The Psychological Effect The psychological consequences of being overweight can include effects such as low self-esteem, anxiety and more serious conditions such as depression and eating disorders. The modern culture of today is obvious in the way that it worships the young, slim and toned bodies, apart from the rare exception, only thin and proportioned bodies are deemed sexy and attractive. Therefore, overweight people are often looked down upon, especially in the fashion industry. It is easy to feel self-conscious or depressed when todays culture makes it clear that there is not a market for overweight women. Not all women are born with model-like bodies, most women are continuously struggling with their weight and their acceptance into …show more content…
In a TED talk titled "Enough with the Fear of Fat" at TEDxSydney festival in May, artist and fat activist Kelli Jean Drinkwater scrutinised the sensitivities of bigger bodies by calling out a number of truths about fatness. In a society that is infatuated with the perfect body image and manifested by a fear of fat, Kelli Jean Drinkwater engages in profound body politics throughout her art. She confronts the public perception of bigger bodies by bringing them into the spaces that were once off limits – from fashion runways to the Sydney festival – and invites everyone to look again and rethink the biases, saying “unapologetic fat bodies can blow people’s minds”. A misconception of plus size women is that all larger women probably hate themselves or wish that they were thin. Why can a fat woman not be happy with who she is? Why does the media feel the need to put words into women’s mouths for them? Everyone is fixed to think one way about weight and size. Fat equals bad and thin equals good. Therefore, fat people are not treated as well as thin people are. "We may even blame fat people themselves for the discrimination they face because, after all, if we don't like it, we should just lose weight," Drinkwater says. Plus size women do not ask to be bullied or discriminated against and no one deserves it …show more content…
The fashion industry has been criticised for a long time for destabilisation the confidence and health of women by showing an unobtainable ideal of what beauty is and that it an idea based on thinness and Photoshop is normal. Recently, it has been proposed that by representing the plus-size consumer that the fashion world is standardising obesity, a condition that can be as harmful and unhealthy as being ‘model thin’. The fashion industry is beginning to embrace the idea of non-traditional beauty by supporting a wider range of sizes. By promoting diversity in the ‘ideal’ beauty, the fashion world and the media are making big strides to show how every woman can be beautiful if she takes proper care of herself. Research has typically shown that giving women exposure to thin models can elevate their body dissatisfaction. In one study (Rodgers and Chabrol 2009) it explains that women who have already experienced some level of body dissatisfaction after viewing certain advertisements with thin rather than average sized models. Another study (Bell, Lawton and Dittmar 2007) found similar results for exposure to thin models in popular music videos. Adolescent girls who watched music videos featuring ‘ultra-thin’ models demonstrated significantly elevated scores on a measure of body dissatisfaction. It’s no secret that the
Cynara Geisslers’ essay “Fat Acceptance: A Basic Primer,” was published in Geez Magazine in 2010. The focus of the essay is to refute the pressure of society to be thin and promote self-acceptance regardless of size. While this essay touches on many agreeable points, it tends to blow many ideas out of context in an attempt to create a stronger argument. The article takes on a one-sided argument without any appropriate acknowledgement of the opposition, overlooks the risks of ignoring personal health, and has a strong feminist ideology associated towards the essay which tends to make the validity of her argument questionable.
Under certain circumstances, being tormented about one's weight can be the foundation of other issues as well. For children growing up it can be especially difficult. There can be many social issues involved as far as making friends and participating in various group activities. Once school is finished, finding a job can be another challenge. By reason that the person may feel they are not good enough and furthermore may be apprehensive of the interview process.
Sociocultural standards of feminine beauty are presented in almost all forms of popular media, revealing women with images that portray for what is considered to be the "ideal body." Such beauty standards for most women are completely unattainable; what is seen on TV Is another story, majority of models are considered to be well below what is known as a healthy weight. Media conveys a practical message using models that are not considered to be healthy and stating that in order for a woman to be considered beautiful, she must be unhealthy, or “thin.” The mindset in today’s society for many women is that you need to be thin, which is all too predominant and for females it makes it more difficult to achieve any level of serenity of their physical appearance. In the American culture, the “ideal body” for a female is represented very negatively, as it has dramatically changed. The number of people who are thin is starting to be the minority, while the people who are overweight/obese is going to other way and is the majority. Andre Dubus, the author of the short story "The Fat Girl," demonstrates each of these traditional behaviors towards the overweight main character, Louise.
... creation is just a doll” says the article “Beyond Thin”. But with people in pictures and magazines it’s different. A study in Europe links the fashion industry's use of super-thin models to the self-identity problems of many young women.
In conclusion, women should be comfortable in their own skin and shouldn’t feel compelled to be as thin as a model. Women need to feel appropriate and content in their own skin, and to not feel inferior to the model on TV or pasted in a magazine advertisement. We are all different and no woman is exactly the same and even the ones that seem to be picture perfect have flaws and love handles, and women need to realize that is the truth. So, by accepting one’s self for who they truly are and what they have accomplished in life is what is going to boost our self-esteem. Once the world understands this, then the media won’t have such a monumental affect on society.
