Magazine Project

It’s plagues every magazine cover across the country. It’s on every commercial of every channel you flip to. It’s on every billboard you see. It’s brought up at least once in every girl conversation. Both men and women are constantly criticized about it, especially celebrities. There are so many people across the country so obsessed with it, they’ll even cause harm to themselves trying to obtain it. Nowadays, there is no escaping it.

The epidemic I am referring is the pressure to be skinny. Women have this perception that if they do not have the ideal, stick-figured body, than they will be somehow less appreciated in society.

The number of women this pressure effects is alarming and, not to mention, deeply concerning. Plus, they way these vulnerable women try to achieve the “perfect” bodies is highly dangerous. According to the research group Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders Inc., 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.

The main cause of this sickness is low self-esteem, including the one with the “perfect” bodies.

Somehow our society has created a correlation between how we look and how we are accepted. Some people just want to be accepted. I can understand what it feels like to want to be accepted, or even noticed. Humans are social creatures, and we assume that by losing weight, hopefully, we can find that approval; we imagine that a thinner frame will somehow make us more socially accepted.

I’m not presuming that all fuller women don’t receive attention just because they are thick or that they don’t receive any attention at all, but the media attaches a stigma to gaining weight or being fuller. Women are glorified for losing weight and criticized when they gain it. As soon as a celebrity gains a few, the torment does not cease until the weight is gone.

And really, can you blame us? The thin representation is all that we see, and it’s affecting us. According to a study by the International Journal of Eating Disorders, due to the low exposure of thicker bodies in the media, women’s perceptions of how a woman’s body should look are being altered. Most models and celebrities are thinner. As a result to that low exposure, women find that a normal body is a thin body. The thicker and fuller women have no representation in the media, and therefore see their bodies as being abnormal or wrong.

What we as a society need to do is change the psyche. We need to represent women all types of bodies in more types of media. It alters the perception of a “normal” female body, since all body types are being represented

What has happened to our society that we let how other women look effect our self-esteem so badly? Vulnerable women are so easy to manipulate that one picture is all it takes to influence someone to lose weight, whether or not they need to.

We really should become a society of healthy people. I am not advocating for binge or eating whatever you want whenever you want. Health should be the most important thing. Regardless if you were thick or thin, the important thing is that you are healthy.

All my life, I have been petite; I am not very tall, and I am moderately active. During high school, my body began to full in, but I was and still am still pretty petite. However, a thin frame was never something I admired. Growing up, I always wanted curves. Foolishly, I felt that if I had a fuller body, it would make me more of a woman. Unless I completely alter my diet or get some type of plastic surgery that would make my body thicker, this is going to be me forever: a petite, young woman.

Now that I’m a little older and a little more confident, I realized self esteem is not about having a thick body or a thin body, it’s about respecting and accepting the body you were born with. It’s also about realizing that decent people—people that are worth being friends with—won’t worry about your exterior; they’ll be more concern with your personality.

So, if you go to the beach or the pool this summer, and you’re worried about walking around in a bathing suit, just remember: regardless if you have a thicker body or a thinner one, inside is what’s most important.