I just came across a fantastic article in the Wall Street Journal that revisits a 1986 article written by a reporter who interviewed several 4th grade girls in Chicago-area schools about dieting, media images and the need to be thin. The article compares their views then with what they think now as adults, 23 years later. The original project was meant to compare results with the now famous 1986 University of California- San Francisco study which revealed that 80% of 4th grade girls were dieting at the time of the study (along with several other startling statistics that were revealed in this study). The WSJ reporter’s study had very similar results. Over half of the girls he interviewed said they were on diets and 75% of them said they weighed too much. Not only were the girls’ results startling, but one boy the reporter interviewed said:
“Fat girls aren’t like regular girls,” one boy told me. “They aren’t attractive.”
It seems that most of those 4th grade girls originally interviewed have grown into beautiful, successful women who, for the most part, have escaped society’s obsession with being super thin. But, what is worth noting is the fact that none of them seem to have thrown the notion that beauty and thinness don’t matter in today’s world completely out the window. One woman said:
Today, she watches her weight “so I can be successful in a world that puts great emphasis on how a person looks.”
Another point I found interesting was one woman’s observation that anti-obesity children’s campaigns have backfired in that they make young girls even more obsessed with weight and image. Girls’ fears of being fat have created a lot of problems.
Compared with the fourth graders of 1986, girls today see body images in ads “that are even further from reality. Retouching is rampant,” says Claire Mysko, author of “You’re Amazing,” a book encouraging self-esteem in girls. She worries that childhood obesity-prevention efforts can make girls obsessive about weight. While these programs are important vehicles to fight a growing problem, “we have to be really careful how we are implementing nutrition and body imaging,” she says.
She speaks of her own observations as a teacher during lunch time:
On lunch duty each day, she notices 10 girls who eat nothing. “We make them take a few bites,” she says, “but they fight me on it. They say, ‘I’m not hungry,’ and I tell them, ‘You’ve been here since 8 a.m. Of course you’re hungry!’ ”
Last night I was talking to one of my friends who is a middle school teacher and she shared with me her observations of some of the students at her school who also don’t eat during lunch. When she asked one student about her lunch time non-eating habits, the student said she wasn’t hungry and she just eats at home. My friend then asked the girl what she eats when she gets home to which the girl replied “Oh you know, a cracker or something.”
I think this timeline of dieting then and now shows us that it’s only gotten worse. As the writer of this article points out, girls in 1986 didn’t have pro-ana sites and hours of youtube thinspiration videos to turn to like girls today have. Behind society’s obvious contributions to our increased obsession with youth, beauty and thinness (like ultra thin runway models and unbelievably skinny young TV starlets), there lies much more that I believe contributes to the problem. And that is what we learn from the people we see on a day-to-day basis: moms, sisters, girlfriends and even dads and brothers.
If Mom is constantly dieting and obsessed with her food portions and her weight and is exercising like a maniac, what type of message does it send to her 4th grade daughter? After all, actions speak way louder than words. I believe that many of us can give a really nice speech about how images of super thin models and actresses can damage our daughters and should be stopped, but what about the damage it causes (and has caused) to you?! It’s naive to think that just because we are “grown up” we are automatically too mature to be susceptible to the influence that society can have on the way we think about our bodies.
This study revealed that girls are dieting because they hate the shape of their bodies and certain body parts. Well I know plenty of grown women who feel the exact same way about their bodies; we all start somewhere. Perhaps the worldview of 4th grade girls doesn’t change as much as we think when we “grow up.”
I personally love Harriet Brown’s perspective on all this. I don’t have a daughter, but I am working on myself every day to make sure that one day, when I do have a daughter, I can teach her to love her body in the true sense, so that she can love herself in 4th grade and forever.
Nice post. But do you really answer the question posed in the title? If it’s not the media’s fault, who’s fault is it?
I think movies, fashion magazines and of course, television, all play a big role in determining how women, young and old, think about their self-image.
The average American is bombarded with thousands of “persuasion attempts” per day that try to tell people about how they *should* be, usually in an attempt to spur some consumerism.
I’m not so sure you have made your case that the “day-to-day basis” of moms and other real-life examples can exceed the power of the media barrage.
I agree with this post 100%. Parents need to take charge of their families. We influence self-image just as we influence tolerance. The first thing is moms having discussions with their daughters about the pressures and influences shown in TV and society. Teach our sons and daughters how to form their own expectations of beauty.
thats too great post thx alt for it
Hi!
