For several decades there has been a kind of cultural zeitgeist, a widespread notion, that western society, especially the fashion and modeling industry, including fashion magazines, TV shows, and so on, are giving young girls an "unhealthy" picture of normalcy, of what being a normal attractive woman is like, in the form of "unrealistic" and "unhealthy" beauty standards.
I have often semi-joked (well, not really even joked at all, when I think about it) that this "unhealthy" beauty standard induces young women to:
Now, don't get me wrong. Anorexia and bulimia can be real health problems.
The most severe cases of anorexia can be incredibly jarring and even incomprehensible to people who have never witnessed nor have any first-hand experience with it. People with severe anorexia can develop a strong and real outright aversion, phobia, towards food and eating. In the worst cases the person outright feels disgusted by food and the thought of eating, and will eat as little as possible (and only a very limited variety of food, often completely vegan), and the very act of eating may be disgusting to them. I kid you not, but to people with the most severe cases of anorexia, who are getting help for their problem in some kind of institution, eating time is almost torture. They dread eating time, they eat as little as possible, and even the little they eat is like swallowing shaving razors. I'm not even exaggerating here.
I remember reading in a book of fiction where a modern person is somehow transported to the medieval age (I think it might have been A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, but it might have been some other book), where in one part the narrator describes how the life of a court jester was far from the idealized romanticized picture that modern people have. As an example, in the book it's described how in a banquet the king, who is drunk as a skunk, vomits into his plate of soup, and then orders the court jester to eat it, just for his own amusement. (Obviously if the jester were to refuse, he would be executed for disobeying the king.)
I'd imagine that to someone suffering from severe pathological anorexia, eating anything is just like that. As incredible as it might sound to a normal person.
Needless to say, anybody suffering from severe anorexia also suffers from severe malnutrition and all the problems that ensue with that (such as infertility, stunted growth, osteoporosis, and all kinds of nutrient deficiency diseases.)
Bulimia is slightly different from anorexia in that the person isn't exactly averse to eating. In fact, it can be complete opposite of that, ie. the person may actually have a food addiction. However, the person is so morbidly afraid of becoming overweight that she (and it's most of often a she) will artificially induce vomiting right after eating. It can become a very unhealthy obsession. Needless to say, severely bulimic people also tend to suffer from malnutrition and all the symptoms that accompany that. In addition, constant vomiting every day is not healthy, and can cause even physical damage.
Anyway, having acknowleded all that, one has to put it all in perspective, especially compared to the opposite problem, which plagues modern western society, ie. the obesity epidemic. The thing is, anorexia and bulimia are relatively rare problems, affecting only an extremely small percentage of people, while obesity is a very common problem, affecting a very significant portion of the population.
All this modern campaigning about "body positivity" and using overweight models, and some countries even banning underweight models, in order to not give young girls an "unhealthy" standard of beauty which they might end up following, is fighting a very rare problem at the expense of normalizing an actual severe epidemic.
Obesity is several orders of magnitude more common than pathological malnutrition. One of the reasons is that becoming obese is extremely easy, and most usually not even a symptom of any psychological (or physical) problem. Completely normal and healthy people can very easily become obese just because of an unhealthy life style and habits. It does not require any sort of mental problem, obsession, addiction, congenital disease, or anything. A normal person becoming anorexic, however, is extraordinarily rare.
So all this fighting against anorectic fashion models is fighting a very small problem, while making the much more common problem worse.
It would be one thing to just have completely healthy and physically fit fashion models (especially when it comes to female models). But it's becoming more and more common to have overweight, even outright obese fashion models, and trying to push the notion that it's "normal" and "beautiful".
This is much more dangerous than having underweight models. It's very rare for people to become anorectic even if being too thin is seen as "normal" and "beautiful". That's because this requires a lot of effort, suffering, and pretty much in essence an obsession and a mental health problem to become anorectic, and most people just don't go that route. Becoming obese, however, as said, is very easy for anybody, as it requires absolutely no effort, no suffering, and no mental health problems.
If young girls are told their whole lives that "being very thin is normal and beautiful", some of them might indeed try to follow that standard to unhealthy extremes, where it becomes detrimental and dangerous. This isn't very good. However, if the message is the opposite, ie. "being obese is normal and beautiful", and these girls start believing it, it will be much easier for them to just be lazy and stop caring about their own weight, and become obese.
Obesity is unhealthy and dangerous, and a real pandemic in the modern western world. It's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, killers. Most obese people over the age of 30 are on some kind of medication for obesity-related diseases (many of which would actually be curable by simply losing weight). Life expectancy of obese people is lower, they tend to suffer from all kinds of obesity-related diseases, and their overall life quality is lower, for the mere reason of being physically unfit.
