HOW DO I LOOK?

Don't change your body, change your thoughts about it!   

It does not take a trained eye to notice that women on TV, billboards and in fashion magazines are always thin. Over the past thirty years, women have been aggressively confronted by an impossibly thin standard of beauty. 
How does the focus on thinness affect women? Anorexia nervosa was rare until the 20th century, when its incidence increased dramatically. The related problem of bulimia was almost unknown until the last three decades. Anorexia and bulimia are overwhelming female problems: 90 to 95% of those with an eating disorder are women. Early research suggested anorexia and bulimia were primarily problems of upper middle class, white women. Research is now documenting an increase in the numbers of Black, Asian and working class women struggling with eating problems. Eating disorders are serious health problems. Anywhere from 5 to 21% of women hospitalized for an eating disorder will die in treatment. Medical effects of eating problems can be severe, ranging from hypothermia to dehydration and kidney failure. 
The emphasis on thinness has also led to a dramatic expansion of the diet industry. Today, the diet business has become a $35 billion per year industry in North America alone. The vast array of diet books, videos, programs and commercial establishments is overwhelming. As numerous and unique as these methods are, they have one thing in common--they are virtually always unsuccessful. Many women who do not have anorexia or bulimia struggle instead with problems such as yo-yo dieting, compulsive eating and a constant preoccupation with food and weight. The wide gap between the ideal of beauty for women and the reality that each woman must contend with leads many to think they have failed. Feelings of failure lead to body image problems and periodic dieting, in turn, lead to greater feelings of failure. 
Preferences for body shape have varied over time and between cultures. Historically, most societies have associated fatness in women with desirable social status as it is an overt sign of wealth where food is not abundant. In many countries obesity is viewed with admiration as a sign of fertility strength and pros perity, all of which are related to human survival. In many non-Western countries, large women are considered beautiful and sexually attractive. 
It is common in African cultures for fat to be interpreted as a symbol of sexual maturity, fertility, prosperity, strength and wisdom.

Despite these historical and cross-cultural values, Western society promotes widespread hatred and fear of fat.
From an early age, children learn that fat people are to be stigmatized. Unfavorable traits associated with fatinclude cheater, lazy, sloppy, ugly, mean and stupid.
Hatred of fat is a socially acceptable form of prejudice. Fat people are still the butt of jokes by many professional comics and cartoonists. Health professionals rate fat people as more "disturbed" and likely to have less favorable results from any treatment.Strong economic, psychological and social sanctions against fat are imposedon women and men. However, studies suggest these sanctions are more severe for women. For example, fat women face greater discrimination in job markets than either thin women or fat men. It has also been suggested that fat women are more vulnerable to verbal, physical and sexual abuse because of body size. 

Standardized or Globalized?

It is frightening to note that the ideal of physical beauty is one that is becoming increasingly standardized throughout the world. 

While thinness is an important component of the beauty ideal, it is not the only one.Over-whelmingly, the standard is strikingly young, able-bodied, white, Western and wealthy. The increasing dominance of this euro-centric image of beauty has had a powerful impact on women throughout the world. Black women, Latin American women, South Asian women, Asian women, and Native women are under-represented and often invisible in fashion magazines and the popular media. The beauty industry encourages women to conform to this narrow image of beauty that is reflective of a small minority of the world's population. 
Numerous writers have documented the devastating consequences the caste of beauty has had on women of color. Many women of color end up feeling unacceptable and powerless as a result of our cultural values. Socialization and sex role stereotyping leaves many women feeling ugly, fat, inadequate, self-conscious and uncomfortable in their bodies. For the vast majority, the body is not a pleasurable and functional part of being female. Instead, it is an object to be manipulated, punished and misused to be made more `acceptable'. Alternately, the body may become an object to be ignored, in the hope that it will somehow go away. In a culture where a woman's value is determined by the attractiveness of her body, her identity becomes closely connected with how she looks. This causes the culture to view women's bodies as objects which, in turn, cause women to see themselves as objects Objectification is a form of oppression. In being made objects, women are dehumanized--their intelligence, abilities and feelings are ignored and they are valued solely for their bodies. 
Treating the body as an object may affect an adult woman's physical and emotional health. Preoccupation with physical appearance causes many to become afraid of their bodies and bodily functions, channel energy away from more important things in life into a self-perpetuating and losing battle, and leave them with more intensified feelings of hatred for their bodies and often themselves. Changing feelings and attitudes about the body is a longer term answer than changing the body, but one that is more likely to work. It is also a permanent solution. By examining underlying feelings about their bodies, exploring the cultural and individual roots of these feelings, and expanding notions of what is beautiful, women can learn to accept their bodies. Through this process, many women also find greater self-confidence, personal power and acceptance.