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The fashion industry's ideal of
beauty is unrealistic for almost all women:
- By most estimates, the current ideal of thinness for women would
only be achievable by less than 5 percent of the US population.
- Twenty years ago, the average model weighed 8 percent less than
the average American woman. Today, the average model weighs 23 percent less.
- The average American woman is 5’4” and 140 lbs. The average
American model is 5’11” and 117 lbs.
From a very young age, girls become concerned about their appearance:
- Women are much more likely to be dissatisfied with their bodies
than are men. Up to 8 out of 10 women report that they are dissatisfied with
their physical appearance.
- The number one wish for girls aged 11 to 17 is to be thinner.
And the influence isn't limited to girls:
- In the past two decades, the number of men who openly report
dissatisfaction with their body has tripled.
- Studies have shown that media aimed at men increasingly highlight
muscular, low body-fat physiques as the masculine ideal.
- Steroid use has become a concern among young athletes: teens’
perception of the harmfulness of steroids has dropped steadily since the
late 1990s.
When body image becomes an obsession, dangerous, unhealthy habits can be
the result:
- As many as 10 million females and 1 million males are currently
struggling with an eating disorder in the United States alone.
- 40 percent of newly identified cases of anorexia are in girls aged
15 to 19.
The pressure to be thin starts at a very young age:
- By the time a girl is 17, she has seen more than 250,000 messages
about what she is supposed to look like.
- 27 percent of girls openly admit that the media pressures them to
have a perfect body.
- A Harvard University study showed that up to 2/3 of underweight 12
year old girls considered themselves to be too fat.
- By age 13, at least 50 percent of girls are unhappy with their
appearance.
In 2003, Teen magazine reported that 35 percent of girls aged 6 to 12 had
been on at least one diet, and that 50 to 70 percent of normal weight girls
believe they were overweight.
Body, Beauty, Boys: The Truth About Girls And How We See
It has become very easy in today's world for females to gain a negative
body image. Whether this comes from the media, their peers, or general
assumptions they make on their own, it's typical to hear a female,
regardless of age, state that they don't like their body. For teenagers,
this problem is especially true. For Christian teens trying to live up to
the expectations of Christ, it may seem to be a problem that's
insurmountable. It's time that we combat that, and books like BODY, BEAUTY,
BOYS help to teach us the right way to view ourselves.
This book contains eight main chapters for consideration: How Does a Girl
Survive in a Barbie World?; Blurred Vision; Lies I Believed and the Truth
That Set Me Free; A Portrait of Freedom; How to Worship God with Your Body;
Accountability: Having a Friend and Being a Friend; God Wants to Use Your
Past; and What Is Your Focus? Author Sarah Bragg uses practical wisdom,
biblical passages, bible study questions, and a place to write down your
answers to pointed questions to help you improve your body image.
Although BODY, BEAUTY, BOYS is definitely geared towards Christian teens,
it's a book that all female teenagers would do well to take a look at. The
knowledge it contains is perfect for everyone, and the facts and figures put
forth in the book don't apply only to those of faith. This book would make a
great gift for any teenager in your life, whether they're suffering from a
negative body image or not. The Post-Communist Body: Beauty and Aerobics in Romania
Since the fall of Communism, Romania has experienced massive
social, political and economic changes. The emergence of new social groups -
the new rich and the new poor - has made the social spectrum much more
diversified than it was under Communism. Class identities now manifest
themselves in new patterns of consumption and in the conduct of different
lifestyles. Questions of individual and collective identity - of who I am
and to which social group I belong - are being reformulated in terms of new
identity models.
The present article deals with one of these new identity models: the modern
woman. In particular, I examine the cultural construction of femininity and
among Romanian practitioners of aerobics. The theme of the modern woman will
be approached by describing the interrelationship between the ways in which
women talk about their looks and their perceptions of alternative female
roles.