Thanks for your comments and your perspective. Sorry if the title of my post is unclear. I wasn’t really trying to make the case that the people in our lives have more or less of an effect on our self-esteem and body image issues than media does. I was simply trying to make the point that media is not the only problem, which is why the title says “it’s not JUST the media’s fault” which implies that media is a contributing factor for sure, but certainly not the ONLY factor.
I’m certainly a huge believer in the media’s influence on our body image (just read through my other posts on this blog). But I often think that we as women can hide behind the guise that it’s all media’s fault; like we are not contributors to our own body image issues. My “How to be a good cheeseburger friend” post addresses this as well. I know for me, negative comments from friends, parents, co-workers, etc can be even more harmful than seeing an image of a thin girl on a billboard.
Hope that clears things up:-) Thanks again for reading and commenting.
Tiffabee
Sorry. I didn’t mean to misunderstand. I really wasn’t trying to be critical or anything, merely exploring what I thought was an important question raised by your post.
Perhaps women are finally getting ready to overthrow the body image media overloads. I thought this recent story was a *very* good sign:
http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/vitamin-g/2009/08/on-the-cl-the-picture-you-cant.html
Hopefully that link works in here.
Keep up the good work and I’ll go find that post you mentioned!
Interesting that the anti-obesity/healthy lifestyle propaganda seems to also be having a detrimental effect on girls’ self esteem and body image. Not eating at all is an understandable response to all the pressure and expectations placed on young girls and women – understandable and tragic.
Good article, thanks.
The problem really is systemic. Yes, fashion magazines contribute. So do parents and siblings and teachers and doctors and boyfriends and fathers and random nasty people walking down the street who get their jollies by mooing or yelling about whales at random women passing by.
It’s important to remember that when discussing how to solve the problem. It’s going to take a very long time to dismantle such an ingrained ‘truth’ as ‘fat is bad.’
Thanks for a thoughtful look at the situation as it stands. Until we take a clear look at the current realities, it’s hard to develop a clear idea of how to change it.
Awesome!!! You are back!!!
* : )
“…just because we are “grown up” we are automatically too mature to be susceptible to the influence that society can have on the way we think about our bodies. …”
yep!
And the converse: Just because girls are children, they aren’t automatically “too little to understand” the implications of having a body society sees as “wrong”…kids internalize and absorb so much…whether or not we grownups are aware of it…
JEZEBEL also had some good comments on this article today….
btw are you still doing your doll project?? I really like all the work you put into making those little dolls…have you shown them anywhere? (like an art gallery) because you totally should!!
Just to put a tiny twist on it, my little girl is on Concerta, which means that she often indeed isn’t hungry at lunchtime and might eat only a bite or two. She makes up for it at dinnertime; but not immediately after school. We watch her weight, height, and blood pressure to make sure she’s growing enough; and we try to have weekends when she’s off her ADD drugs so that she eats more.
Anyway, some of those little girls may also be on ADD drugs and not be hungry yet. It’s getting diagnosed more nowadays.
Great article! I’m glad I came across this. Blogrolled. 🙂
On the other hand, I’m always saddened whenever I hear news of people dieting in the ways of throwing away food not because they can’t eat it (i.e. allergies, advised by doc not to, etc.) but because they simply refuse to. While they’re turning their pretty noses at food, the rest of the hungry people in the world are going hungrier and dying by the minute. While it is ideal to totally eradicate our twisted notions of what a body image should be, I don’t doubt that such an endeavor is impossible. However, if we try to live lives that reflect our healthy body image and such an effort would influence someone else to accept his/her body [and total person] as it is, then no effort was in vain.
Not only do actions speak louder than words, but beliefs do as well. By changing our atttitude towards food and our beliefs about ourselves and our bodies, we could help ourselves and our daughers a great deal.
yep… although it`s kinda hard to resist media
I think something that often gets left out of a discussion from this perspective is exercise–the only real mention of exercise you have in this article is “If Mom…is exercising like a maniac”–although I realize the point of your post was about the attitudes around weight, I think an important thing to mention is how food is so demonized by anti-obesity campaigns–at the expense of disregarding other important factors. If getting proper exercise and having healthy fitness habits were more emphasized, I think many girls would become less obsessed with how much food they need to eat and would concentrate instead on which kinds to eat to keep them healthy and active. We perceive that we should not be fat–from a range of sources–but there are many fewer sources telling us a good way to stay healthy (not necessarily skinny, but not obese either).
Tiffabee – grat post. You bring up some insightful info with it.
