Posts filed under 'body image'
It’s the same price as a commercial scale, but this little beauty comes without the added price of low self-esteem. Now presenting Marilyn Wann’s handmade Yay! Scales, which replace numbers with affirmations such as “You’re hot!” and “You’re perfect!”
It comes in four great styles, including the Fat Scott Fitzgerald and the Plush Size. The scales are available through VoluptuArt, a very cool retail web site indeed. Take a look around for other body-positive gifts for yourself or the women in your life.
-A. I.
February 1st, 2008
Is it any surprise that girls who feel unpopular put on more weight over a two-year period than girls who see themselves as being higher on the popularity ladder? And what is healthier – being heavier and unpopular, or being popular and thinner?
In a study recently publicized through the Associated Press via the San Francisco Chronicle, young women (with an average age of 15) told researchers their height, weight, and where they saw themselves on the social ladder. Two years later, the girls were asked again for their weight. Girls who had previously labeled themselves as unpopular had more “excess” weight than the girls who saw themselves as being higher on the social ladder.
But the questions that I keep coming back to are 1) who is actually happier? and 2) who is actually healthier?
First of all, I would like to be able to say that there are more important indicators of young women’s happiness than their popularity. A girls’ perceived popularity in junior high does affect their self-esteem, which may therefore impact their health decisions. However, some girls are lucky enough to realize that it’s the quality of their friendships, the support of their family, and their life experiences that matter rather than the number of friendships. And in that case, these young women may well be much happier than the more “popular” girls. I would love to see this study accompanied by a survey of how the girls rate their happiness.
And secondly, weight is not the only factor in our health! Every body is made differently and thus every body deals with health, food, and exercise in different ways.
All of that being said, in order for women to be healthy, we have to look at more than just their food intake and exercise. Improving every girl’s self-esteem is integral to improving their health. The study is important in that it brings self-esteem into the weight debate, something that is sorely missing. However, this is just the beginning. We need to look at other factors when considering a person’s health than their food and exercise patterns. What does it matter if we’re overweight, happy, and healthy?
– H. B.
January 24th, 2008
When was the last time you sat on the couch, squealing in delight because you were so impressed with the programming? I know. Us neither. We’re not even all that into TV. That’s why we’re so excited about “How to Look Good Naked,” a new Lifetime reality series.
The weekly show is hosted by Carson Kressley from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” and features a new woman each week who learns to love her body as it is. (Yes, really.) Each week, the show culminates in a photo shoot where the woman poses naked, flaunting her new-found confidence. The show is structured in much the same way as a typical makeover show, but the goal is one of self-acceptance, instead of diet and plastic surgery.
The title of the show may evoke something straight out of seedy late-night cable, but this show genuinely strives to counter pre-conceived images of beauty to which women compare themselves. Carson repeatedly comes back to the idea of loving one’s body, and seeing it as others perceive it, instead of as our own skewed version.
The first episode featured Layla from Santa Monica, CA, and put Layla through a program to allow her to see her body as it really is. In the show, Layla takes a good look at herself in several full-length mirrors and lists off every part of her body that she dislikes, while Carson emphasizes her positive attributes. Shortly afterward, Layla sees interviews with people on the street as they speak about a huge, projected image of her body. Instead of highlighting so-called problem areas, many individuals found Layla’s body beautiful and refreshing. After going bra and underwear shopping, clothing shopping, having a spa treatment, haircut, and makeup restyling, Layla poses naked for a photo shoot.
We find this show delightfully subversive, as it uses the typical makeover show paradigm to promote a positive message about loving oneself. Not once are diet or cosmetic surgery mentioned as possible avenues for self-improvement. There’s still the predictable corporate shilling, in not-so-subtle moments of product placement, and we saw at least one diet pill advertisement during the commercial breaks (et tu, Dexatrim?). Also, too much emphasis was put on making Layla look and feel “sexy” and desirable to men. However, we are impressed with Carson’s compassionate and unorthodox contributions to this reality series, which makes the show watchable and entertaining.
Numerous critics have cited the show for promoting obesity/unhealthy lifestyles (their words, not ours) and glossing over the benefits of healthy eating and exercise. Apparently these critics assume that the show’s viewers have never heard those suggestions before. Apparently these critics have not been paying attention to the corporate sponsors. Ads aside, “How to Look Good Naked” stands out by not taking part in that rhetoric. We are not given information about Layla’s medical profile, her eating habits or her exercise patterns, because that is simply irrelevant.
These same critics have touched upon their own impulse to judge the women featured in the episode as being too lazy to change their bodies, and finding acceptance as a sort of defeat. What do you think? Did you find yourself pointing out Layla’s flaws along with her?
We’ve heard this sort of argument a lot, blaming and bullying women who do not work day and night to achieve a cookie-cutter goal for their bodies. The show has something to say about that: Carson explains that in the 20 years Layla had been dieting, she could have been having fun, being good at her job, dating more. She had been putting her life on pause, waiting until she was worthy to go out and be proactive. That was one of the most poignant moments of the show, and one that will most likely hit home for many of the show’s viewers.
You can watch the whole first episode in three segments on the Lifetime website here. It’s also available for free download from the iTunes Store.
So if you love this show too, take action!
1) Let Lifetime know how much you appreciate its programming by writing Lifetime Television / 309 W. 49th Street / New York, NY 10019.
2) Send Carson’s agent a letter or e-mail and tell her what a great job he’s doing.
3) Support the show by tuning in and encouraging your friends to watch it.
As always, we welcome any comments you might have about the show. Let us know what you think!
The details:
“How to Look Good Naked,” Lifetime, Fridays at 9PM/8PM Central.