My analysis is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Bucharest in
the autumn of 1994. The fieldwork, a study of new body activities in
Bucharest, focused particularly on aerobics clubs and beauty clinics. In
studying the presentational status of the body in a society with new
possibilities of consumption, my objective was to examine how processes of
relocating oneself in a changing world are reflected in body practices and
investments in one's looks. Interviews and participant-observation were
carried out in three Bucharest aerobics clubs and in a newly opened beauty
salon. The majority of my informants were higher educated middle-class women
between 18 and 45 years of age. After returning to Denmark, I conducted a
short fieldwork with Danish women practicing aerobics in a Copenhagen
fitness club, data which will enter into my forthcoming M.A. thesis in
anthropology..
The History of Aerobics in Romania
Although one might expect aerobics to be a completely new activity
introduced in the wake of the "revolution" of December 1989, this is not
quite the case. As far back as 1984 it was possible for Romanians in
Bucharest to watch aerobics illegally on Bulgarian television. Prior to
1990, aerobics could be practiced at a few state managed sports clubs, at a
private underground ballet school, and at the few big hotels of Bucharest
catering to foreigners. However, because hotels were not accessible to the
vast majority of Romanians, aerobics in hotels remained for foreigners only.
In short, during Communism aerobics was an invisible and insignificant
activity. This state of affairs changed after the revolution.
From 1990 to 1994 the number of women practicing aerobics at state managed
sports clubs doubled. Aerobics facilities at hotels were opened to everyone,
and the former underground centers advertised publicly to attract clients.
In addition, new privately-run clubs have opened which combine aerobics,
fitness, swimming pool, sauna, cosmetic salon, massage rooms and bars. Doing
aerobics at a state managed sports club is by far the cheapest option, and
many of the participants at such establishments are high school or
university students. The new private clubs are rather expensive ($17 for 12
hours of aerobics in 1995), and their customers belong to the wealthier
groups. Most of them are university-educated professionals (Rom.:
intelectuali) who after the revolution have gone into business. Many of them
have a connection to the international community either by marriage, by
having a child studying abroad or by being in daily contact with people
abroad.
A characteristic feature of the Romanian women with whom I did fieldwork is
that they are extremely conscious of being women and of having to behave and
think in a specifically feminine way. They believe that different rules
apply to them than to men. No matter if explicitly articulated or not, it is
inherent in virtually everything they do and say. It is this general
observation which will be discussed below. I will deal mostly with the
married women who practice aerobics.
The Domain of Self
When talking to women about their motives for doing aerobics, the
conversations tend to revolve around three themes:
1. Obtaining other people's recognition. Letting others know that one cares
about one's body.
2. Improving one's own sense of self-esteem. Along with other beauty
strategies, aerobics is a means of "caring for one's own beauty", something
which gives the participants a feeling of "self-respect".
3. Obtaining independence and personal freedom. Finding time and spending
the money for aerobics is viewed of in terms of "being independent" and
"claiming a space for oneself".
All three themes are linked to the domain of self. In examining my interview
data, I noticed that my informants link these themes to their ideas of
femininity. Their self-understanding becomes intelligible within a framework
of alternative models of gender identity, each with model with its own
discursive elements: e.g., (1) the beautiful independent woman, (2) the
young, pretty girl, or (3) the sacrificing married women. This observation
accords with Henrietta Moore's theory that in the process of constructing
oneself as a person and as an agent, one uses the cultural understandings of
"man" and "woman" to generate representations and self-representations
(Moore 1994:51).
In the following I will show how my informants' alternative models of
themselves are placed within various discourses of femininity. By examining
women's self-understandings and dreams of a specific type of identity, I
will investigate how these dreams are linked to their perception of the type
of woman they are, or would like to be, as well as the type they definitely
do not like to be.
