By Kelly Arnold
The Communicator
Ann Arbor Community HS
1st Place
Division 4, News Writing
Informative Future
Community senior Phoenix Patterson moved from Traverse City to Ann Arbor just before eighth grade. Accompanied only by her mother, she spent her summer fairly immobile due to sports injury. When her eighth grade year began, Patterson didn’t play her usual variety of sports that she participated in back in Traverse City. She put on a bit of weight.
Arriving at high school, she started sports again, but said it was “too late.” That’s when the comments began.
“My mom told me that the guys would be ‘falling all over me’ if I lost twenty more pounds, that I’d have the perfect body,” she said. “I tried to tell her it’s not as easy for me as it is for her, because we have different body types.”
In the past year, Patterson has begun working out almost daily, and as a result has lost twenty pounds. When she mentioned it to her mother, Patterson was irritated, as her mother hadn’t noticed the change until that moment. Her mother was uncomfortable, and upset with herself that she didn’t see it before.
For a bit of time, Patterson’s mother ceased to comment on her daughter’s weight. Yet recently she has begun to make similar comments as before the weight loss.
“I live with that,” said Patterson. “In our relationship, we say things pretty straightforward. She knows that I’m pretty confident. It’s coming from my mom. [I know] she only wants the best for me. But when she makes comments about my weight, it’s always a little bit negative.”
According to DoSomething, approximately 91 percent of women are unhappy with their bodies. Dr. Renee Engeln has been studying obsession with appearance in her body image laboratory at Northwestern University. She calls it beauty sickness, and says that it comes from many different sources, according to a recent interview with YouBeauty.
“Comments like ‘I’m getting so fat’ are coming from everywhere,” said Engeln. This really public way of disparaging the amount of fat on your body is something new.”
Beauty sickness can be described as an obsession with appearance, and with meeting the physical expectations of those around you. These can come from various sources in a person’s life, whether it be a mother or friend, or a company, like a magazine or a clothing line.
Examples of beauty sickness are blogs promoting “thinspiration.” These have popped up over the course of the past few years, filled with posts of women who have lost significant amounts of weight, sometimes an unhealthy amount.
“It really makes me sad,” said Community High senior Jula Heckendorn. “I see it all over the place – people who try to get the thigh gaps or the hip bones to stick out and stuff,” she said. “[It] has so much to do with wanting to change yourself.”
Also occurring in the media is the rising popularity and acceptance of an hour-glass shape — big butts, defined hips, a curvier physique — which young women are beginning to notice, including Community High freshman Lily Gechter.
“[The media has been] promoting that every size is beautiful, but then songs like [Meghan Trainor’s] All About that Bass say that if you’re skinny, you’re a bitch,” said Gechter. “They seem to be promoting all sizes, but it [also] seems to be aimed more towards larger sizes.”
Heckendorn says she’s on the fence about how she feels about the recent surge of plus-size positivity.
“I really think it is a good thing that people are accepting bigger women, but why should we have to live in a world where we have to tell people to feel good about themselves because they aren’t the same size that people want to see?” said Heckendorn. “That’s basically them saying ‘Well you aren’t what we are, but you’re also pretty.’ It’s this conflict of ‘Oh thank you for telling me I’m good in my body, but you’re also telling me I’m not the same as everybody else.’”
Community High senior Raven Eaddy, however, sees the promotion as a step in the right direction.
“Everybody should feel like they’re beautiful, and it’s just important for everyone to have something that makes them feel [worthy],” said Eaddy. “I was thinking about it and I’m wondering when fashion magazines will start to embrace curves, because right now that’s becoming the thing, to have curves. And I’m wondering if they’ll catch on to that.”
Dr. Engeln gave a talk on beauty sickness at a TEDx event at the University of Connecticut last year. In it, she addresses not only the damaging media culture we live in, but how to treat body negativity as well.
“Invest less in beauty,” she said. “Instead invest in things that last and things that you don’t have to keep in middle and older age. Limit your mirror time. Try not to think of your body as a collection of parts for other people to look at. Think of your body as unified, as whole, as your tool for exploring the world. Your body is not for looking at, it’s for doing things.”
A few media sources have attempted to ease the symptoms of beauty sickness. Back in 2004, the Dove brand announced its Real Beauty campaign, which has evolved over the years, promoting “real women whose appearances are outside the stereotypical norms of beauty” through online films, commercials and by holding educational programs in organizations like Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. and the Boys & Girls Club of America.
Earlier this year, lingerie brand Aerie announced the end of retouching its models for advertisements, and Seventeen magazine promised not to adjust the body sizes and face shapes of its models as well. Clothing company H&M displayed a size 12 model as the face of their beachwear collection this summer.
Students agree that, rather than promoting one image of beauty over another, media should instead embrace all girls regardless of shape.
“I know that not everyone, regardless of their size, is comfortable with their weight or actual size,” said Gechter. “I think it’s good to try and promote everyone to be more confident, either way.”
Heckendorn feels passionately about the way girls are currently perceived.
“It needs to be more focused on seeing every size and shape of women, not just targeting one size and saying ‘you’ve had hate, so here, let’s make you feel better.’ Singling them out isn’t going to make them feel any better. You’re just addressing their problem publicly and trying to make yourself feel better by supporting them. [It’s about] having this idea of ‘not everyone is going to be the same size as me, or the same size as her, or the same size as you’ and I don’t think that’s a problem.”
“We need to focus on everybody by saying that not only big girls are great, but so are skinny girls, so are average girls; every girl is great,” said Heckendorn.