"The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body"

Just came across this post. The book looks amazing!! Here is a little from the article on Alternet.


[edit by united2gether; excerpt of the article only, please check the link for the whole article!]


This article is excerpted from "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters" by Courtney E. Martin. Copyright 2007 by Courtney E. Martin. Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc.

"There is a girl, right now, staring in a mirror in Des Moines, scrutinizing her widening hips. There is a girl, right now, spinning like a hamster on speed in a gym on the fifth floor of a building in Boston, promising herself dinner if she goes two more miles. There is a girl, right now, trying to wedge herself into a dress two sizes too small in a Savannah shopping mall, chastising herself for being so lazy and fat. There is a girl, right now, in a London bathroom, trying not to get any vomit on her aunt's toilet seat. There is a girl, right now, in Berlin, cutting a cube of cheese and an apple into barely visible pieces to eat for her dinner.

Our bodies are places where our drive for perfection gets played out. Food is all around us, as are meals and the pressure that goes with them. Well-intentioned after-school specials teach us, from a very young age, how to purge our snacks. We are inundated with information about "good" and "bad" foods, the most effective workout regiments, the latest technological advancements in plastic surgery. We demand flawlessness in our appearance -- the outer manifestation of our inner dictators.

To some degree, this makes sense. People in general like to look at a pretty face -- which means they also like to be friends with a pretty face, do business with a pretty face, and marry a pretty face. Attractive people are desired and coddled in our society; they have an easier time getting jobs, finding boyfriends and girlfriends, getting parts in music videos, simply getting the average waiter's attention.

Even smart girls must be beautiful, even athletes must be feminine. Corporate CEOs, public intellectuals, and even accountants must be thin. Lorie, an 18-year-old from Portland, Maine, wrote, "Everyone wants to be skinny, because in life the skinny one gets the guy, the job, the love." A 10-year-old I interviewed in Santa Fe, N.M., broke it down for me even further: "It is better to be pretty, which means thin and mean, than to be ugly, which means fat and nice. That's just how it is."

The body is the perfect battleground for perfect-girl tendencies because it is tangible, measurable, obvious. It takes four long years to see "summa cum laude" etched across our college diplomas, but stepping on a scale can instantly tell us whether we have succeeded or failed.

The cruel irony is that although we become totally obsessed with the daily measures of how "good" or "bad" we are (refused dessert = good; didn't have time to go to the gym = bad), there is no finish line. This weight preoccupation will never lead us anywhere. It is a maniacal maze that always spits you out at the same point it sucked you up: wanting. We keep chasing after perfection as if it is an achievable goal, when really it is the most grand and painful of all mirages...."

/end excerpt

I'm picking this book up today! Looks fantastic.
~kat

Love that, so wise.  Or society is becoming more and more decadent and shallow.  This is causing extremes of either obesity or starving.

I just bought the book today. Can't wait to read on!

Well-intentioned after-school specials teach us, from a very young age, how to purge our snacks.

What does this refer to? 

We watched a program in health glass in middle school about "Annie- Anorexie" who developed an eating disorder.  The worst part was that I had never thought about my weight before then, or thought I was fat, but after watching Annie, who was already so pretty, think she was fat (she wasn't of course) I started to think that I should think I was fat.  And the video made purging look so easy.  Thank god I never developed an eating disorder, but being so young and impressionable, I definately thought about it.  And I don't think other girls in my class were so lucky. 

"A 10-year-old I interviewed in Santa Fe, N.M., broke it down for me even further: 'It is better to be pretty, which means thin and mean, than to be ugly, which means fat and nice. That's just how it is.' " 

Wow.  That's just so .... sad.

wow. well written article. please let us know how the book is.

I got the book and am through about the first 50 pages and so far it is amazing. The author speaks to all different types of women. And gives a great account of growing up in a small, family oriented town. Its just fantastic so far. Great stuff!

Has anyone come across books like this that at least mention men?  Support groups, pamphlets, even most internet resources tend to assume that weight concerns and poor body image are exclusive to women.

Hi mnguy84... I think that society's only now catching onto the trap men have laid for themselves, the desperate aim to look like the guys in Men's Health (instead of the girls in Vogue or whatever.), all muscled with 6-packs.

Poor Body Image is NOT exclusive to women.