Other people's recognition and one's own self-esteem
Doina is a 26-year-old computer programmer. She works as the manager of a
small private firm which trades with Korea. She finds her job demanding and
her life stressful. Half joking she says, "I am living like a man." Doina's
husband is also engaged in trade and business. Doina shares most of my
informants' ideas about beauty being important for women. When I ask her
about her cosmetic treatments, exercise classes, and the importance of being
good-looking, she says:
To take cosmetic treatments is a way of respecting yourself. It is also very
helpful, and it makes you more beautiful. So it is very suitable for a lady
I think....It is a basic duty. I like everything beautiful. When the body is
very clean and good-looking, and when you try to have style in your dressing
it makes you feel more sure of yourself, and it also puts all your partners
in a better mood when they see you; because looking at something clean and
nice - even an object -makes you feel better. That is why the better
environment in the office and at home, the better it makes you feel. Mainly,
I'm doing it for myself, but also I realized that all the people I came into
contact with are more impressed and are more ready to listen to me when I am
better dressed and my hair is properly cut, and when my nails are clean and
I have put some make-up on my face. But first of all, it is for myself.
To Doina it is suitable for a lady to be good-looking. She thinks of it as a
moral act. To take care of her appearance is an obligation. It is part of
her social role as a woman, part of the way she understands herself.
According to Doina, beauty serves three ends: her own well-being, other
people's well-being, and better possibility of social mobility. These three
interwoven aspects of beauty are mentioned by most of my informants. The
first aspect, her own well-being, is rooted in the belief that looking good
means feeling good. Feeling good about her own looks gives her confidence
and helps her to define herself to others. The second aspect, other people's
well-being, reflects an attitude held to be characteristic of Southern and
Eastern Europe: that beauty in the sense of caring for one's own looks is
considered as being polite towards other people (Knudsen and Wilken
1993:116). Although this attitude is held to be true for both men and women,
all my female informants consider physical beauty to be more important in a
woman than in a man. To be a beautiful object to others, as Doina puts it,
is part of being a proper young woman. Fulfilling the demand of beauty will
bring other people's recognition. In daily interaction between men and women
(acquaintances, lovers, friends, family members) men tend to start the
conversation by commenting upon the women's looks.
The requirement of beauty is considered more necessary for young unmarried
girls than for married women. This is because beauty is considered as an
instrument to be used to attract men, in order to marry and build a family.
Most women tell me that having a family is the most important event in a
woman's life. As this wish is realized by marriage, the demand for beauty
correspondingly is not so pressing. Instead, a woman's energy should be
channeled from her physical attractiveness towards family life.
The demand for beauty is not only related to respectable behavior and
attraction of men, however. It is also linked to the view that a woman has a
sacred duty in life to please, help and think of others. Pleasing others by
being beautiful is one way of meeting this expectation. The women I talk to
never say so directly, but as an implicit tacit knowledge the moral
obligation to please others shapes discourses and instigates action (Price
1987:316). This is especially true in the households in which women consider
the well-being of the family and its guests to be women's personal
responsibility.
The third aspect, upward mobility, is mentioned by many women as a necessity
which has become outspoken after 1990. One young woman puts it this way:
"Today beauty is very important for social life. If you want a job in a
private firm they will study you from the top to your feet. You win if you
look good". Beauty is taken to be necessary in order to cope with life in
the new society. This statement can be understood as part of the process in
which Romanian women try to figure out the operating principles in today's
Romania. People experience their daily lives as being uncertain and obscure
while they attempt to pursue stable and decent living conditions. To achieve
these, they tell me, money is the key, and beauty is one strategy to achieve
the good job, the high income or to have success in business generally.
Beauty operates as a moral imperative, as a defining feature of femininity,
as a dream and a necessity. Taken together, these functions make beautify
(or body care) an essential field of activity for women. With great surprise
the younger girls answer my apparently naive questions about the importance
of beauty: "All girls want this. It is normal for a girl to be interested in
beauty. And if you [the money to] do something about it - especially if you
are a girl - you should." In short, other people's admiration and the
thought of acting in accordance with norms for proper female behavior call
forth the strong feeling of self-satisfaction which is the motivational
force for women to be concerned about beauty. As Doina puts it, "first of
all it is for myself".
Independence and Personal Freedom
Within the sphere of beauty, activities like manicure/pedicure, cosmetic
treatments, and hairdressing are duties which lie with all women, regardless
of age or marital position. Other activities, such as wearing fashionable
clothes, keeping a slim figure and doing gymnastics rest to a higher extent
with younger girls. Social class intersects with age, as these latter
activities are considered to be expensive activities and only for people
with money.
