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Body Image
The image
a middle school girl sees when she looks in the mirror often has no resemblance
to the reflection she expects to see. She is no longer clothed in the
child's body she's been accustomed to seeing for the past ten to twelve
years, neither is she wearing what will become her adult form. Trying
to accept this alien, not-quite-child, not-quite-adult body can cause
a great deal of stress for many girls. Compounding this problem is the
barrage of images of perfection spewing from the media.
Television shows, movies, magazines and advertisements all depict the
"ideal" female body as slender, perfectly proportioned and flawless.
Many of these images of perfection are, in fact, fantasy. Through a multitude
of modern technological advances, the images we see are likely to be airbrushed
and altered via computer manipulation and in some cases surgically rearranged
and modified. The much-rumored, if not actual, breast enlargement of Britney
Spears and abdominal lyposuction of Ricky Martin are just two examples
of the media promoting the perception that current young celebrities are
succumbing to these pressures, which encourages similar alterations among
teens. Even the toys that girls play with as they grow up reinforce these
images. For example, many girls spend part of their childhood playing
with Barbie, the flawless, busty beauty that promotes an unrealistic view
of the adult female body. Especially vulnerable is the group that Newsweek
has recently dubbed "tweens." These youth, between the ages
of eight and fourteen, are enthusiastically targeted by advertisers, since
they are viewed as the largest group of potential consumers, accounting
for some $130 billion dollars of family spending each year.
In
response to being trapped in an imperfect, not-fully-developed form
and bombarded by unattainable images of perfection, many middle school
girls suffer a severe loss of self-esteem. Surveys report that approximately
60% of teenage girls think they need to lose some weight (Nutritionforkids.com).
Many resort to dieting and excessive exercise in an attempt to shape
their developing bodies. In extreme cases, girls succumb to eating disorders.
According to an article in Adolescent Psychological and Social Issues
by Dr. Anne Petersen, approximately 25% of adolescent girls have serious
eating disorders. At any given time, 9% of ninth grade girls take diet
pills, laxatives or induce vomiting in an effort to lose weight. Nearly
20% of people with serious eating disorders die without treatment (Anorexia
Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc.).
There
are still other girls who, attempting to achieve the sculpted, athletic
body also portrayed as ideal by the media, resort to the use of anabolic
steroids to develop muscle mass. In a recent study by the National Institute
for Drug Abuse, 175,000 American teen girls stated that they had used
steroids at least once in the year prior to the survey. Another survey
reported by P\S\L Consulting Group, Inc. found that up to 2.4% of ninth
through twelfth grade girls have used steroids. Striving for perfection,
a growing percentage of girls pursue cosmetic surgery.
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What Some
of the Girls Said:
- I think
that body image is way too important in this society and school and
stuff. But you can't really help it because everybody worries about
it and everybody thinks about it. (Like that stupid Barbie doll).
Every time I see someone in the store or I see a picture of someone
I have to draw on this waist and these big thighs and stuff. (Because
they don't look real). It makes me so sick, I hate it when all those
pictures in magazines of everyone who's like that big, do you see
that, almost as big as my eye. Yeah, I think it's way too important
for girls still I mean even guys have problems but not as much as
girls do. I mean they're supposed to be big and buff and whatever.
- Body
image is dictated as being very important by media, especially by
television and teen magazines. If teen magazines say we're gonna have
plus size models and their plus size models are a size five, so that's
kind of sad, but I try not to let it worry me. I'm satisfied with
who I am, I feel really good about myself if I work out and when I
can tone up.
- Magazines
are very, very hard. I try not to look at many of them because I know
a lot of people that are anorexic and a lot that are bulimic, and
you look into those magazines, and they're skinny little toothpicks.
I don't believe that's at all very fashionable. And it's not healthy
but I guess everybody wants to be like the supermodels so that I think
the magazines do have a large impact on girls these days. And maybe
guys, but I don't think as much.
- Messages
to be skinny come from the media. All around billboards, TV, magazines
pretty much anywhere, school.
- I think
television plays a very big part in the way we feel about our bodies
like "Baywatch" or that think we all have to have big breasts
and a small figure.
- I think
some of the outside forces that effect girls, would be probably television
mostly, and other friends, newspapers, media like magazines, and the
radio even sometimes would effect girls to say how they should be
and what they should like, what's pretty and what's not.
- I think
there is quite a bit of pressure to look good or thin. I think that
comes from the media a lot. You see most people that you like look
up to, or admire, are not rather round or obese or ugly. It's just
subconsciously, I think people just do that. I think there's a lot
of pressure to look pretty in the media and just in local places,
you can see how people that are the prettiest quote, unquote, in this
school, turn people's heads. But I think there's just a lot of pressure,
just within like the public eye and in communities to look the prettiest.
