It’s no secret that U.S society places high value on personal appearance. From cosmetic surgery to fad diets, the U.S public will do just about anything to be physically beautiful. This is especially true for young women who often fail to see inner beauty in themselves, let alone external beauty. The perfect abs, chest, and thighs of models and celebrities are coveted assests, anything less is undesirable and ugly. Anything else needs to be fixed. From schoolyards to college campuses and corporate offices, society’s idea of beauty creates a situation in which young women are judged based on appearance. It’s even well known that more beautiful people are treated differently and given more social opportunities. Society is driving young women’s ambitions to be thin, because thin is beautiful; and young women are now going to extremes to fit themselves into the ideal.
As W.B Yeats, a writer and poet, put it, “To be born woman is to know – Although they do not speak of it at school, women must labor to be beautiful.”[1] And labor they do, Americans attend gyms, count calories and carbohydrates, skip food groups or whole meals, and spend around $500 million a year on “prescription and over-the-counter diet drugs” (National Task Force on the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity, N.A.). According to Patton et al. (1999) “Female teenagers who follow a severely restrictive diet are 18 times more likely than nondieters to develop an eating disorder within one year of the diet.” Well, according to Yeats, that’s life as a woman. But why then do Western nations have an anorexia prevalence rate of 0.1%-5.7%, and a bulimia prevalence rate of 0.3%-7.3% in young women, while non-Western nations have an bulimia prevalence rate of .46%-3.2% in female subjects (Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc., 2005). It’s also interesting to note that the ANRED[2] notes that these non-Western rates are rising due to the increasing availability and influence of Western media. Clearly, societal ideals, ideals of beauty, and societal pressures are different in the U.S and Europe from those ideals around the world. Most young women in Africa would hardly be able to understand the motivations of anorexic and bulimic women, not to mention the economic differences that makes such disorders as these unthinkable in 3rd world nations. In Western culture a hundred years ago robust women were considered healthy and more desirable, while the thin women were seen as sickly and not as pretty. According to Comer (2005), there has been a “noticeable shift toward preference for a thin female frame in recent decades” (pg. 262). He goes n to discuss the significant weight change in beauty contestants from 1959 to 1978 (during which the Miss America Pageant was tracked). The study found “an average decline of 0.28 pounds per year among contestants and 0.37 pounds per year among winners (pg. 262-263).
This social preference isn’t just affecting beauty contestants and those in the entertainment industry either. A survey by Elias (1999) noted that 70% of surveyed teen girls said that fashion magazines make them feel overweight and in need of a diet.” It’s no wonder then that nearly one half of elementary students have tried to lose weight and 61% of middle school girls are currently dieting (Shisslak et al., 1998, Comer, 2005).
Robert Comer (2005) also tells the frightening story of prospective parents shown pictures of chubby, medium sized, and thin children. The former children were rated by the prospective parents as “less friendly, energetic, intelligent, and desirable” than the latter children. Of course, family pressures, based on societal ideals of desirability and beauty, are a huge reason for the aforementioned elementary and middle school dieting habits. Parents tend to pass on these ideals to their children, which in turn solidify societal cues toward thin bodies and dieting in order to be beautiful. Furthermore, the aforementioned prejudice toward weighty individuals continue throughout life. “Fat” jokes are highly prevalent in schools and on comedy podiums, yet other forms of appearance based jokes are deemed unacceptable and reproachable. So why is it that we tolerate making fun of overweight individuals? Our society is so enamored with appearance, being thin, and thin is beautiful, remember? One case of societal impact is the notorious case of singer Karen Carpenter; a once healthy young women who turned to anorexia after being called chubby by a critic. Eventually Karen Carpenter died as a result of the disease.
Models, athletes, and actors/actresses all strive for thinness, fitness. It’s almost everyday that we hear of a celebrity of one sort or another admitting an eating problem of some sort. Even Nicole Richie (2007), in a recent interview, admitted being too thin and stated her desire that fans not follow suit while she deals with the issue. Too bad for America’s teens and young adult population that these words make little impact in the grand scheme of things. After all, don’t we also hear “actions speak louder than words?” The appearance of models, actors/actresses, and athletes significantly impacts society’s view on beauty and the desire’s of young women to look like them.
Evidence of the impact of the entertainment industry on young women can be seen in the growing popularity of “thinsperation” websites, which exhibit photographs of models, actresses, and athletes whom young women look to and use as inspiration for their weight loss goals. However, these “thinsperation” websites aren’t at all inspiration, they show pictures of extreme thinness that encourages anorexia or bulimia as a means of obtaining it. The heavy dieting young women undertake in order to meet their weight loss goals often bring on symptoms of anorexia or bulimia, and the diet eventually turns into a disorder. Even if the disorder never becomes serious enough to diagnose as anorexia or bulimia, disorders in eating can still cause serious health and/or mental problems for the individual. To make matters worse, some thinsperation websites contain beauty tips to hide the affects of eating deficiencies, such as brittle nails, loss of hair, circles around the eyes, fatigue, etc…
While society cannot solely be blamed for the growing anorexia and bulimia epidemic, it certainly plays a significant role. As of now, “Anorexia is the 3rd most common chronic illness among adolescents” (South Carolina Department of Mental Health, 2006), and it is only getting worse as society continually narrows their preference for thinner and thinner women. Some causes of eating disorders cannot be helped by society, such as biological factors; however, something can be done about the societal pressures and influences for thinness that are all too often take to the extreme. Our society’s obsession with external beauty is influencing our nation’s youth toward extremes to fit in, and unfortunately these extremes sometimes result in death. According to the North Carolina Department of Mental Health (2006), “A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover.” These starling statistics call more than ever for action to be taken on the part of society and local communities. It’s time to take the pressure off beauty and thinness, and put it on health instead.