For some married women with children, however, keeping up the life-style of
the young women becomes a way of defining an alternative femininity. This is
the case with Irina, a 29-year-old married mother of a three-year-old son.
Irina has a degree in Economics and works for a private trading company. She
has been doing aerobics for 7 years, and at the time of the interview was
exercising 3-4 times a week in a new, rather expensive private club. One of
her motives for doing aerobics is to maintain her pre-maternal figure:
to look the same as before [I gave birth]. After marriage people think that
you become lazy. It is important to show that this is not true. To show a
difference. People don't believe me when I say that I have a 3-year-old
boy....It is important for me that someone tells me that I look good. [At
work], in the office people are interested in what you do and how you look.
It is with admiration people say: "aha..because you do aerobics you are
good-looking".
In Irina's opinion, looking a certain way reflects the kind of woman she is.
Irina's admission that her energy is directed towards her surroundings
typifies a prevailing view among the women I talk to: that external
qualities are taken as a sign of inner qualities and social position. The
body is regarded as a primary marker of social identity. A person's looks
are used as an indicator of social position and education, and as an
instrument for improving one's social position.
Irina is not happy in her marriage. She and her husband have serious
problems and live quite separate lives although under the same roof. When I
ask her what her husband thinks of her doing aerobics so often, she says
He doesn't agree with it. He sometimes tells me that he should also have fun
three hours a week. But he plays basketball on the weekends. In his opinion,
aerobics doesn't fit with the female role. He doesn't understand how much it
means to me. It is a way of doing something for yourself. You have to think
of yourself, that you are also a person, and you have to take care of
yourself. We have many problems each day - at the office and at home. How do
we forget about everything? When I come here [to the aerobics center] I am
tired, but I do aerobics with pleasure, and I am relaxed when I leave. You
have to start with something to become independent...also concerning money.
My husband and I have separate economies. I pay for my aerobics and my
clothes and the things I buy for the child".
Irina's words about the female image with which she wants to identify
herself show that this image is defined in opposition to the "traditional"
role of a married woman with a child. The traditional married woman is
characterized b
- Directing all her energy into taking care of her family and home. Her own
looks are without impor
- Conceiving of her life in terms of the family's life. Living for others in
the sense of directing her acts and thoughts towards others.
- Putting all earned money into the budget of the family.
Irina wants to show a difference as she says. Contrary to the traditional
view, she wants to be a woman who:
- is conscious of her own looks and trying to maintain a young and slim
body.
- conceives her life in terms of her personal happiness. Doing things for
herself.
- keeps a part of her salary to herself
By looking good, Irina wants to show other people what kind of woman she is:
that she is independent and conscious of the value of her own life. Her
self-understanding does not only concern her own ideas about herself, but
also her relationship to other people. Much energy is spent on defining this
attractive female role to her surroundings. The compliments she receives
from her colleagues are important to her, whereas her husband's disagreement
is taken as a challenge for her to fight the prevailing and traditional
opinion that a woman's personal life stops with matrimony.
The good feeling of being an independent, good-looking girl is acquired by
spending time and money on her body. This immediate relationship between the
cultivation of the body and a feeling of independence is articulated by most
of my informants. As one young woman says: "I think that a woman must fight
for herself because nobody helps her. [To fight means] to have her own time,
to have a little independence, to be good-looking every day and not to spend
all her money on children and the home, because a man does not spend all his
money on this."
Among young academic women in Northern Europe, focusing one's energy on
personal beauty is more a sign of dependency than independence. In
Scandinavia, the natural looking body considered the culturally most
acceptable body. Doing too much and talking too much about beauty strategies
is regarded as a sign of weakness. The strong woman is the one who accepts
the body as nature has shaped it. (This does not prevent people from trying
to improve their looks, but one should not display this vanity in front of
others). My Romanian informants, however, explain to me that the female body
needs correction: it is inferior to the male body. Having the time and the
money to fulfill this obligation to correct one's body is part of fulfilling
social obligations and the personal dream or desire to look good. In a
society in which women experience their daily lives as a struggle to
accomplish their duties at home and to make ends meet financially, spending
money and time on one's body has become a symbol of being a "winner": the
supreme woman who masters her own life. Moreover, as Irina points out, it is
a visible sign of control. By taking care of your body and maintaining
youthful looks, a woman shows her independent lifestyle and her membership
in a certain social group.
