Kristin Furtado

We're all so hungry to be thin

By: Kristin Furtado

Posted: 2/21/08

Walk into any local grocery store, and stand in the checkout line. You'll be hard-pressed not to stare at a display specifically designed to profit off of your insecurities. Gracing the cover of almost every glossy magazine at the checkout stand are the airbrushed, ultra-thin models and celebrities - mostly women - smiling from behind a mirage of headlines touting miracle weight loss and diet solutions. These almost ethereal creatures are sexy, alluring and youthful and - above all else - thin.

"Respect Your Body Week," has been in full swing for the past few days on campus - a series of events being held in recognition of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, at least 5 million to 10 million girls and women and 1 million boys and men in the United States are struggling with an eating disorder. Yet in the wake of this epidemic, the desire to be thin only seems to have gotten stronger. While many experts are careful to say that the media do not cause eating disorders, to underestimate its powerful influence would be unwise.

One 2006 survey by the National Eating Disorders Association, which polled 1,002 female and male college students across the country, revealed that more than half of college students know someone with an eating disorder and that the majority of those who have them do not seek treatment. More than half of the respondents who had an eating disorder also cited a pressure to be thin as one of the reasons for their onsets.

These serious disorders are often relegated to circus sideshows for an entertainment industry that trivializes the affliction with the speculative "does she or doesn't she?" mentality - lucrative entertainment for a salivating public. Magazines relish showing front-page photos of disturbingly thin celebrity starlets with headlines that read: "Lohan still denies she has eating disorder." Anorexia - which has the highest mortality rate of any other psychological illness - is set up against a backdrop of glitzy red carpets and Gucci dresses. Jutting hips and collarbones, we are told, are glamorous. And yet behind the glittering photos of these rail-thin celebrities and fashion models, exists the bleak reality of an eating disorder. We herald the anorexic body but not anorexia.

And if this perfect creature gains weight, God have mercy on her soul (which is not as important as her body). Back at the grocery checkout stand, just step on over to the not-so-nice tabloid section with headlines that read: "Check out the 46 best and worst winter beach bodies!" alongside unflattering photos of celebrities (mostly women) who have come dangerously close to looking all too human. Women are ripped to shreds because there's a fold of skin out of place.

One such recent casualty included actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, who was skewered when photos of her in a bikini cropped up in magazines and on the Internet next to headlines that read: "A holiday swim reveals Jennifer Love Hewitt has piled on the pounds" and "We know what you ate this summer, Love - everything!"

Last year, I wrote an incensed letter to the fashion equivalent of Ann Landers: Elle Magazine's E. Jean, a self-proclaimed authority for girls "tormented, driven witless, and whipsawed by confusion." One woman, who complained about being overweight, wrote: "I want to be attractive despite my weight … my fat shouldn't define who I am! What makes me me should be the main attraction."

E Jean's reply? "Miss Daunted, your drawing power - your major-league lovability - comes from the fact that though nearly every hour of your girlhood was hell on earth, and though your weight is now one husky headache, you end your letter with a defiant shout that your 'fat shouldn't define' you. Auntie Eeee adores the irony (and adores you too), but come on, honey bun, your size is defining you. You wouldn't know who you were without it. And the one sure way to find out … is to get rid of it."

"Get rid of it." I couldn't believe it. Her reply was the equivalent of suggesting a woman get a boob job to spice up her sex life. "C'mon honey-bun, it's just a silicone hop, skip and a jump away from the best sex he'll ever have."

This person whom young women could go to for advice was merely an accomplice with a mass media that constantly, perpetually, unendingly tell women every second of every day they're not good enough. And the media seductively tells those women: We can help you accomplish perfection. You, too, can become the ultimate object of desire. Let us help you attain the unattainable.

We have become slaves to the fantasy - a pursuit driving women to starve themselves to death.

As any typical teenage girl in high school, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't extremely susceptible to the images of girls in Seventeen magazine. I hated them, but at the same time I wanted so desperately to be them. Beauty was, for me, defined within those slick, perfume-laden pages. I imagined what it would feel like to see the clear definition of my shoulder blades in the mirror or the faint outline of my rib cage.

So, when you look at the 5 million to 10 million girls suffering from an eating disorder in this country, I don't think it's too far-fetched to say the media are feeding these distorted afflictions in girls. These impossible ideals of beauty are coming dangerously close to embedding themselves within our collective consciousness - where girls fresh out of the womb are told they aren't OK.

Many young women, including myself, believe that happiness is just a few pounds away - and the media are complicit in keeping this delusion alive. They thrive on our insecurity and low self-esteem.

And I can't help but notice the 8-year-old boy or girl staring at these perfect specimens from behind their mothers' grocery carts in the checkout lines. The media will raise her to believe she has to look that way - and he will expect her to.