A recent article by Krista Ramsey in The Cincinnati News Enquirer titled “Starving to Have No Size at All,” explores the obsession so many people in our society experience with their weight. Specifically, the article focuses on a 48 year old mother and grandmother, Michelle Trotta, who has battled with eating disorders for thirty years. The problem, however, is much more extensive than an isolated individual issue. Eating disorders are a sort of epidemic that, according to the article citing the International Journal of Eating Disorders, affect fifteen percent of all women.
The article suggests that the problem of eating disorders, originally a sickness most common in teen populations, is spreading to older, and supposedly wiser, age groups who technically should be familiar with the detrimental effects of eating disorders. The article argues that many individuals who had eating disorders during their teenage years are redeveloping the sickness as they get older and experience hardships or “fading looks” due to the aging process. This sickness is not in any way a trivial or unimportant problem-for many, it is “a question of life or death,” (Ramsey). People are killed all the time from eating disorders, however the obsession with weight has now existed for an entire century in our country and there has been little effective policy in thwarting the problem.
According to the article, the eating disorder problem is only becoming more serious over time, with a rapid increase in cases in recent years. In reference to the extreme number of cases recently, therapist Scott Bullock, a member of the Lidner Center of HOPE, is cited in the article as saying he “had so many midlife clients with eating disorders that he had an immediate waiting list,” with “no letup in sight.”(Ramsey). He suggests that many women won’t get help because there are simply too many patients to effectively help everyone. Further, he suggests that many individuals with a problem will never seek help since they are so embarrassed of their behavior.
Since most individuals with eating disorders are intensely secretive in their behavior, the problem is forced almost entirely inside. People with eating disorders are mentally compulsive about their eating habits, however, they are equally as obsessed with denying and hiding their practices from the outside world. Obviously extremely mentally taxing and detrimental, the physical stress of eating disorders is only the start of the problem. Anorexia and Bulimia take over the mind and dictate the lives of the poor victims who fall prey to this sickness.
The article goes on to discuss the truly destructive and irrepressible nature of eating disorders. Eating disorders “[rob] women of their health” as well as “time and energy for careers and families,” (Ramsey). Since women become so obsessed with their weight and their eating habits, they lose valuable time concentrating on other aspects of their life. They therefore fall behind in their careers and lose bonding time with their family. Further, since the person they are on the outside is very different from their real self in their mind, people with eating disorders suffer a lose of a genuine connection with those close to them.
Further, according to Margo Maine, a clinical psychologist specializing in eating disorders, “our culture doesn’t let women have a break from this,” (Ramsey). Despite extensive treatment and rehabilitation, eating disorders often become so deeply seeded within an individual they can never entirely rid themselves of these unhealthy tendencies. Michelle Trotta admits that she “still has rules for everything she puts in her mouth.” Specifically, “no white foods, no read meat, no eating after 6 p.m. and no unplanned foods,” (Ramsey). Further, when she does temporarily loosen her rules, she immediately obsesses over how she can compensate with supplementary exercise. Trotta has made progress, admitting to her family the extent of her issues and admitting to herself she is finally willing to give up “her quest for size 0,” (Ramsey). However, even though Trotta is supposedly well on her way to overcoming her eating disorder, it still has the power to dictate and control much of her life.
As this sickness holds such an overwhelming and decisive power over its victims, many speculate and wonder what leads women to fall in to this trap of obsession with weight, eventually developing in to an eating disorder. A sickness able to completely incapacitate a person both mentally and physically, an eating disorder clearly has an extreme power that most would love to decipher and understand. Endless studies have been created in attempts of pinpointing a direct source of this epidemic that has crippled so many of our peers, friends, family, and even many of us personally. According to the article, many believe genetics, as well as family and cultural environment play a role. As of now, however, the article admits that no one source or underlying reason has been found that is capable of explaining every case of this disease.
The article calls for a greater awareness of many of the extremely detrimental effects involved with eating disorders. The article mentions the fact that eating disorders affect the ability of victims to concentrate on anything other than their weight and eating habits. It recognizes that eating disorders have the power to control and dictate the life of women. The article also briefly notes that our culture is partly to blame in the extreme number of individuals suffering from eating disorders.