In this new lifestyle, aerobics has become an important component. It is a
lifestyle which stands in opposition to the traditional lives of women. Most
of the married women I did fieldwork with were proud to emphasize this
lifestyle of body cultivation. They feel they have created a space in which
they are without demands from their surroundings. Doina says:
It is a separate world, and it belongs only to me and my body. It is very
different from all other things that I do, and nobody is connected with
it...no husband, no lover, no business partners. So it is a very important
place for me.
For the younger women, personal freedom goes hand in hand with the desire to
change the gender pattern. They want to liberate women from men's demands.
For some of them, changing the gender pattern is an abstract illusionary
idea. Others hold it to be more realistic. Doina is confused. She is not
happy in her marriage. She has been married for three years and she and her
husband live in his parents' house. Although they have a separate part of
the house to themselves, she is not happy about the situation: "I would
prefer to live on my own - even without husband sometimes...". Doina says
that she has married because marriage as such is an end in itself.
Considering a divorce, she says:
So many people are divorcing these days, but I think that I am still very
confused, and my husband too. I mean, so many people are changing ideas
about marriage. ... Before 1990 you could only think of marrying somebody
and compromising no matter what because divorcing was so difficult. These
days you consider the possibility of divorce like a reality. It is possible
that it will happen. In my case I always thought that only one partner in a
life is more than enough because the relationship between a woman and a man
is really difficult, at least for me it is very difficult, so I thought that
starting from the beginning with somebody else cannot be possible. But who
knows? ...Maybe this is just the beginning of the marriage, and it is just a
normal crisis. I don't know. I have to decide a little bit later. I need
some time....I'm thinking less of living with the idea of sacrifice than
before. I see it as a duty to make my life beautiful. And his life too, if
we come up to a point where we can't feel very happy together, it is better
to divorce.
This statement, like the remarks of Irina, serve to indicate the tension
between the traditional woman who compromises and sacrifices herself, and
the woman who tries to incorporate an alternative understanding of
femininity and married life. In this understanding, the woman is an active
agent, ready to take serious steps in order to change her conditions of
life.
"The American woman"
When talking to women in aerobic centers, they would often tell me of their
feelings of independence whenever they spent time and money on themselves,
the necessity of being good-looking, of having personal lives separated from
family lives, or taking the consequence of an unhappy marriage by divorcing.
These attitudes are widespread among women who do aerobics in Romania.
Aerobics should certainly not be interpreted as being the cause of such
thoughts. Rather, I believe that women who begin to think about the ideal of
the beautiful independent woman also start thinking of the available
strategies to become like her. The women consider aerobics to be one
strategy out of several to achieve the ideal of the good-looking independent
woman. As pointed out, this ideal differs from the traditional understanding
of a married woman's life and highlights an alternative definition of
femininity: a woman who doesn't have to think of money or to consider social
relationships. She can do whatever she wants to and she can manage alone.
She is an ideal whom my informants call, "the American woman". She is
foreign. The American woman as a foreign ideal has become something to be
fascinated by and to strive for. A woman who succeeds in achieving her life
style can feel very proud. As a model of identification, the American woman
pervades the view of who you are, who you are not, and who you would like to
be in the eyes of others. In Henrietta Moore's words, such identity
fantasies are
...linked to fantasies of power and agency in the world. This explains why
concepts such as reputation are connected not just to self-representations
and social evaluations of self, but to the potential for power and agency
which the good reputation proffers [Moore 1994:66].