I totally relate to this article.  In my freshman health class in high school we watched the movie "For the Love of Nancy."  The movie stars Tacy Gold from Growing Pains.  She was anorexic during that show and they did the movie when she was at her thinest.  That was the first time I learned about anorexia, bullimia etc.  Of course what did I do?  I starved myself to 100 pounds.  I never got the treatment I needed, and finally, after 10 years of my weight bouncing between 110 and 160, I am getting help, and its working!  I don't know if the schools know that they are doing this, and why they show us these things at age 14!

A thought to ponder:  Alot of us on this forum have struggled with some sort of distorted eating/behavior, be it starving, bingeing, over exercising etc. Alot of us suffer from poor body image soley based on things like the media and how we "should" be.  We measure ourselves by the number on the scale, not our accomplishements, intellectual abilities etc.  So, knowing all this, what do we do?  Can we do something?  Should we do something?  Just a thought! :)

Kate,

That's why we created the Health & Support board, to help those girls who are ready to get support and help get the support and help they need. You know, I imagine, better than I that you can't do anything to make someone who doesn't want help change. They've got to do that for themselves, but the option's there and we want to try to help, if we can.

The sad part is, is that it is true!  Society thinks Fat=Lazy. 

My daughter has been overweight all of her life.  In preschool lists of favorite things would come home stating "my favorite things are cookies, cakes and ice cream."  Which wasn't true, because we rarely ate sweets.  In elementary school, her assigned password was LUNCH.  In middle school she was told by the school police officer to "shed some pounds". 

This summer she has applied for a job at the pool.  She has been a lifetime swimmer, she is mature, has been on swimteams since the age of 5.  A gril had the nerve to tell her that she wouldn't get the job because she too fat. 

She has trouble loosing the weight.  She wants to starve herself and I can understand why she would want to. (Not that I would let her.) To her skinny is power, beauty, popularity, and every wonderful thing imaginable. 

Just wanted to drop back in here to say i am about three quarters of the way through this book. (ironically, i like to read it while on the stationary bike)

And it is still phenomenal. Courtney talks to all different types of people, men, women, people with and without disordered behavior and the insights they give are just incredible. It has made me think of things in a new light.

I (still) highly reccomend this book.
:)

I'm going to get the book immediately, as well. So well written, and so bluntly honest. Thanks for the referral!

manewell, I believe it means vomiting after eating.

mnguy84, it's the same as with men who are victims of domestic violence - there are so few in proportion to the women and girls with these problems, and they are so well hidden, don't seek help or talk about their problems - so we as a society don't see it.  You're absolutely right - we have had a number of young men visit calorie count desparate to become very thin.  The body building aspect is here too. 

I wonder if my library has this or can get it.  I'm interested, but not enough to spend money.

As a guy I can admit to this personally, but it seems far worse for women.

Just look at the recent trend to wearing those plastic fingernails. What is the next body part are you girls going to replace with plastic? (I mean "you girls in a general sense).

Why this unbalanced pursuit of "perfection"? I'm 41 years old, and it was never this bad when I was a kid...Botox, implants, cosmetic surgery, and so on...so sad.

I blame the Mainstream Media.

I blame individualistic, consumeristic, self-absorbed capitalism, but every economic system has its flaws.

Wow, if you guys want to see a graphic example of this, look at this story I just saw on the Drudge Report:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/article s/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=4534 44&in_page_id=1773&ico=Homepage&i cl=TabModule&icc=picbox&ct=5


"Skeletal Cate Blanchette shocks at New York fashion gala"

There is a picture, if you have a strong stomache...

I can also attest to this as a male. I hate the way that I look... at a 22 BMI, which is healthy.

So where's the problem? In my head. Can I blame the media? No, I can only blame myself for subscribing to what they feed me.

In either case, it's absurd that I would not be happy at a 22 BMI considering that I used to be closer to an unhealthy 30 than the low 20's. I'd like to get back into the upper 20's, but not with fat this time.

and, yes, as a male some of us also compound the body building aspect into it. I've personally been spinning my wheels for about two years in the gym now...

I'm still going to the gym because it's one of the only things that I genuinely enjoy. I can't even bring myself to log in here anymore because of all the extra pressure that's added by things like calorie counting. I just saw this thread and couldn't resist.

Sorry to complain. This article just happens to speak to my exact mood over the last few weeks. Perfection - hrmp. =/

A positive thread I made called "I love my body club."