The article does not, however, successfully recognize the fact that people define themselves based on their outer appearance rather than their inner qualities. As a society, we have become increasingly obsessed with our looks and largely forgotten that what should define us is real and internal, rather than artificial and external. Many of us are unhappy with ourselves and find ourselves to be worthless if we do not meet appearance-based standards we (or society) have created. Further, as “individuals,” we form our identity not internally but based on general standards created by society-the least unique grouping possible. Therefore, with our growing inability to define ourselves based on anything but societal standards, we lose individuality and authenticity in creating a definition of who we really are.
The image of skinny as an ideal body shape is not something that is individually created by each person striving to lose weight. Instead, it is an image created by our culture and society. Theoretically, the promotion of weight loss could be a very good lesson for our country that is bursting with obese people. However, more often than not, people are striving to be stick thin for appearance purposes rather than in attempts to improve health. Further, this obsession is so irrepressible and overwhelming it consumes its victims and causes them to become dangerously thin. Therefore, the overly intense push towards being stick thin is a far cry from a successful health-promoting campaign.
Our culture is without question one of extremes. When one challenge is given to us, we work towards perfecting it, no matter what it takes. We are willing to give up much of what we enjoy in order to complete something according to our high standards. Roberta Pollack Seid claims “in earlier centuries, people who exhibited such mastery over hunger were categorized either as saints or as possessed by the devil…Today, that awe has become a horrified fascination, not because of the rarity of the phenomenon, but because of its increasing commonplaceness,” (Valdes, 31). While determination and persistence are certainly good qualities, when taken too far they are can be very destructive. Since our culture does not promote mediocre or average performances, “healthier” eating and “slimming down” have been taken to an extreme where we no longer find it alarming to see a girl walking down the street, bones protruding all over her body due to a lack of fat. Therefore, campaigns toward weight-loss or promotions for thin figures have not always resulted in healthier bodies but instead an extreme number of excessively thin bodies that seem ready to crumble and break at any moment.
In order to achieve these standards of perfection, we lose sight of what is uniquely important to us as individuals, instead striving for a societal goal that almost anyone you ask is also working towards. Our society, unable to accept mediocrity, becomes so dangerously obsessed with success, we forfeit our unique identity trying to be thin-exactly like everyone else we know. We attempt to shed our outer uniqueness in the form of curves, which are different for everyone, to achieve a stick-thin body, void of any individuality or character.
Societal constructions are so overpowering and strong, they force us to abandon our outer individuality, forming ourselves based on what we should be rather than what we want to be. Rebecca Walker discusses her “chamelionlike identity” suggesting that she pretended to know everything, smoked cigarettes, and had sex with boys because that’s what she “thought had to be done [for acceptance,” (Walker, 21). Walker acted the way she acted, adopting identities other than those natural to her, in order to fit in and feel a sense of acceptance.
Society, therefore, has not only the power to dictate our outer appearance, but also the capability of controlling our internal drives and desires. While we can certainly learn from trying out different identities and learning what works and doesn’t (as Walker admits she does), forcing identities that aren’t our own can also cause personal confusion and bewilderment. At Colgate, people often complain that everyone looks exactly the same. Upon arriving freshman year, people alter their image in order to “fit in” with the rest of the community. We forfeit our originality and forgo our character simply in order to gain acceptance. As a population, we are so desperate for approval from our peers, we are willing to lose who we really are to get others to like us.
Further, we are generally so obsessed with our appearance and what others think of us, we settle with having a confused and muddled identity that is not a genuine representation of who we really are. In our culture, we spend minimal time on getting to know or helping those around us, instead infatuated with our own looks. In an excerpt from her book entitled “The Body Project,” Joan Jacobs Brumberg states that starting in the early 1900’s “it was no longer considered sinful or shallow to care so much about how you looked, girls talked among themselves about how to improve or change their hair, face, and figure,” (Brumberg, 105). As a society, we are generally self-obsessed, forgetting about helping those around us in efforts to perfect ourselves. In other countries and centuries of the past, people spent very little time on their appearance instead focusing their time and energy on their family and friends. Therefore, we promote an interest in appearance over personality since as individuals, we feel forced by society to focus more time perfecting our looks than working towards improving our character or intellectuality.
Additionally, we define ourselves based off of our looks rather than our genuine interests and inner makeup. Generally, if a girls’ skin is breaking out or if she feels over weight, she feels worthless and inadequate. Brumberg states that “today, many young girls worry about the contours of their bodies-especially shape, size, and muscle tone-because they believe that the body is the ultimate expression of the self,” (Brumberg, 1). We establish our supposed value based on our outer appearance rather than based on our intellectual capacity, caring deeds toward others, or past experiences of our life.