According to Doina and several other women whom I interviewed, being
attractive is likely to improve status position. Not only does it give women
emotional satisfaction; they are aware that it carries with it real social
and economic benefits. Thus, identity fantasies are linked to local systems
of prestige, status and social belonging of which aerobics is an integral
part. Although possibilities for doing aerobics existed before the
revolution, people regard aerobics as a new activity, as part of the Western
style of life, a style available to people who can afford it, and for whom
it is important to keep abreast of what is happening at the moment. There is
a foreign air attached to aerobics, and a vague atmosphere of
"possibilities." The aerobics salon is associated with "the good life". To
spend time and money on this activity is to invest in one's links to the
group of people frequenting such places, and to be identified with their
modern views of life. This investment can be understood as a part of the
process of relocating oneself in society. Doing aerobics may bring with it
friendships and social connections to high-prestige groups of people.
Aside from these instrumental benefits, practicing aerobics has just as much
to do with (re)defining one's own self-understanding. For these women, their
identities are being shaped just as their bodies are being shaped: aerobics
as a separate sphere and set of practices are affecting them in the same way
that their identities are being affected by the practices of work and of
family life. This is not to say that practice alone is the motor, however.
One's self-understanding is also a result of how one experiences these
interactions and relationships, how one envisions being among those who
practice aerobics, how one sees one's relations to the family, or to one's
colleagues (Kondo 1986:44). The experience of doing aerobics causes a young
woman to view herself in a different light socially as well as physically.
Looking in the mirror, she sees a body, but also a new social identity.
Perhaps this explains why even after the first lesson many girls think that
their bodies have taken on a new shape. It is not so much the body, but the
person who gets into a new "shape". While bodies are being shaped,
identities are being recast.
Negotiating a female position
The American woman as an image not only enters Romanian consciousness via
MTV and American soap operas such as Dallas, but by personal relations with
people from the West (Sampson 1995:166). I myself am an example of this. The
fact that I "have the courage to go to Romania all alone," that my boyfriend
"allowed me to go on my own," that I have money, that I do not depend
economically on my family and that I even live on my own in Denmark, make me
a superb example of foreignness to my informants. Discussions about
femininity thus tended to revolve around my person and the Western image of
femininity which I am taken to represent. These discussions are processes in
which identities are being imagined, tested and refined. They comprise part
of a process of changing horizons which implies an expansion of geographical
and social space. As part of the "transition", changes of horizons are
changes of people's "perception of what the world 'out there' offers and
their place within it" (Sampson 1995:164). The negotiations between the
image of the beautiful woman, the image of the traditional woman and the
image of the independent woman typify the process whereby horizons change.
It is part of figuring out how the world operates and of finding a place in
this world.
In a society like Romania, in which unpredictable social changes have
implanted people with the idea that life is uncertain, much energy goes into
stabilizing a social position and pursuing what is called "a good life", a
life with time and money. Aerobics is one ingredient of the good life, and
naturally invites to discussions about alternative definitions of
femininity. Attention, however, must be paid to the different contexts in
which the various models of femininity occur. When discussing femininity and
body activities with me, women often praise the ideal of the independent
woman. When I observe them at home, however, cooking and taking care of the
children, it is clear that these duties are very meaningful to them, indeed
for some at the very core of their identity. While they tell me that women
in Romania lead hard lives which they complain about, their practices leave
me with the impression that working hard in the home is the defining feature
of their femininity. And paradoxically, part of a fulfilling life. The women
point out the hardships of their friends who have emigrated to Germany or to
the United States. Although they have swimming pools, washing machines and
two or three cars, they live in cold societies with loose connections to
family members and neighbors. "People in America are superficial and do not
care about others", they tell me.
In Romania of today, the ideal of the "beautiful independent woman" exists
alongside ideals of "the good wife," "the responsible mother," and "the
hardworking woman takes care of her family." It is not a case of choosing
one or another of these identities, but of reconciling them. Identities are
never homogeneous or coherent entities. Rather, women take up different
positions and shift between these. Identities are being constructed with
simultaneous reference to several different and even conflicting models of
femininity.
