Being early January it's both the dead of winter and New Year's resolution season. A common one is to lose some weight in the cold winter months to be ready for the beach in the summer. But as goes the Washington Post's Wonkb-log, they've got a rather different resolution: health magazines should "Ban the Bikini Body."
Wonkblog's Danielle Paquette laid out her case, picking up on how a poll of Women's Health readers found the term "bikini body" to be among the "word(s) and/or phrase(s) [the magazine] should we stop putting on our covers[.]"
"Research shows this early insecurity, which tends to bleed into adulthood, is linked to our airbrushed idols," Paquette complained:
Girls spot the toned abs on Gwyneth Paltrow and wonder: Why don’t I look that that? Will people still love me if I don't?
One month after television landed in a remote province in Fiji, Anne E. Becker, then director of research at the Harvard Eating Disorders Center, visited the island community to investigate its impact on viewers.
She conducted her first survey of high school-age girls in 1995, when TV was new, and in 1998, when TV was more routine. Fifteen percent of the second batch said they’d induced vomiting to control their weight, compared with three percent in the first survey. Twenty-nine percent in 1998 showed eating disorder symptoms, compared with 13 percent in 1995.
“The media is one of the main ways we get messages about the body,” said Sarah Murnen, a psychologist and professor at Kenyon College. “Among those who internalize the messages, they can lead to body dissatisfaction, eating disorders and depression.”
The messages come in words, pictures and airwaves, Murnen said. A young woman in the United States likely encounters “You should be thin” messages daily. She could wake up, pour a bowl of Special K cereal and notice the “Lose 5 pounds in 2 weeks” campaign on the box. She could open her laptop and catch a promo for the "Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show."
“Cultural products and practices in America support the thin ideal,” Murnen wrote in a 2012 paper. “The average young woman getting ready for work or school could encounter numerous products and messages that remind her of the importance of thinness.”