Further, we create this concept of value based on how we think others perceive us. We lose sight of our own genuine opinion and feelings towards ourselves since we base our self-perception entirely on how we think others view us. Therefore, our self-definition and perceived identity is really completely lost and unknown as it is formed from outer forces rather than internally developed. Many people think that they know who they are but in reality, are chasing an identity that is a confused mixture of what they think they should want and a blurry perception of who they think they are supposed to be.
Reasons explaining why people are so focused on their own appearance and fulfilling standards created by society are endless and cannot be generalized or assumed to be the same for every person. Many women work out obsessively in order to feel control in their lives. Others work out to escape the stress and pressures of every day life. Many girls try to lose weight in hopes of getting a “hot body” to impress boys (or girls) they are interested in. In her essay titled “Your Life as A Girl,” Curtis Sittenfeld discusses what happens when you’re out running and guys start yelling and hooting at you. She says that “at first you take their yells as compliments, but you realize how hideous you look, and then you realize they aren’t seeing you, not as a person. They are seeing you as long hair and bare legs, and you are frightened,” (Sittenfeld, 6). Rather than spending time respecting people’s character and discovering their inner identity, we judge people based on their outer appearance before we even hear a work come out of their mouth.
Additionally, Jennifer Reid Maxcy Myhre pointedly articulates this same idea in her essay on the societal constructions strength in dictating an individual’s value. Myhre states that “a woman’s value is gauged according to her appearance, and women are expected to comply with standards set by society,” (Myhre, 87). Myhre directly states that the power and worth of women is based almost entirely on their appearance. With minimal choice other than to abide by societal constructions in order to succeed, women obsess over their appearance, understanding that they have little other way to succeed. Although reasons may seem trivial as they cannot be pinpointed to apply to every single individual, they are very important as the drives behind our actions can actually give us some individuality and character when much is already lost.
According to Ariel Levy, the forces behind our actions either justify them or reveal extreme flaws in our culture. According to Levy, if women act the way the do because they think they must in order to gain approval or acceptance from men, there is a problem in our culture. However, if girls set their sights on a goal to work out and lose weight in order to feel powerful and in control, their actions may be justified. Paradoxically, however, men are often able to find a sense of control or empowerment from their jobs, while women must often look elsewhere, to an entirely different world like working out, to find control or a sense of power in their lives. According to Brumberg, one of her interview subjects by the name of Yvonne Blue, realized that “a slim body was central to female success,” (Brumberg, 100). Levy would consider it wrong that women cannot find empowerment in the same world as men. Levy would also consider it wrong that women have to use their looks and appearance in order to move forward and achieve their goals. However, Levy would support the women acting a certain way based on their own personal drives to move in a self-designated and controlled direction. While it is good that women work out for their own sense of accomplishment, it is somewhat wrong that women cannot find empowerment in the corporate world where men are often still dominant.
People must realize, however, that despite constant hard work, the goal of becoming stick thin is often never attained. After years of an eating disorder, Michelle Trotta still had never reached her goal of a size zero. The “chase” continued without satisfaction for more than half of her life, leaving her feeling unfulfilled and incomplete. We often chase goals that we think will empower us or make us feel complete. Ironically, this goal of weight loss is, on the outside, an attempt to effectively disappear. Internally, as the goal of size zero is often not reached, women are left feeling incapable and even more empty than before. What we think will leave us feeling meaningful and important, as something worth noticing, often makes us feel completely desolate and purposeless.
What we achieve in the end, therefore, is the complete opposite of what we are searching for on the inside. We want a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction however instead we feel insignificant and futile. In other words, what we want conflicts with what we actually are. We must reconcile these conflicting images of ourselves (reality and fantasy), as they are truthfully two very different conditions. However, as our fantasy and reality are often completely different and irreconcilable, we lose an ability to differentiate between who we really are and who society tells us we want to be. Societal constructions take over our brain, meaning they become internal (in addition to external), however they are images forced upon us by society and are therefore anything but natural. Therefore, we are always chasing an image, trying to form an identity for ourselves, however the identity is really not our own, thus making true personal understanding and comprehension in today’s society close to impossible.
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