Articles to Ruin Your Appetite

In an attempt to avoid ranting (this is my third attempt at writing this blog), I will address a few comments to each item viewed or read this week.

1. While French Eye Thinness, America's Obesity Expands: I thought banning of encouragement of extreme thinness was very interesting. On a related note, sometime last year, a major fashion show in Spain required that the models be within a certain BMI range. The range was, if I remember correctly, actually lower than it would be for most people, but even then, a fairly large proportion of the models failed to meet the requirement. I also think that the Spanish government was in part responsible for the requirement. Perhaps the bans are because high fashion, and the extremely thin models that comes with it, is more observed or prevalent in Europe? I'm not sure exactly, but I do know that the nightly news has NOT been running clips about how fat Europeans have become, so it makes more sense that extreme thinness is the focus there. I understand the author's opinion that too thin is not the predominant problem in the US, but it's not like the French government was trying to change weight problems here in the US either.
2. An Insatiable Emptiness: I remember a drawing in one of the girls' magazines I read in elementary school that had a slightly different version of a Norman Rockwell painting that showed a young girl in a slip sitting in front of a mirror looking pensively at her reflection. In this version, the girl was anorexic and was so thin that her shoulder blades and elbows were frighteningly prominent. I remember the girl talking about her hair falling out because her body no longer had the extra energy to grow it. This caused me some concern since I had hair coming out everyday when I brushed my hair. Fortunately, my mother explained that hair normally sheds--but doesn't normally fall out in clumps. The author's statements in Insatiable Emptiness about her mother's attempts to control her reminds me that eating disorders are also frequently triggered when high-achieving people feel out of control, and that the disorder is an attempt to re-gain control over at least one aspect of their life.
3. Body Image: Let's Get Real: I am so glad I am no longer in middle or high school.
4. Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Image of Women: I appreciated that the speaker still kept a sense of humor. She had many valid points, and many were quite serious. But she didn't spend all her time earnestly saying how screwed we are. That said, I don't remember any prominent suggestions on how to fix things. She pointed out that the people who say they simply ignore advertising are those most likely to be wearing a branded t-shirt. So where does she shop? She also wore makeup, so clearly she isn't immune either from ideas about how a woman should look and what products they need to achieve that look. My point is not that she shouldn't buy clothes, or wear makeup, but that she shouldn't make fun of those who buy certain things--because she also buys similar things!
5. "Why you think we live in a culture where...obesity has been on the rise...yet the media projects extreme thinness." Okay, obesity is on the rise because people spend all their time running around to eight million things a day, and then they spend their spare time in front of the computer or TV. Then they insist on "getting their value's worth" with huge servings of unhealthy food. They don't have the time/inclination to cook food from actual ingredients and they don't actually physically move that much. Ta-dah, increased obesity. When you can buy a squirt tube of combined peanut butter and jelly, a product you use because you don't have time to make a normal PB&J sandwich, you're waaaaay too busy or lazy. And then there is the media. Despite their claims, they have never actually had a great grasp of reality. When my mom was in Africa for the Peace Corp at the very end of the 1960s, she thought she'd come back find the US in the midst of an all out civil war from what the magazines said. While the US did experience plenty of turmoil, we were not actually to the level of the 1860s. While I enjoyed any number of WB channel shows, I knew that the physical appearances of everyone on those shows, from the janitors up to the protagonists, WAS NOT TYPICAL. The number of hot guys and gals on the shows were ridiculous; no town has that many tanned, toned and well groomed people. And those people NEVER wore the same outfit twice. I don't know the exact reason that the media portrays such thinness (rib cages and hip bones really aren't attractive, no matter how great the clothes and makeup), but apparently parents need to make clear to their children that what's portrayed by the media is not actually REAL. It's all been created by fifty people with special lights, sets, cameras and computers. If you were there in person, it wouldn't look identical to the end product.
   

• Furnham, Adrian, et al. “Preferences for Female Body Weight and Shape in Three European Countries.” European Psychologist. 12.3 (2007): 220-228.

EDITED 6/8/08 for spelling and clarifications.