Postscript: Danish and Romanian women compared
Several points mentioned in this article could certainly apply to Western
women who practice aerobics. However, comparing the interview data my Danish
informants from a Copenhagen aerobics salon, it appears that the Romanian
women view their appearance in a much more moral fashion. The Romanian
informants seem to look upon their bodies as a presentation of themselves
and as a mirror in which their moral qualities are reflected. Whereas my
Danish informants talk about "getting into shape" and "feeling better about
themselves" the Romanian women talk about "self-respect" and "the body as a
business card" (cartea de vizita). The Romanians seem much more
other-directed; concerned with the impression they make upon other people
and the concrete advantages their good looks can bring to them. Good looks
are instrumental. For both Danish and Romanian women there is close
relationship between body and self, but in Romania the body is much more
explicitly regarded as a resource, as "body capital" than in Denmark. For
Danish women, the body must "feel good" and "be in shape". For Romanian
women, being in shape helps make the body into a social resource, to be
"utilized", like other social resources. The body beautiful: the lazy girl's guide to beach preparation
Have you seen that television ad for the rice-based breakfast
cereal favoured by calorie-counters, with advice on how to lose weight
before your holiday? It suggests that you replace a substantial number of
your meals with a bowl of the "tasty toasted flakes". Yummy!
A woman having a massage
A lymphatic drainage massage can help shift cellulite
Why didn't we think of this before? To look good, you just eat torn-up bits
of cardboard with milk (skimmed, mind) instead of food and, hey presto, you
are slinkier than half of a Desperate Housewife.
I curse at the TV every time I see it, especially when that smug voice comes
in at the end. "See you by the pool," she says, at which point only Green &
Black's cherry chocolate can soothe me.
Grown-up women with careers, brains, families, friends and other things
going for them than a flat, brown tummy shouldn't really care what they look
like by the pool. But we do.
At this time of year, I am usually squeezing panic workouts into my day in
an effort to improve my thighs before any beach appearances. But why not
skip the gym and the diets, and go straight to the beauty parlour? More
expensive, yes, but, apart from that, effortless.
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Bliss, the London day spa, has a last-minute de-bloating treatment called
the Shrink Wrap that involves working up a sweat without doing a single
sit-up. You are brushed, massaged with grapefruit oil, warmed up and then
wrapped in foil. The inches you lose will be water, not fat (£100; 020 7584
3888). But an inch is an inch, right?
If you are more concerned about the texture rather than the volume of your
thighs, a deep tissue, lymphatic drainage massage will help. Espa, the
rather marvellous aromatherapy company, has a good one called Stimulating
Hip and Thigh Treatment, which will help to smooth away cellulite (01252
741600).
The last time I had a beach holiday, I booked a Citrus Detox Reviver with
Aromatherapy Associates (£50; 020 8569 7030) the day before my flight. My
jeans were looser and the cellulite a little smoother after just one
treatment.
There are loads of stealth toning techniques around that - broadly speaking
- involve electric pads being placed on various muscles while you lie there
reading Hello!
Ultratone is one of the best and most intensive. A 30-minute session with
pads around the tummy, for example, is the equivalent of 500 abdominal
crunches - and it will show - and is an excellent treatment for those
difficult-to-tone areas such as the waist (about £35 per session;
www.ultratone.co.uk, 020 7935 0631).
If you are prepared to try something more radical, you could consider
UltraShape, a new "surgery-free fat-removal" system. Already popular in
Scandinavia, the treatment uses ultrasound to target and destroy fat cells.
It sounds too good to be true, but a friend of mine swears it shifted her
medium-sized love handles. It is painless apart from the cost: £550 per
treatment area, and it takes an hour or two (020 7935 2170,
Don't ruin all your hard work at the salon by having an imperfect bikini
area. Unless you want to risk that plucked-chicken look, have a salon wax
rather than taking the DIY route.
Bliss's bikini wax is so good that it is like a facial for the nether
region. First, camomile and jasmine oils are applied to soften the skin, and
then high-grade tea-tree and lavender oils are massaged in to soothe and
calm the area.
Ask for the Betweeny Wax (£45), which is less radical than a Brazilian, but
minimal enough for a teeny bikini. Beauty and Body Image in the Media
Images of female bodies are everywhere. Women—and their body parts—sell
everything from food to cars. Popular film and television actresses are
becoming younger, taller and thinner. Some have even been known to faint on
the set from lack of food. Women’s magazines are full of articles urging
that if they can just lose those last twenty pounds, they’ll have it all—the
perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career.
