Britney Spears is fat. She has a huge stomach that sticks out
and it’s really disgusting.”
These very words were uttered by a 10-year-old girl I tutored.
Absurd sociocultural standards of thinness and beauty like this are
causing severe eating disorders in 10 percent of college
students.
As my pupil and I flipped through People magazine, she stopped
at the page with a photo of the plastic princess of pop. Then she
promptly informed me that our beloved beauty Britney is overweight
and unattractive.
How could this be? Is not Britney Spears the female sex symbol
of our time? Doesn’t every 10-year-old girl strive to look
like her? Apparently not. She’s just too fat.
After I recovered from the initial shock of the comment, I
insisted that Britney Spears was thin and attractive, but my pupil
would not concede. At that point, I could not help but worry about
the future health of the girl sitting before me. If she truly
believes Britney Spears is an obese cow, what must she think about
her own appearance? Even more saddening is that my pupil is not the
thinnest girl on the block. So, given her assessment of Britney
Spears, she must feel tremendous shame and guilt about her own body
weight.
Remarkably, popular culture and media have generated these
disturbing misconceptions of weight among the youth. By fourth
grade, 80 percent of California girls have gone on a diet. This is
no surprise considering that young girls are taught Barbie is the
standard for beauty. If Barbie were life-sized, she would stand 5
feet, 9 inches and weigh 110 pounds, with measurements of 39-18-33.
According to the Barbie benchmark, Britney is indeed fat.
In our increasingly image-conscious society, the line between
dieting and suffering from an eating disorder is blurred. A diet
may begin as a quick way to lose a few pounds or get in shape, but
it can quickly spiral out of control and become a full-blown eating
disorder.
Most of us have a lot in common with people who suffer from
eating disorders. We all have problems in our lives and feel the
need to control events which affect us. Eating disorders are just
one method of coping with these anxieties. People with eating
disorders feel they are unable to control their lives and problems,
so they turn to eating habits as a means of asserting control and
distracting themselves from their pain.
The quest for thinness is an obsession. The culture of
disordered eating is so pervasive in our society that we
unintentionally encourage eating disorders. A popular myth that
encourages anorexia is the story that UCLA Dining Services adds
starch to the lettuce so that anorexics can get more calories and
vitamins from eating a diet of salad only. (This myth is absurd and
untrue, according to Joanne McGill of UCLA Dining Services.)
There are many other ways we might casually encourage disordered
eating every day. Complimenting someone when they lose weight from
dieting reinforces the behavior and encourages even more
restrictive eating. Expecting perfection and saying that a person
is healthy because they are thin is also dangerous.
Fortunately, there is a lot of help available on campus for
people who suffer from eating disorders, and most people can be
successfully treated. The Ashe Center provides medical evaluations,
and Student Psychological Services offers free therapy. If you have
a friend with an eating disorder, be honest and open with them
about your concerns and suggest that they see a counselor or a
nutritionist.
Most of all, it is crucial not to fall into the perfectionist
mind-set promoted by the popular media. Remember: Britney Spears is
not fat!
Hansen is a fourth-year political science and history student.
E-mail him at mhansen@media.ucla.edu.