o y Bd e g ma I
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
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Body Image STORY BY MARY DUENWALD TYPOGRAPHY BY ZOË INNANEN
D
id you know that it's Beautiful Women Month?'' a much-forwarded e-mail message asks, before making a few
pertinent statements. Here's a sampling: ''Marilyn Monroe wore a size 14''; ''If Barbie was a real woman, she'd have to walk on all fours''; and ''The average woman weighs 144 lb. and wears between a 12-14.'' There are more ''facts on figures,'' not all of them perfectly accurate. Ms. Monroe, who was 5 feet 5 1/2 inches and weighed between 118 to 135 pounds, may have been busty enough to fill out a size 14, but partly because sizes were smaller in the 1950's. And Barbie is indeed disproportionate -- a 1995 study found that for a woman with an average body type to attain Barbie's shape, she would need to grow 24 inches (making her more than 7 feet tall), take 6 inches off her waist and add 5 to her chest. But if she came to life, she could presumably still walk upright, the director of the study said. As for the average woman's weight today, it has jumped to 152 pounds in the 90's from 144 in the late 70's. But even after correcting the e-mail's exaggerations, the message remains: today's culture holds up standards of thinness that do not make sense for the average woman and -- the e-mail's tone plainly suggests -- it is high time women stood up to the pressure. Other signs of a grass-roots movement in favor of women accepting their bodies, whatever their size, can be found in movies like ''Real
THERE’S MOMENTUM THAT’S FINALLY BEGINNING TO BUILD.”
Women Have Curves'' and ''My Big Fat Greek Wedding''; in Internet sites like AdiosBarbie.com, About-Face.org and Loveyourbody.org, which urge women to love their shapes; in books like ''Skinny Women Are Evil: Notes of a Big Girl in a Small-Minded World'' by the comedian Mo'Nique; and in the sixth annual Love Your Body Day, on Oct. 15, sponsored by the National Organization for Women Foundation. ''There's momentum that's finally beginning to build,'' said Debbie Burgard, a psychologist in Los Altos, Calif., whose clients are women with weight problems and eating disorders. This is not simply a pro-fat movement, or a throwing in of the collective towel when it comes to weight control. In fact, weight experts point to signs that a weakening obsession with skinniness can lead to a stronger attraction to fitness. Curves (formerly called Curves for Women) fitness centers, which are more welcoming to larger women than the average gym, are the fastest-growing franchise in America, according to Entrepreneur magazine. Over the last seven years, the number of locations has grown to more than 5,500, while a new one opens every four hours, said Gary Heavin, the chief executive and a co-founder of the company, which is based in Waco, Tex. Until January, Curves did not advertise. ''Most gyms are more akin to nightclubs than they are to support groups or exercise centers,'' Mr. Heavin said. ''Women felt they needed to lose 10 pounds before joining.'' Curves centers are relatively small -- they fit easily into a modest strip mall or neighborhood storefront -- and offer a half-hour workout designed for women unaccustomed to exercise. A large part of the appeal, Mr. Heavin said, is that
average or heavier-than-average women
Emme, perhaps the most famous
can get together with like-size women to
of the full-figured fashion models, has
support and inspire one another.
been lecturing at college campuses and
The phenomenal success of Curves,
even testified before a Congressional
many experts say, is a sign that women
subcomÂmittee about the need to help
are accepting, and therefore taking bet-
women overcome their problems with
ter care of, their bodies.
body image.
Women are also writing more let-
''What I stand for is accepting your
ters to magazine editors, criticizing the
body type, whether you are a size 2 or a
spindly fashion models and praising ef-
size 14, and then taking care of yourself
forts to include bigger women, said Cindi
with a balance of exercise and eating
Leive, the editor in chief of Glamour. She
really well,'' said Emme, who introduced
has received thousands of responses
her own line of women's clothing sizes
to her second annual ''body love'' issue
14 to 24 last fall.
in May. ''It's now a mainstream idea that
Another popular full-figured model
no one should be allowed to tell us that
is Mia Tyler, the focus of several Web
we need to diet in order to have worth in
sites. Ms. Tyler, a half-sister of the ac-
this world,'' Ms. Leive said, ''and it wasn't
tress Liv Tyler, has modeled for Lane
10 years ago.''
Bryant and H & M's Big Is Beautiful line.
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will this new awareness be enough to cure the plague of body hating?