Why are standards of beauty being imposed on women, the majority of whom are
naturally larger and more mature than any of the models? The roots, some
analysts say, are economic. By presenting an ideal difficult to achieve and
maintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and
profits. And it’s no accident that youth is increasingly promoted, along
with thinness, as an essential criterion of beauty. If not all women need to
lose weight, for sure they’re all aging, says the Quebec Action Network for
Women’s Health in its 2001 report Changements sociaux en faveur de la
diversité des images corporelles. And, according to the industry, age is a
disaster that needs to be dealt with.
Cover of Shape magazineThe stakes are huge. On the one hand, women who are
insecure about their bodies are more likely to buy beauty products, new
clothes, and diet aids. It is estimated that the diet industry alone is
worth $100 billion (U.S.) a year. On the other hand, research indicates that
exposure to images of thin, young, air-brushed female bodies is linked to
depression, loss of self-esteem and the development of unhealthy eating
habits in women and girls.
The American research group Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders,
Inc. says that one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy
methods of weight control—including fasting, skipping meals, excessive
exercise, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting. And the Canadian
Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute warns that weight control measures
are being taken by girls as young as nine. American statistics are similar.
In 2003, Teen magazine reported that 35 per cent of girls 6 to 12 years old
have been on at least one diet, and that 50 to 70 per cent of normal weight
girls believe they are overweight.
Media activist Jean Kilbourne concludes that, "Women are sold to the diet
industry by the magazines we read and the television programs we watch,
almost all of which make us feel anxious about our weight."
Unattainable Beauty
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that media images of female beauty are
unattainable for all but a very small number of women. Researchers
generating a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll proportions, for
example, found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her
upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a
liver and a few centimeters of bowel. A real woman built that way would
suffer from chronic diarrhea and eventually die from malnutrition.
Still, the number of real life women and girls who seek a similarly
underweight body is epidemic, and they can suffer equally devastating health
consequences.
The Culture of Thinness
Researchers report that women’s magazines have ten and one-half times more
ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do, and over
three-quarters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one
message about how to change a woman’s bodily appearance—by diet, exercise or
cosmetic surgery.
Television and movies reinforce the importance of a thin body as a measure
of a woman’s worth. Canadian researcher Gregory Fouts reports that over
three-quarters of the female characters in TV situation comedies are
underweight, and only one in twenty are above average in size. Heavier
actresses tend to receive negative comments from male characters about their
bodies ("How about wearing a sack?"), and 80 per cent of these negative
comments are followed by canned audience laughter.
There have been efforts in the magazine industry to buck the trend. For
several years the Quebec magazine Coup de Pouce has consistently included
full-sized women in their fashion pages and Châtelaine has pledged not to
touch up photos and not to include models less than 25 years of age.
However, advertising rules the marketplace and in advertising thin is "in."
Twenty years ago, the average model weighed 8 per cent less than the average
woman—but today’s models weigh 23 per cent less. Advertisers believe that
thin models sell products. When the Australian magazine New Woman recently
included a picture of a heavy-set model on its cover, it received a
truckload of letters from grateful readers praising the move. But its
advertisers complained and the magazine returned to featuring bone-thin
models. Advertising Age International concluded that the incident "made
clear the influence wielded by advertisers who remain convinced that only
thin models spur the sales of beauty products."
Self-Improvement or Self-Destruction?
The barrage of messages about thinness, dieting and beauty tells "ordinary"
women that they are always in need of adjustment—and that the female body is
an object to be perfected.
Jean Kilbourne argues that the overwhelming presence of media images of
painfully thin women means that real women’s bodies have become invisible in
the mass media. The real tragedy, Kilbourne concludes, is that many women
internalize these stereotypes, and judge themselves by the beauty industry's
standards. Women learn to compare themselves to other women, and to compete
with them for male attention. This focus on beauty and desirability
"effectively destroys any awareness and action that might help to change
that climate." |
