Kathlyn Gay

Chapter 1 excerpt

Tania is surveying herself in the dressing-room mirror and hating herself because of the plus-size clothes she wears. She exercises for hours each day and worries constantly about what diet to try next. She is ready to do almost anything to be able to buy outfits like some of her teenage classmates who wear size 2 to 6 or 8.

Andrew is checking out his reflection in a full-length mirror and decides he has a major problem. He is convinced he is not muscular enough to attract any of the pretty girls in his high school class. He is planning to find ways to bulk up.

Mary Jo looks in her hand mirror and finds pimples marking her face. She is about to panic. She has to cover up the blemishes with heavy makeup before her date for the prom arrives. But she will be miserable all evening believing that everyone will notice that her face is not picture-perfect.

Gordon is studying his stomach, sucking it in before the bathroom mirror. He is only 20 years old and he is certain that he is overweight even though the scales say otherwise. He is thinking about a tummy tuck—cosmetic surgery.

While these are fictional accounts, many young people in the real world are dissatisfied if not downright horrified with their reflections—sometimes distorted reflections—in their mirrors. For example, on a Web site called AdiosBarbie.com, one young man wondered why he spent so much time before the mirror, “flexing and twisting and prodding and scrutinizing every part of my body that I deem less-than perfect?” He answers his own question: “My sense of self-esteem...is increasingly affected (infected?) by a continuous, arbitrary onslaught of images and messages that dictate the rights and wrongs of physical appearance. And I'm not the only guy going through it.”

Reactions to real or imagined body shapes, sizes, or appearances can vary, depending on age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic background, participation in sports, influence of the media, and in general the lifestyle of friends and family. The way a person looks “is a widespread preoccupation,” says a Brown University student health services Web site. It states that 74.4 percent of normal-weight college women surveyed in one study thought about their weight or appearance “all the time” or “frequently.” In addition 46 percent of the normal-weight men surveyed gave the same response.

Petra Mohr, an editorial writer for the student newspaper, The Spectator, at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire contends there is a “fat phobia” (or fear of fat) throughout the nation. This fear of fat has led to “a socially accepted form of discrimination, which is largely based on the sole misperception that every fat person is merely too stupid or too lazy to lose weight,” writes Mohr. She argues that fat phobia and what society considers the “ideal” body size are ways to oppress females who are expected to be thin in order to be attractive to men. According to Mohr, “these two contrivances ultimately result in cancerous preoccupations, taking up vital energy, time, money, and foremost attention that could be devoted to other aspects of the individual's life.”

Mohr compares “America’s obsession with thinness” to the body ideal for women in Niger:

“Culture dictates these women to be as plump and zaftig [pleasingly rounded] as possible in order to ensure the desire and attention of men.” Yet, as wonderful and tempting as this different body ideal sounds to a fat person like myself, Nigerian women also suffer. Small or skinny women are often ridiculed and regarded as unattractive. Girls of proper marriage-age are habitually force-fed in order to physically and socially prepare them for their future life as fat women and wives.

Along with the ideal of thinness are other preconceived notions in the United States about how people should look. Some Americans think they are too short or too tall. Others believe their facial features are unacceptable—their noses too big, lips too thin, eyelids too droopy, or too many freckles, for example. Still others worry that their ears are too big, or that their hair is too curly or too straight. Lack of a muscular appearance concerns some boys and men, and some girls and women worry that their breasts are too large or too small.

In some instances, people are so concerned about the way others see them that they develop “social physique anxiety” (SPA). SPA is “a disorder in which someone chronically worries that others are critiquing his or her body,” according to researchers at Columbus State University in Ohio. Researchers, who released their report in 2007, studied 99 college women whose average age was 19. The women were selected for the study based on questionnaire responses, which indicated that they were concerned about their physical appearance.

The college students participated in two different exercise classes—one in which the female instructor emphasized the benefits of exercise for appearance; she wore tight-fitting aerobic outfits and urged students to tone up and look good. In the other class, she emphasized the benefits of exercise and wore loose fitting t-shirts and shorts and urged the class to get fit. Surveys of the women after the classes indicated that in spite of having SPA, “The women in the health-oriented class reported that they felt more engaged in the workout as well as revitalized and less exhausted after class than did the women in the appearance-oriented classes.” In other words, when students were reminded that fitness was the most important goal of exercise, they put aside, for class time at least, their concerns about how they appeared to others.