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B
ut will this new awareness be
perimposed on these wrong assumptions is
enough to cure the plague of body
the highly unrealistic body ideal,'' he said. ''It
hating that, mental health experts
leads women into conflict with their own body.''
contend, is widely and deeply in-
The conflict can play a role in eating disor-
grained in American women?
ders like anorexia nervosa (chronic undereating),
That may be too much to ask.'If
bulimia (overeating followed by purging) or
there's a change so far, it may be that
chronic binge eating but, psychiatrists say,
women have gone from being horri-
they are too complicated to be explained by
bly dissatisfied with their own bodies
body dissatisfaction alone. Full-blown eating
to being somewhat less horribly dis-
disorders are rare. But even for a woman not
satisfied,'' said Dr. Kelly D. Brownell,
suffering a full-blown eating disorder, disappoint-
the director of the Yale Center for
ment with the size or shape of her body can be
Eating and Weight Disorders, and
a daily problem. A recent study at the Univer-
the author of the Barbie proportions
sity of Central Florida, in Orlando, showed that
study. ''It's very hard to find a woman
adult women who have a positive view of their
who really likes her body. Even if she
bodies are happier no matter what their age is.
likes the shape, she will not like her toes, her knees, her elbows or her ankles. There's always something wrong.'' Prof. Susie Orbach, a sociologist
The trouble is, most women do not have a positive view of their bodies, experts say. ''It's a subclinical pathology that is so ubiquitous, women think of it as a normal obsession to have,'' Professor Orbach said.
at the London School of Econom-
At this point, even if movies, television
ics and Political Science, has been
and magazines all suddenly started promot-
addressing the subject since 1978,
ing images of normal-size or large women, the
when her book, ''Fat Is a Feminist
skinny-body ideal would persist, Professor Or-
Issue,'' was first published. ''I think
bach said, because it is so embedded in the
there could be a zeitgeist change,
average woman's psyche. The notion that a
but there hasn't been yet,'' she said.
woman should be rail thin, she and others said,
''We're still not fully recognizing that
is transmitted from one generation to the next.
the body-image problem is a public
''We're in our third generation now,'' Dr.
health emergency.'' Body dissatisfaction, Dr. Brownell
Burgard said. ''I have patients now whose grandmothers were anorexic.''
said, stems from two assumptions
About a third of American women are
-- that a body can be shaped at will,
obese, meaning that their body mass index -- a
so that ''the only thing that lies be-
ratio of weight to height -- is 30 or more. Another
tween any woman and perfection is
third are overweight, with a body mass index
effort,'' and that an imperfect body
between 25 and 29.9 (under 25 is considered
reflects an imperfect person. ''Su-
healthy). The average 152.3-pound American
It’s a subclinical pathology that is so ubiquitous, women think of it as a normal obsession to have
woman who is just under 5 feet 4 inches will have an index of 27, overweight but not obese. A woman whose body mass index climbs above 25 or, more dangerously, past 30, stands an increasing risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and various kinds of cancer -- like breast, colon and endometrial cancer. Excess fat strains the body's metabolism and the skeleton, leading to insulin resistance, plaque buildup in the arteries and other problems. The fact that widespread negative body image coexists with the growing weight problem is ''no accident,'' Professor Orbach said. The ''narrow aesthetic,'' she added, that is promoted in popular culture leads women into a vicious cycle of overeating. ''They think they should deny themselves food, and
popular culture leads women into a vicious cycle of overeating.
then they eat more than they want,'' she said, ''and then they feel terrible so they eat too much
again, and they don't know how to solve that problem, so they eat more.''
Black women, many studies show, are less likely than white women to hate their size, but that gap is shrinking, experts say. Dr. Kumea Shorter-Gooden, a psychologist at the California School of Professional Psychology in Alhambra, and a co-author of a book called ''Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America,'' to be published in September, recently interviewed hundreds of black women, partly about their view of themselves. ''African-American women are more comfortable with being overweight than Anglo women are, and African-American women are in
WE ACCEPT VARIATIONS IN HAIR COLOR, EYE COLOR AND FACIAL FEATURES, AND WE SHOULD DO THAT WITH BODY WEIGHTS
WHAT CA BE DONE? WHAT CA BE DONE HAT CAN E DONE?
general heavier than white women,'' she said. Black culture, she said, does not encourage thinness as extremely as white culture does. But increasing numbers of African-American women are engaging in such destructive eating-related behaviors as starvation diets, vomiting and using laxatives, Dr. Shorter-Gooden said. Body-image problems have begun to affect a wider range of age groups -- girls as young as 10 and women in their 50's and older -- psychologists have found. Another disturbing trend in body image, Ms. Leive said, is the soaring popularity of plastic surgery. ''You're hard pressed to find a Hollywood actress who hasn't either had work done or has spent the last six months nibbling on crumbs,'' she said. What can be done? Women, Dr. Brownell said, must ''uncouple their body esteem from their basic self-esteem,'' and realize how destructive these unrealistic ideals can be. Society, he said, must learn to appreciate a greater variation in body shapes and sizes. ''We accept variations in hair color, eye color and facial features, and we should do that with body weights,'' he said. ''Size acceptance is really important,'' Dr. Burgard agreed. ''I don't see how we're going to stop eating disorders until we stop reading character into the size of people's bodies. It's stereotyping. We've made progress against other stereotypes, and we can make progress against this one, too.’'
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