{"id":71,"date":"2015-11-19T15:06:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T20:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.wpengine.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2015-12-03T15:33:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T20:33:22","slug":"beauty-sickness-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"Beauty Sickness"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kelly Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Communicator
\nAnn Arbor Community HS
\n1st Place
\nDivision 4, News Writing
\nInformative Future<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\u2019t play her usual variety of sports that she participated in back in Traverse City. She put on a bit of weight.<\/p>\n

Arriving at high school, she started sports again, but said it was \u201ctoo late.\u201d That\u2019s when the comments began.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom told me that the guys would be \u2018falling all over me\u2019 if I lost twenty more pounds, that I\u2019d have the perfect body,\u201d she said. \u201cI tried to tell her it\u2019s not as easy for me as it is for her, because we have different body types.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t noticed the change until that moment. Her mother was uncomfortable, and upset with herself that she didn\u2019t see it before.<\/p>\n

For a bit of time, Patterson\u2019s mother ceased to comment on her daughter\u2019s weight. Yet recently she has begun to make similar comments as before the weight loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI live with that,\u201d said Patterson. \u201cIn our relationship, we say things pretty straightforward. She knows that I\u2019m pretty confident. It\u2019s coming from my mom. [I know] she only wants the best for me. But when she makes comments about my weight, it\u2019s always a little bit negative.\u201d
\nAccording 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cComments like \u2018I\u2019m getting so fat\u2019 are coming from everywhere,\u201d said Engeln. This really public way of disparaging the amount of fat on your body is something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s life, whether it be a mother or friend, or a company, like a magazine or a clothing line.<\/p>\n

Examples of beauty sickness are blogs promoting \u201cthinspiration.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really makes me sad,\u201d said Community High senior Jula Heckendorn. \u201cI see it all over the place \u2013 people who try to get the thigh gaps or the hip bones to stick out and stuff,\u201d she said. \u201c[It] has so much to do with wanting to change yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also occurring in the media is the rising popularity and acceptance of an hour-glass shape \u2014 big butts, defined hips, a curvier physique \u2014 which young women are beginning to notice, including Community High freshman Lily Gechter.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The media has been] promoting that every size is beautiful, but then songs like [Meghan Trainor\u2019s] All About that Bass say that if you\u2019re skinny, you\u2019re a bitch,\u201d said Gechter. \u201cThey seem to be promoting all sizes, but it [also] seems to be aimed more towards larger sizes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heckendorn says she\u2019s on the fence about how she feels about the recent surge of plus-size positivity.
\n\u201cI 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\u2019t the same size that people want to see?\u201d said Heckendorn. \u201cThat\u2019s basically them saying \u2018Well you aren\u2019t what we are, but you\u2019re also pretty.\u2019 It\u2019s this conflict of \u2018Oh thank you for telling me I\u2019m good in my body, but you\u2019re also telling me I\u2019m not the same as everybody else.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Community High senior Raven Eaddy, however, sees the promotion as a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody should feel like they\u2019re beautiful, and it\u2019s just important for everyone to have something that makes them feel [worthy],\u201d said Eaddy. \u201cI was thinking about it and I\u2019m wondering when fashion magazines will start to embrace curves, because right now that\u2019s becoming the thing, to have curves. And I\u2019m wondering if they\u2019ll catch on to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvest less in beauty,\u201d she said. \u201cInstead invest in things that last and things that you don\u2019t 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\u2019s for doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201creal women whose appearances are outside the stereotypical norms of beauty\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Students agree that, rather than promoting one image of beauty over another, media should instead embrace all girls regardless of shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that not everyone, regardless of their size, is comfortable with their weight or actual size,\u201d said Gechter. \u201cI think it\u2019s good to try and promote everyone to be more confident, either way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heckendorn feels passionately about the way girls are currently perceived.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be more focused on seeing every size and shape of women, not just targeting one size and saying \u2018you\u2019ve had hate, so here, let\u2019s make you feel better.\u2019 Singling them out isn\u2019t going to make them feel any better. You\u2019re just addressing their problem publicly and trying to make yourself feel better by supporting them. [It\u2019s about] having this idea of \u2018not everyone is going to be the same size as me, or the same size as her, or the same size as you\u2019 and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d said Heckendorn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kelly Arnold The Communicator Ann Arbor Community HS 1st Place Division 4, News Writing Informative Future<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[60,4],"tags":[48,23],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-informativefeature","category-nw","tag-48","tag-division4","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kelsey Parkinson","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=3"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-19","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}