WE AREN’T PERFECT, AND OUR BODIES AREN’T EITHER!

Food comes with so many things to consider.  How healthy is it? How many calories are in it? Will this help me lose weight? Should I get another plate or not?  Society places such a huge importance on looks and body types.  If you are not skinny and stick thin, then you aren’t attractive.  Now, I am not saying that this is how everyone thinks or feels, because I have come across many guys/girls that are not interested in a stick thin person or a perfectly toned person.  However, when you turn on the tv or open up a magazine, there are all these so called “perfect” people staring back at you. 

How ironic was it that the moment I began reading articles on obesity and eating disorders that my Victoria Secret magazine came in the mail.  Now I won’t lie, I do shop a lot at Victoria Secret and spend a lot more money than I wish to admit (My perspective is, if you have a coupon, then you have to use it!).  While I love their clothing, I think another thing of their models.  Every time I look at that magazine it makes me sick, because I wish I could be that skinny. Yeah, yeah I know!  We are all made differently, but come on! I wish I could be that “perfectly” shaped.  I have always been a little on the heavier side.  I am not going to say that I am fat, but I got a lot of curves and stuff going on, so obviously I would want to be a little more slim and trim.  Why is this though?

When I think about it, the only reason that I along with millions of other girls/guys feel this way is because society has defined what the perfect person should look like.   In this part of the world a girl should be stick thin with enough butt/boobs but not too much, perfect teeth, perfect height, and so on! And the same thing for guys, they have to be the perfect height with nice teeth, defined muscles, and the list goes on and on! No wonder there are so many people with eating disorders in the world.  I could name five people off the top of my head that I know of personally that have or are suffering from an eating disorder.  I am no psychologist, but it is obvious that society places so much pressure on people to look a certain way that they have to result in being anorexic or bulimic just to try to make an attempt to look this way. 

I mean think about it; most obese people are made fun of or ridiculed at some point in their life.  I recently read an article by Margaret Meat entitled, “Why Do We Overeat?”  I must admit that she makes many good points in this article, one of which is that there is a heavy burden placed on obese people in today’s world.  Clothes are hard to find for them, furniture isn’t big enough, and so on (Mead 20).  How would you feel if you walked into a clothing store and could not find one thing to fit you or you were at the doctor’s office and had no place to sit, because the chairs were all too small?  In my opinion, that has to be hurtful and embarrassing.  Our society should consider that everyone is not the same size and that everyone is not made up of the same genes.  Some people cannot help that they were blessed with bigger genes than others.  Another good point that Mead makes is that we tend to group all fat together, and this is very true.  Any weight whether it be pregnancy weight, extra food weight, or genetic weight, we see it as all the same (Mead 20).  It should not be like this.  Fat is not just fat.  Many different things cause it and people should take the time to stop and think about that before they judge someone. 

Back to the eating disorders.  When anorexia and bulimia are mentioned, what flashes through your mind?  We often times associate these disorders with privileged teenage white girls.  I never knew why we did this until I read Susan Bordo’s article, “Not just ‘a white girl’s thing’: The changing face of food and body image problems.”  Bordo talks of how there is a misconception that white girls are the only ones that deal with these eating disorders.  She says that one reason for this myth is that at the time when most of the studies were done on these disorders, the most common people that were brought in to get help were privileged white girls (Bordo 47).  This makes perfect sense given that most middle or upper-class white families were the ones that sought out help, because they had the financial means to do so.  I found it interesting to hear the stories of all of the people in Bordo’s article.  Tenisha, a black girl, suffers from anorexia and Sami Schalk, a fifteen year old biracial girl, suffers from bulimia (Bordo 46).  There is this myth that eating disorders are limited to a certain type of person, but this is not the case.  Susan Bordo does a wonderful job at explaining why this concept is most certainly a myth.  These disorders have to do with having an “addiction to perfection” as Bordo says.  Anyone can have this problem, just like anyone can become a drug addict or an alcoholic.  We have tried to put restraints and limits on anorexia and bulimia, but the fact of the matter is, that anyone can have this problem. 

Touching back on my Victoria Secret rant, so many people look at these girls with jealousy or envy, but we never stop to think, maybe there is a reason I never see anyone who looks like this just walking around.   These models have been touched up and obviously can never enjoy a slice of cake or bowl of ice cream if they look like that!  Everyone finds something wrong with his/her body.  It is part of what makes us human.  WE AREN’T PERFECT, AND OUR BODIES AREN’T EITHER!  Our society place too much emphasis on a person’s looks and it doesn’t look like that will change soon, but hopefully in time, people will realize that beauty isn’t skin deep.

(This girl has hardly any fat on her, no cellulite… the media portrays this as if it should be the "norm" when it is no where near the "norm")

(I mean no wonder girls think that they don't look good enough.. look at this girl!) 

(Anorexia: we see one thing, while she sees something bigger)

(Myth: It is not all white women, and it is not all women when it comes to eating disorders)