“I don’t have a daughter, but I am working on myself every day to make sure that one day, when I do have a daughter, I can teach her to love her body in the true sense, so that she can love herself in 4th grade and forever.”
I have to agree with what Deborah said above. And add, the dangerous influences are out there. We have to teach our kids coping skills. We can’t protect them from every little thing. We have to dialog with them, every single day. Reframe their experience so they can be healthy.
My daughter is 26 today. (happy Bday, sweetie) While in school, we had discussions every day about her experiences. Many times I had to listen through some pretty scary stuff, but I had to give her a place to bring it, give her a chance to tell me her feelings, even tho some days it scared the h*ll out of me. I also had to listen when she told me what it meant to her. While I could advise her on a healthy perspective, I couldn’t force my perspective on her. She had to think for her self.
I guess what I’m trying to say is spend more time with your kids, listening & understanding how they are digesting all the garbage out there…
Cant change this..! 😦
THIS IS SO VERY INTERESTING AND HELPS ME FOR MY PROJECT. THANK YOU! TRULY! http://THEPRETTYPROJECT.COM
A solid family life/parents have a huge impact on a person’s self-image, but I can’t say it’s all about the parents. I have supportive, wonderful parents, but I have been (and still sort of am) struggling with body image. I’m 21 now, but I think I’ve noticed it since elementary school… probably around 5th grade. Your peers will tell you it’s not “cool” to be fat – well, not even fat… even slightly pudgy is really bad. I think I was at my worst when I started high school… I hardly ever ate breakfast or lunch during the school year because well, my friends didn’t and I was really focused on maintaining an “acceptable” weight. My parents never pressured me about my weight because I am naturally thin already and I always knew the importance of eating right/exercising, but still… can’t help but be self-conscious.
hellorissy – thanks for sharing your perspective. That was great that your parents were supportive.
I guess what I meant was more than just being supportive, it became really important to my daughter to have me help her frame peer-pressure in a healthy way. And also to be someone she could speak to, about all the crazy stuff & crazy feelings, so she could sort out in her mind what was best fro her, with my loving guidance.
Parenting is still, even with all the instruction out there today, an on-the-job-training kind of a thing.
As we are supporting our children, I just think it is also important to show them HOW to digest all the garbage they will encounter, from media pressure, peer pressure to ‘thin-people pressure.
Also, to help them understand that from 12-23yrs old, it is an awkward time in a child’s development. Part of the ‘maturing into an adult’ leaves you in a place where you feel weird about your self, try to figure out where you fit in the world as well as gain an understanding of who you are, based on your own perspective.
So many times I see parents trying to smooth out the path in front of their kids. Sometimes we need to teach them ‘how’ to endure the bumpy parts of life…
I dunno if I made sense with that…
Beautiful article! I do believe you are correct. We are more obsessed than ever. Still, I love the clothes that are on the market today that pull away from the tummy and the back and make a person feel and look good. It’s all in the clothes.
I have always struggled with a weight problem and it did not help when my own family would call me fat. Still, it did not affect my self-confidence. Once in a while I struggle with feeling beautiful in spite of the fact my husband loves me bulges and all. He hates it when I am self depreciating. I feel better when I eat correctly and excercise regularly then I do not have those issues of bad feelings.
Hi Tiffabee-
Wrote about this too http://tinyurl.com/mx8v3r and am so frustrated that there are so many programs out there on obesity and so little on helping girls with the psychological side of being healthy– body image. I know I’m preaching to the choir here. But as I say in my piece, it seems to me, that psychological well being is just as important as physical well being– and in fact is tied in so tightly together that separating them out is not only silly, it’s careless. Agreed?
On a separate note, I would love to get your stories as I believe you know I’m writing my book on girls and body image- due out next year from Harlequin. Currently writing the chapter on Dad’s impact on body image (and other family members), but will soon be writing about the impact of teachers, coaches, and other adults in girls’ lives (especially in school). Would love to get your stories but would also like to request that your friend who is a teacher get in touch with me– would love to get her stories for the school chapter– and would love to hear more about the girl she spoke to about eating lunch (an issue in many schools around America). Would you ask her to get in touch? She can (and anyone else you think who might want to contribute a specific story, even if anonymous) get in touch with me through my story website at http://www.AskDrRobynSilverman.com
Thanks for the great article– it’s good to know I’m not going crazy out there.
Dr. Robyn
I work with teens with mental disabilities and usually they are not easily embarrassed. When it comes to acceptance they don’t let things get to them. That is one of the many things that I love about them. However, when it comes to this issue it seems hit them as well. This just astonishes me.
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