, having a teenage daughter, I am even more aware of the messages and images that are put out there and I AM FRIGHTENED!"
"The media has affected me--I think in the sense of seeing extremely thin models and actresses everywhere, and shopping for clothes that are made for girls that have no hips does make me feel a bit inadequate at times. However, for me at least....the initial problem was caused by a female pediatrician who told me at the age of 15 that I was getting chubby, and that 'my weight was at the top of the chart for my age range'. I still had a bit of baby fat, but was by no means chubby (just looking back at pictures from that time.) Before that, I had never thought of myself as anything except healthy. After that, the media's influence certainly didn't help...but I think it was harmful more in the sense that it exacerbated and reinforced negative feelings about my body that were already there."
*Names kept anonymous for privacy.
The media has affected the way women look at and feel about their bodies. There is no question about this. From the early 1900s, women were looked to be voluptuous and curvy. This was admired. As the decades passed on, the women became thinner and thinner. Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe stepped aside as Twiggy and Kate Moss took over as the perfect look.
People magazine says, "Drastic thinness has become the beauty ideal...AND it's having an alarming effect on girls everywhere."
As a school teacher, I would hear my female students say the worst things about themselves: "Ugh... I don't like taking pictures." "I'm the fattest girl in this room." "I wish I could be as thin as you when I grow up."
Eight-year-olds should never have to worry about those thoughts. Ever. I would ask them, "Where are you getting these thoughts? You're beautiful and perfect."
"TV! Everyone's pretty and thin."
And with that, I had to look into this new craze.
Fifty-eight percent of female characters in movies have had comments made about their looks, as did 28 percent in television shows and 26 percent of the female models in the accompanying commercials.
One in every three articles in leading teen girl magazines also included a focus on appearance, and most of the advertisements used an appeal to sell their products.
Recently, Filippa Hamilton was fired in October for "being too fat." She is a size four model and has worked for Ralph Lauren for the last eight years. When she started in her career, she weighed 119 pounds. Eight years later, she weighed 120 pounds-a one pound gain. She went in for a photo shoot and when it was finished, the image that appeared on the magazine cover was not anything like her image. Her waist was drawn in to an unreal proportion--a proportion that no woman could ever have. She fought back.
This youtube video is an extraordinary compilation of the media's faults in advertising what is acceptable in today's beauty standards.
Shocking statistics:
Eighty percent of women are unhappy with their appearance.
An average model is 5'11" and weighs 117 pounds.
The average woman is 5'4" and weighs 140 pounds.
One out of every four college aged woman uses unhealthy methods of weight control, including fasting, excessive exercise, and self-induced vomiting.
Four out of five 10-year-old girls are afraid of being fat.
Pop-singing group, TLC, wrote:
"You can buy your hair if it won't grow
You can fix your nose if he says so
You can buy all the make up
That M.A.C. can make
But if you can't look inside you
Find out who am I too
Be in the position to make me feel
So damn unpretty
I'll make you feel unpretty too"
Courtney E. Martin writes in Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, "The sum total of all these thin-is-in images does have an impact on the way we see our bodies, not because we are impressionable or naïve but because we are human. It is exhausting to be constantly critiquing and filtering the contradictory media and advertising messaging through a media-literate lens. As one 14-year-old Manhattanite, who sounded and looked like she was 24, told me: 'Sure, US Weekly asks, Is Lindsay too think? on the cover, but inside they publish her entire diet--total mixed messages.' If I'm feeling bad, I may not think outright, I'm going to be thin like her, but I do read the diet and take a mental note. I do feel jealous. That must translate into some behavior even if I'm not, like, totally aware of it.'
"These constant images have stretched the definition of what is 'too thin.' We are accustomed to seeing collarbones jutting out of designer dresses, hips pressing against size zero pants, tiny waists in cinched belts. These tiny bodies are normalized--the icon dolls that perfect girls play with when we grow out of Barbie. We reject the formless dresses and Chico's-a-go-go of our mothers and explain away the thin figures on the runway as an unavoidable part of high fashion. Many of us believe that fashion's fun, creative elements outweigh its skeletal models."
How can we in the media business change this? I believe that's the question we need to focus on. For us going into entertainment, this is not a simple question to answer, but it very well may be the key to our futures.
That is my hope.
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