Just the other day, I was watching I Love Lucy with my sister. I was watching an episode where Lucy decides to go on a diet so that she can fit into the costume made for Ricky’s show. Then it hit me…she was dieting to fit into a size 12. That’s right…12! In our day and age this translates to a size large. As it turns out, Marilyn Monroe (whose craze hit a little before Lucille Ball’s) was a size 14. These women were the very definition of beauty. A generation or two later we start to see skeleton-like figures such as Madonna and Cher who redefined our image of beauty partially defined by a smaller body size.
Just the other day, I was watching I Love Lucy with my sister. I was watching an episode where Lucy decides to go on a diet so that she can fit into the costume made for Ricky’s show. Then it hit me…she was dieting to fit into a size 12. That’s right…12! In our day and age this translates to a size large. As it turns out, Marilyn Monroe (whose craze hit a little before Lucille Ball’s) was a size 14. These women were the very definition of beauty. A generation or two later we start to see skeleton-like figures such as Madonna and Cher who redefined our image of beauty partially defined by a smaller body size.
Today, we watch shows like America’s Next Top Model and The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency that tell us that the size 14 beauty queens of old are now required to be labeled as “plus-size.” They are indirectly (and in some cases not so indirectly) told that they simply don’t measure up. Perhaps Tyra Banks pretends to consider women of all sizes as beautiful, but in the end no plus-size model gets to “be on top.” In one episode, Janice Dickinson actually tells one of her models that she is getting "too fat" because she could barely squeeze into a size 3 skirt. The model says later on in an interview that she was happy with her body and felt more comfortable with her body and felt more healthy than she had in a long time. Unfortunately for her, she was forced to stand there while Janice berated her. As bad as this is on its own, add in the fact that young girls watch this show faithfully.
We need to stop and consider what messages we are sending young girls. As a country, we advocate small waistlines and minimal body weight every day in every form of the media, and yet we put on a false sense of alarm when we are forced to face the rising rates of bulimia and anorexia in our children. We tell girls every single day that they need to look like the photo-shopped images every actress and model broadcasts to the world (check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U ), and yet we are shocked when they resort to unrealistic and unhealthy means to do so. If we want girls to be healthy, perhaps we should start by showing them realistic, healthy bodies. Girls are expected to look photoshopped on a daily basis, and yet we frown on it if they feel the need to turn to eating disorders to do so. They are shunned if they have an eating disorder, and they are looked down on if they do not fit the picture-perfect mold set by size zero models.
If we really care about our youth, we should start by holding them to and advocating for realistic expectations. Being healthy is good, being a skeleton is not. If the generation that produces the image of beauty for our society cannot discern the difference, how can we expect anything more from our youth?
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