I'm guessing it effects most girls. I know I'm always trying to improve
my looks or my weight or such, so I think it improves. I think it
effects me a lot, I know that I'm always frustrated when maybe I'm
not as pretty as somebody. I know I feel that there's a lot of pressure
on me to try and look semi-decent.
- I think
pretty much society all together because everyone has to be skinny
and everyone has to be pretty and everyone, I don't know, it's pretty
pathetic.
- Like
they say that they would be friends with someone who was ugly, but
yet it seems like all our friends are pretty and we're never friends
with like the people who just aren't. Could be coincidence, but I
doubt it.
- I do
like my body. I know I'm not blessed with this skinny figure. I know
I will probably never be blessed with a skinny figure, but I have
been exercising a lot lately with softball and at the Y and hopefully
I can kind of reshape my body a little bit. I'm fairly happy with
my body, yes. Well, I don't like these rolls of fat that are down
there but other than that I'm really comfortable in it and I don't
want to change it to the point where it's not me.
- Like
the way you see yourself is totally different from other kids see
yourself. And even though you think you're so fat, and other people
think you're so skinny.
- I may
see myself as being fat, but really to everyone else I'm skinny, and
like it's not all fat, but it might be muscle.
- When
I look in the mirror, I see a person that's not even me. I mean I
see myself totally different than I see myself in the mirror. ëCause
I look and I see this person that I think is like fat and ugly, but
then when I'm not looking in the mirror, I see myself. I don't really
feel pretty or anything like that, I just feel myself. It's just kind
of weird. I have this whole little world about myself, and I really
don't let anyone else judge me. Or, if they do judge me, it doesn't
get to me ëcause I don't really care what they think of me.
- I know
I'm a little bit overweight, not overweight as much as some people
are in our grade, but I'd like to lose some weight ëcause I know I
am somewhat overweight.
- I wish
I were skinnier, because skinnier people get more attention and if
you're skinny then people will like you more. I don't know why, but
it seems like people who are skinny just have more friends and are
more popular. People who are larger just are always put down. I mean,
you never see people walking down the halls saying, oh, look at her,
she's skinny. That never happens. It's always, oh, look at her, she's
fat, or look at her, she needs to lose weight. It's never the skinny
people that are made fun of.
- Sometimes
I look in the mirror and I'm like wow, I'm pretty and I'm cool and
whatever. But then sometimes you look in the mirror and you're like
wow, you are really ugly or something like that. I don't know, maybe
it's just me. What's wrong with me? Look at my teeth. How could I
ever think that I was pretty? And just find all the flaws and stuff.
Like suicide and stuff, it's just the whole thing of the moment and
how depressed you feel and everything and just all the emotions kind
of bubble up and it doesn't look like there's anything or anyway out.
Every couple of days everything can just change so much, you know?
You just feel so crappy or you feel so good about yourself and I don't
know, it just stinks.
- I hate
people who look me up and downóthey'll look at me like I'm weird or
something, but I'm just a normal person. I dress like everybody else.
I look like everybody else. Not that I care what I look like, because
I don't have to impress anybody. I impress myself, so I don't really
need to impress people. I don't worry about impressing people.
- You
get wrinkles and everything and end up looking like your great Aunt
Ida sooner or later.
- I know
me and I think almost everyone in my grade they, they don't really
care what they look like just as long as you got a good personality.
- It's
better to judge people by their personality than by the way they look.
- It
doesn't really matter what you look like, it depends on the personality.
ëCause you could look like really, really pretty and have a really
bad personality like you have an attitude all the time and I don't
think you'd want to have a friend who has an attitude all the time.
- I think
looks are important, because a lot more people would come up to somebody
who has really nice clothes and has good hair and skinny than somebody
who doesn't.
- Looks
are the first thing someone will notice when they see you and so it's
just it gives them a stereotypical idea of what that person is like.
- This
is a little bit strong but if you don't have a good butt, or big boobs,
you're not cool. I know some people don't develop as fast as others.
You go in the hole. I should talk, I mean, I know personally everybody
calls me flat. I think I have a big butt but like other people'll
tell me I have a small butt so I don't know but you know I look in
the mirror and it's like okay I have a big butt.
- I have
seen a few girls that have like lost a lot of weight and they either
smoke or don't eat a lot or they are like on a diet. During lunch
they wouldn't eat anything or they smoke, usually to get skinny, but
I don't see why you just don't eat healthy.
- A
lot of girls worry about their size and that can lead to an eating
disorder. They don't want to be fat or anything. And a lot of guys
don't like the fact that girls are fat. But guys don't care as much
as girls think they do.
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Beyond
the Butterfly is co-produced by Wisconsin
Public Television and NEWIST/CESA
#7 (Northeastern Wisconsin In-School Telecommunications).
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