Stereotyping Through Body Image (hms)

It is truly sad that we live in a society in which many believe that body image directly correlates to human worth.  I am choosing this topic as my final blog entry because I know that this issue is something that is not talked about as much as felt. No one wants to admit that they look at a person who is heavier in weight and thinks less of them because of it, but it does happen.  I have come into contact with many shallow people, but this doesn’t stem from just shallow people.  This is a societal downfall that we have because we are told that ‘less is more’, and this applies to body size unfortunately.  In this blog entry I will address both sides of this weight issue; to confront the stereotypes of people being judged for being overweight AND underweight.

The main victims of body image and the hurtful stereotypes that go along with it are women.  Although there is no denying that men deal with these stigmatic problems as well, women are more targeted in the media and other life-situations to question their size. So, in this blog entry, I am going to focus mainly on the female population.  Women are more unhappy with their weight on average and are more likely to see themselves as overweight and in turn remain unhappy.

What are some stereotypical arguments against people who are overweight? It’s easy to think of a few off the top of your head, but I will list some main points that cannot be denied.

• ·      Lazy, unwilling to change their diet to live more productively
• ·      Depressed
• ·      Careless
• ·      No sexual drive
• ·      Never exercises
• ·      Only eat fast food or grease-based foods
• ·      Bad employees
• ·      Unintelligent

And now for a list of stereotypical arguments against women who are considered to ‘too skinny’ or underweight.

• ·      Skinny girls don’t eat
• ·      Obsessed with exercise
• ·      Judge anyone larger than themselves
• ·      Mean
• ·      Vain
• ·      Superficial
• ·      Eating disorders
• 
  

These arguments can be seen all over the media and how they portray each ‘size’ of women. We are all fairly familiar with the controversial Barbie study. According to an article by Mary Duenwald on Body and Image, "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."

Another troubling study that demonstrates discrimination against women does not have to do completely with physical size, but I find it very interesting. In Russett’s article on “How to Tell the Girls from the Boys”, she quotes Stephen Jay Gould and points out the inconsistent evidence that correlates between brain size and body size in women. “We might ask if the small size of the female brain depends exclusively upon the small size of her body. Tiedemann has proposed this explanation. But we must not forget that women are, on the average, a little less intelligent than men, a difference which we should not exaggerate but which is, nonetheless, real. We are therefore permitted to suppose that the relatively small size of the female brain depends in part upon her physical inferiority and in part upon her intellectual inferiority” (Russett 37).  Excuse the long quote, but I think that this is a pretty disturbing theory. It goes to show how many stigmas and stereotypes women face when it comes to physical image.

I think it would be really helpful if more people understood that physical appearance doesn't accurately portray a persons health, either. There are plenty of women with meat on their bones that are healthy and fit.  The definition of metabolism is "the chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life". Nowhere in that sentence does it say that people who are heavier are substantially more unhealthy than others. The size of your body does not determine the health of it. "'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' "(Duenwald).

But really, when did the shaming of ANYONE’S body become okay? I am curious because all I see these days is judgment coming from people who are upset with the way society ‘hates on’ girls who are too large, but there is still a lot of judgment towards girls who are too thin. Why is it okay to be confident about being curvy and voluptuous, but for girls who are naturally very thin, they are just left in the dust as to how they should feel.  The ‘real women have curves” phenomena is basically calling out all the thin women in the world and telling them they aren’t truly feminine anymore. I am completely ecstatic that so many women have taken a turn to be confident in their body size no matter what, but the issue still stands true. Skinny chicks get judged just as much as big girls, and the vicious cycle needs to end. All it does is encourage women to constantly find something wrong with themselves, and that is something we will continue to see. " ''It's very hard to find a woman who really likes her body. Even if she likes the shape, she will not like her toes, her knees, her elbows or her ankles. There's always something wrong.'' (Duenwald)