– Avital Isaacs and Hilary Burgin
Avital is a sophomore at Oberlin College, where she majors in Cinema Studies. After many years of quiet admiration for About-Face, she is thrilled to be joining the ranks.
Hilary is also a sophomore at Oberlin College in the great state of Ohio, studying Environmental Studies and Latin American Studies. She was raised in a female-positive family that loves to have event gatherings based upon food. She could most likely live off of garlic, chocolate, spinach, cheese, and grapefruit.
January 16th, 2008
Check out these ads from Itambé, a Brazilian dairy company. Though their recent circulation around the web has prompted some speculation as to their validity, for me the issue is not about how or by whom they were created, but about what they say:
This series of ads recasts three iconic film images (Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, and Mena Suvari in American Beauty) as full-bodied women. The accompanying words translate as: “Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt.”
It took me a few minutes of staring incredulously at my computer screen, eyebrows threatening to rise off my face entirely, before I could even figure out where to start.
Clearly, those of us who profess that every body is beautiful have been deluding ourselves. Can plus-sized be pretty? Can you be fat and still be happy? Will anyone who’s not thin (and extensively airbrushed) ever be celebrated as an iconic representation of beauty? Apparently we shouldn’t get our hopes up.
I don’t know what’s more offensive: that the ads have such a homogenous and absolute perception of beauty (it is attained, exclusively, through having a fit/thin body, which is attained, also exclusively, through eating their yogurt) or that this perception stems from a definition of beauty as that which is attractive to men. Men, they warn us, will never like big women. No man wants to see up the skirt of a fat bisexual serial killer. No one will ever say, “Isn’t it delicious?” when the passing of a subway train raises a fat woman’s dress. And certainly no man will ever fantasize about his high school daughter’s fat best friend.
The worst part of the ads’ interpretations of male desire is the message that appealing to it should be at the forefront of female concerns. Even the most mundane aspects of daily life, such as grocery shopping, are to be approached with men in mind. The suggestion that we should choose yogurt based on how it makes us look to men essentially reflects an archaic idea that is remains all too potent in the structure of our everyday lives: a woman’s value lies in what she does for men.
Regardless of these ads’ legitimacy (Fit Light is a brand of Itambé, but we haven’t been able to find these ads on their web site.), the message they contain is definitely displayed in other elements of both Brazilian and American cultures (or many others, for that matter). So what can you do next time you see an ad like these? Stop and challenge the message it sends; in this case: “Men’s preference will never change?” Why not? We can fight back by seeing the women in the ads as beautiful. You can try writing to companies that produce offensive ads, letting them know how you feel. Challenge yourself and others to remember that beauty is not tied to size, and that it isn’t limited to we see in ads. And next time you buy yogurt, pick the kind you like the best, regardless whether it will make you look sexier.
Margot Brooks is a rising junior at Stanford University. She is thinking of majoring in psychology and/or sociology, but will probably change her mind several more times henceforth. In the meantime, she is excited to contribute to About-Face and can be reached at margot09@stanford.edu.
July 20th, 2007
This is my diabetes kit. Dealing with the blood-sugar testing, hypoglycemic episodes, insulin-pump management and/or insulin injections is no party. But the consequences of NOT dealing with them are severe.
A couple years ago, I got a dreadful sinus infection, found myself trotting to the bathroom several times an hour, and dropped about 15 pounds in six weeks. I had developed Type 1 diabetes (a.k.a. insulin-dependent or juvenile diabetes). It felt weird to tell friends about my new disease. But the conversations kept bumping to an awkward halt, right around the time the other person said—and I am not making this up—”You lost 15 pounds? God, you’re lucky.” After I’d just explained that I have a chronic disease.
Not long after that, my sister called me and asked, “It’s really bad if you don’t take your insulin, right?” I launched into an explanation of the disastrous things that can result if a Type 1 diabetic doesn’t take insulin. She had a new friend, a woman in her 30s, who was diabetic and systematically did not treat it. The friend was obsessed with being skinny, my sister told me. It was the first time I even contemplated deliberately abusing this disease in the pursuit of the waifish figure I’d recently acquired.
Evidently there’s a name being (informally) used to describe the practice: diabulimia.
I have often said that I can’t imagine what it would be like to have this disease as a teenager. The urge to treat it like a new variety of eating disorder would be so tempting, especially in light of the compromised self-confidence that can be a side effect of a chronic disease.
But stop and think about the reason an insulin-dependent diabetic loses weight if she doesn’t take her insulin: The body doesn’t have a way to convert sugar into energy, so the body instead devours muscle and fat, in the process drastically weakening itself and kicking a large amount of toxins called ketones into the bloodstream. Meanwhile, the sugar that’s left adrift in the bloodstream is merrily wreaking havoc on as many organs and systems as it can.
The side effects of uncontrolled diabetes—aside from ketoacidosis, slow starvation, coma, and death—include nerve damage, kidney failure, heart disease, and blindness. As a woman, it’s dangerous to conceive a baby if you have high blood sugar because the fetus can develop severe birth defects; the rate of miscarriage is also higher than in the general population.
Being thin could never be worth any of that. I’ve said that in some ways I feel lucky to have Type 1 diabetes, because an enormous component of the treatment is simply leading a healthy lifestyle: eating mindfully, staying active, being aware of what’s going on with my body and asking questions when I have them. I realize that those people who said I was lucky to have a disease whose side effect was uncontrolled weight loss were just toeing the party line of our expectations of our bodies. Shouldn’t the main expectation be health?
-A.A.
Alison Aves is a professional writer, editor, and diabetes handler living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She can be contacted at alavessf@gmail.com.
June 28th, 2007
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