Everywhere one looks today, one will notice that our culture places a very high value on women being thin. Many will argue that today’s fashion models have “filled out” compared to the times past; however the evidence of this is really hard to see. Our society admires men for what they accomplish and what they achieve. Women are usually evaluated by and accepted for how they look, regardless of what they do. A woman can be incredibly successful and still find that her beauty or lack of it will have more to do with her acceptance than what she is able to accomplish. “From the time they are tiny children, most females are taught that beauty is the supreme objective in life” (Claude-Pierre, p18). The peer pressure for girls in school to be skinny is often far greater than for boys to make a team. When it is spring, young girls begin thinking “How am I going to look in my bathing suit? I better take off a few more pounds.”
In the media there are people who view women a certain way, and if we don't hold to the standard that we are not as good as other women who are the size the media says we have to be. In an article it said that "Large women in America are to all intents and purposes invisible in today's thinness-obsessed culture. A big women is neither seen nor heard, and is defined purely in terms of her weight and other people's prejudice." (Goodman par 1) This is a hard thing for women that a heavier to understand because they want the person to think that they are heard. This plays into the way that they think and the way that women look at their bodies. You can see this happening with different types of televisions shows, which put on the show thinner women. "Practically the only television programming that addresses her directly consists of weight-loss ads, the message: lose weight. You're not real women unless you're thin (Goodman)". It is hard to think that this statement could be true, but
...th the modern era defining beautiful as having less weight. (WiseGeek, n.d.) Another argument is that thin is a feminist issue and they just use this as a headline grabber because 39.4 million of Americans suffer from obesity and the British NHS survey of Disordered Eating noted 620 hospital treatments for anorexia or bulimia (with some patients registered twice or more) for 2005 to 2006 as opposed to 17,458 for the same period for obesity. They also argue that more material is being saved when models are thinner and clothes look more elegant and drapes effortlessly on skinnier models. Most models and designers argue that models are not supposed to eat and they are meant to be skinny to sell more clothes or make them look more appealing.
Step out into the everyday world as an average American and you will witness an entanglement of varied body size, and shape. Now, enter the world of the media, a world in which you are formally introduced to high fashion, where flashing lights, money, glamour and riches crash around you, satiating every crevice of your being. Here, you will find two unified body types, divided into two categories of shape in women; thin, and thick. Naturally, any woman who wishes to someday strut down the catwalk in Zac Posen, or pose in Marie Claire wearing Dolce and Cabana must have a body that fits one of these required molds, right? It is a well-known reality that many women who cannot reach by healthy means, or do not already have, the desired body type for fashion industries, will develop an eating disorder to starve their way into the position. However, most fail to address the issue of obesity that curdles on the other end of the physical spectrum; the plus size modeling industry. This statement not only boils the blood of millions of American Women, but begs the question: If extremely thin models promote eating disorders, should we prohibit advertisers, especially those in fashion, from using plus size models, as they may promote obesity? To put it simply, no. Plus size models do not promote obesity because they only provide thicker, much larger women, confidence and appreciation for their body without pressuring them to take unhealthy means to shed pounds; they do not encourage overeating and lack of exercise.
If fat women loss weight they will be “normal” women, and then will be part of the society (Kirkland, 2008). However, the feminist acceptance movement attempts to disrupt body-normalized standards and claims gender inclusion. By doing this, the feminist fat acceptance group has been questioned and criticised because of its nature. For instance, many discussions have been around the following questions: Can fat women claim justice? How would large bodies make arguments for rights?
67 percent of American women report to be plus-size, a size 14 and above, and yet they are only represented in 1-2 percent of images in american. These gaping statistics inspired women’s media brand Refinery 29 to start the 67 project. The project is an attempt to make the seeing of plus size women in media as normal as seeing plus size women in real life, by literally having plus sized women represented in 67 percent of their photos. While this is a small piece of the larger fat acceptance movement, the implications of this lack of recognition is significant because it leads societal normalization, and pressure to attain, a body that to a large extent is unattainable.
In pop culture today plus size models are jumping into the mix and making a splash. Not only are these curvy beauty’s brining the positive out in people, but also regretfully some of the negative. Social media and their expectations on how one should look have caused a wave of antagonism to surface on this matter. The media has played a big part in this from banning plus size adds on social media claiming they violate policy’s which has caused outrage and backlash from people to how the media is affecting views on problems like anorexia and making it more difficult for bigger models to find jobs. Not all of the bad comes with negative responses though, for example in Europe there are tons of new positive body regulations popping up, along with charters being created specifically for plus size models in the fashion industry.
Some of these stereotypes are that the person that is overweight is lazy, they eat unhealthy, or that it is their fault. In our society, individuals that are overweight are also looked at as sloppy, irresponsible and often less capable. These stereotypes are one of the main reasons that weight bias has become such a problem in today’s society. These social stigmas and stereotypes stem from society’s willingness to label others based on what they see rather than taking the time and getting to know someone for who they are not what they look like. These stigmas and stereotypes also come from the medias representation of weight.
Majority of the advertisements in magazines present the bodies of women in unrealistic fashions and it is rare to see women with a healthy body size. Photoshop has become a tool that fixes all “imperfections,” even ones that don’t exit. The problem with portrayals of beauty in magazine advertisements is that they convince society, mainly other women, that a certain body type is the norm while all others are abnormal. The media showcase women as being ultra-thin and promote this as being the ideal body type. This body type is highly unattainable and in the process of trying to gain the perfect body shape, there is the possibility of gaining an eating disorder and low self-esteem.
The ‘universal size’ is greatly desired by so many ladies causing insecurities, which develop bulimia, anorexia and binge. This segregation is becoming known as the unspoken acceptance of body shaming and becoming something much more serve that what it primarily