In the end, normalizing obesity may be much more dangerous than normalizing thinness.
I have often semi-joked (well, not really even joked at all, when I think about it) that this "unhealthy" beauty standard induces young women to:
- eat healthily, avoiding junk food,
- exercise regularly,
- take care of their skin, hair, etc.
- hit the gym...
Now, don't get me wrong. Anorexia and bulimia can be real health problems.
The most severe cases of anorexia can be incredibly jarring and even incomprehensible to people who have never witnessed nor have any first-hand experience with it. People with severe anorexia can develop a strong and real outright aversion, phobia, towards food and eating. In the worst cases the person outright feels disgusted by food and the thought of eating, and will eat as little as possible (and only a very limited variety of food, often completely vegan), and the very act of eating may be disgusting to them. I kid you not, but to people with the most severe cases of anorexia, who are getting help for their problem in some kind of institution, eating time is almost torture. They dread eating time, they eat as little as possible, and even the little they eat is like swallowing shaving razors. I'm not even exaggerating here.
I remember reading in a book of fiction where a modern person is somehow transported to the medieval age (I think it might have been A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, but it might have been some other book), where in one part the narrator describes how the life of a court jester was far from the idealized romanticized picture that modern people have. As an example, in the book it's described how in a banquet the king, who is drunk as a skunk, vomits into his plate of soup, and then orders the court jester to eat it, just for his own amusement. (Obviously if the jester were to refuse, he would be executed for disobeying the king.)
I'd imagine that to someone suffering from severe pathological anorexia, eating anything is just like that. As incredible as it might sound to a normal person.
Needless to say, anybody suffering from severe anorexia also suffers from severe malnutrition and all the problems that ensue with that (such as infertility, stunted growth, osteoporosis, and all kinds of nutrient deficiency diseases.)
Bulimia is slightly different from anorexia in that the person isn't exactly averse to eating. In fact, it can be complete opposite of that, ie. the person may actually have a food addiction. However, the person is so morbidly afraid of becoming overweight that she (and it's most of often a she) will artificially induce vomiting right after eating. It can become a very unhealthy obsession. Needless to say, severely bulimic people also tend to suffer from malnutrition and all the symptoms that accompany that. In addition, constant vomiting every day is not healthy, and can cause even physical damage.
Anyway, having acknowleded all that, one has to put it all in perspective, especially compared to the opposite problem, which plagues modern western society, ie. the obesity epidemic. The thing is, anorexia and bulimia are relatively rare problems, affecting only an extremely small percentage of people, while obesity is a very common problem, affecting a very significant portion of the population.
All this modern campaigning about "body positivity" and using overweight models, and some countries even banning underweight models, in order to not give young girls an "unhealthy" standard of beauty which they might end up following, is fighting a very rare problem at the expense of normalizing an actual severe epidemic.
Obesity is several orders of magnitude more common than pathological malnutrition. One of the reasons is that becoming obese is extremely easy, and most usually not even a symptom of any psychological (or physical) problem. Completely normal and healthy people can very easily become obese just because of an unhealthy life style and habits. It does not require any sort of mental problem, obsession, addiction, congenital disease, or anything. A normal person becoming anorexic, however, is extraordinarily rare.
So all this fighting against anorectic fashion models is fighting a very small problem, while making the much more common problem worse.
It would be one thing to just have completely healthy and physically fit fashion models (especially when it comes to female models). But it's becoming more and more common to have overweight, even outright obese fashion models, and trying to push the notion that it's "normal" and "beautiful".
This is much more dangerous than having underweight models. It's very rare for people to become anorectic even if being too thin is seen as "normal" and "beautiful". That's because this requires a lot of effort, suffering, and pretty much in essence an obsession and a mental health problem to become anorectic, and most people just don't go that route. Becoming obese, however, as said, is very easy for anybody, as it requires absolutely no effort, no suffering, and no mental health problems.
If young girls are told their whole lives that "being very thin is normal and beautiful", some of them might indeed try to follow that standard to unhealthy extremes, where it becomes detrimental and dangerous. This isn't very good. However, if the message is the opposite, ie. "being obese is normal and beautiful", and these girls start believing it, it will be much easier for them to just be lazy and stop caring about their own weight, and become obese.
Obesity is unhealthy and dangerous, and a real pandemic in the modern western world. It's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, killers. Most obese people over the age of 30 are on some kind of medication for obesity-related diseases (many of which would actually be curable by simply losing weight). Life expectancy of obese people is lower, they tend to suffer from all kinds of obesity-related diseases, and their overall life quality is lower, for the mere reason of being physically unfit.
In the end, normalizing obesity may be much more dangerous than normalizing thinness.
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