The Quad: Dieting can be dangerous when based on gender stereotypes

From the expectation that all women love chocolate and all men love meat to the notion that women jump from diet to diet, there are a lot of gender stereotypes that focus on food. But how much of this is actually true? And, in particular, how does this affect adolescents and college students?

It is unsurprising that, from a young age, men and women are told different things with regard to how they eat – boys are told they should eat plenty of food, while girls receive comments on their weight and body shape. These messages are damaging because they are internalized by pubescent children. In one study, researchers found a widening gap in dietary habits between Norwegian boys and girls. A related study noted that these dieting behaviors started around or before age 12. Even prior to puberty, it seems, girls are expected to achieve the bodies that are plastered in magazines, billboards and television. And this gap may be made worse by the development of “emotional problems and issues concerning self-identity,” not just appearance dissatisfaction. The emotional instability is likely linked to the emergence of depressive symptoms, which the study acknowledges are more common in adolescent girls, or the significantly lower self-esteem of teenage girls, which may stem from the media’s constant message that they don’t look right. While this study focused on Norwegian youth, the cultural similarities between Norway and the United States includes high dieting tendencies among youths desiring to appear thinner.

That people start dieting at a young age can be a forewarning of more than just the psychological effects later on; these effects can translate into physical problems as well. The younger the dieting begins, the more likely bigger health problems are to occur later in life. These issues can include eating disorders and a greater chance of being overweight or obese.

There is a definite socialized edge to this dieting. As it turns out, boys are raised to have bigger appetites than girls, while girls are brought in a world that tells them to feel guilty for eating more than a salad. In college, this socialization takes on a more concrete form – women are more likely to strive for thinness, and are more likely to self-loathe than men concerning appearance. Men are also subject to these appearance issues: 68 percent of college-age men believe they are not muscular enough, which can contribute to an abnormal diet or excessive exercise.

The social components that play a role in gendered diets can be exacerbated by the college environment. When dining with both men and women, women were more likely to choose meals with lower calories and have poorer perceptions of their weight than in same-gender groups. Similarly, men tend to select higher calorie meals when in mixed-gender groups. In other words, women and men are taught that they each have expected diets, and unconsciously play into these gender roles to assert their appropriate identities to each other.

The expectation of the “college experience” no doubt plays into these habits as well – the feared “freshman 15” likely inspires incoming college students to take to abnormal diets to stave off the extra pounds. But the late-night food options, around-the-clock studying, greater alcohol consumption and buffet-style dining halls can lead to a slide in those diets, which may lead to “yo-yo dieting.” Yo-yo dieting, which involves repeated weight-gain and loss, is not only physically dangerous, but also can contribute to further drops in self-esteem, likely resulting in a worsening of eating habits.

Essentially, internalized social behaviors and expectations influence college students’ diets, or can worsen already poor-dietary habits, based on the mere presence of other perceived genders. This is not to say that trying to eat healthy is a bad thing – cutting out excess or attempting to make better food choices is always a good option, but it’s not so healthy when this is driven by a desire to conform to an idealized body type or social expectations.

The roots of the problem, however, aren’t the fad diets or French fries, but rather it is the brainwashing that we are all subjected to: repetitive, pervasive images that dictate what we should look like and tell us that if we don’t have a perfectly defined waist or prominent biceps, then we aren’t attractive or good enough. We are told that even if we are healthy, if we don’t look “right,” then we shouldn’t be happy.

But the truth is that every body is different from others, and there is no one perfect weight or a surefire way to get six-pack abs. If that truth is to be accepted, there needs to be a shift in the way bodies are represented on screens, the way we talk about ourselves and others – and less focus on who is supposed to eat what.