Conflicting Messages
“In America, we are embracing diversity in many aspects of our lives — from foods to clothing styles to families — but it seems that we are less receptive to a diversity of beauty, especially when it comes to thinness,” Fisher says. “While we are no longer wedded to a blonde, blue-eyed vision of beauty, in terms of the body, it is still less mutlidimensional than is healthy.”

Although some advertisers have made efforts to show women in different roles and sizes, and many women’s publications have started to preach self-acceptance, women must struggle to understand the conflicting messages they see.

“As women, we are bombarded by articles about setting realistic goals and being ‘the fittest you’ and ‘the best you.’ But in those same publications are glamorous images of thin and young women that look nothing like the average American woman,” Fisher says. “The preponderance of what we see is very young, very tall and very thin. It is a mixed set of messages that women receive. There is a huge glamorization of the culture of thinness.”

Psychological Battles
“Thin promises,” says Hesse-Biber. “We see it in the advertisements and on TV every day. The thin woman gets the goodies — the man, the car, the glamour.” This creates a tremendous amount of psychological pressure for women who want all those things but who do not match the present standard of beauty.

“Girls that don’t fit in are subject to immense social pressure. The literature for fat camps and the copy in advertisements say, ‘If you get thin, all these wonderful things are going to happen to you,’” Hesse-Biber says.

Many women can spend their lives waiting for these wonderful things to happen. Corbett describes how frustrating it can be to watch as women lose their vitality. “People put their lives on hold waiting to lose the last 5 pounds or waiting to fit into an outfit,” she says. “They lose out trying to ‘fit in the box’ instead of living as they are.”

Living as you are proves incredibly difficult, but it can be done. Women must overcome the immense pressure to conform that advertisers and the media create, and they must learn to be visually literate and discriminating when viewing images designed to sell them something, Hesse-Biber says.

“There is so much money to be made as women try to attain a body image that is impossible,” Hesse-Biber says. “It’s great for capitalism, but terrible for women’s self-esteem and body image.”

“I’m not saying that beauty and adornment are not important parts of being feminine,” says Hesse-Biber. “It’s the obsession that it is taken to that is dangerous.”

Tags: beauty, body image, glamorous

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