Who is the Biggest Loser Anyways??

I have a love/hate relationship with the Biggest Loser (well, it's mostly hate- haha! although hate is kind of a strong word but you get the picture...). I watched it a few times last year, but haven't really watched it since. Not because i actually hate it but more because I'm just not sure how comfortable I am with the whole concept of the show! I am all for getting fit and healthy, but I just don't know how healthy a process is that involves three to four hours of exercise a day. Seems just a little compulsive. But that's not the point right now haha. The point is that I read an article that I really enjoyed and wanted to post it for those of you who may be interested. It challenges the flawed cultural ideal that happiness=thinness, and uses the Biggest Loser to illustrate this point. I want to apologize to all my favorite friends and family members who love this show who may be upset with me for talking trash about the Biggest Loser, but I promise I'm not judging... Anyone who knows me knows that I love the Hills. And let's be honest, that is much worse. I have yet to comment on Heidi Montag's new face/body--I have been trying to refrain, but it's getting tougher to ignore and one of these days I am sure I will be posting about that..

Anyways, follow this link for the article! Scroll down just a little bit once the link pops up- and you will see the article. Happy reading!

Michelle Obama and Jessica Simpson?

This has been such a busy week for me and I haven't had a lot of extra time to blog! But I do have some posts I am working on that I'm looking forward to sharing soon. In the meantime, I'd like to share an opinion piece that I read last week because I think it was spot on when it comes to the Goldilocks syndrome I wrote about a few weeks ago (read about that here!). I don't know why, but I'm always pleasantly surprised to read such thought provoking pieces about body image and weight on the Huffington Post. The HP recently added a 'body image' page to their site, which highlights stories about weight, eating disorders, body image and all things related- very cool. Anyways, below is the article I mentioned above, by Charlotte Hilton Andersen. Hope that you enjoy this piece and that it challenges you to examine where you can find middle ground in your life!

You know it's a weird month in celeb-land when Good Housekeeping cover girl, Michelle Obama,is photoshopped within an inch of her life and Marie Claire cover girl, Jessica Simpson, is not only un-airbrushed, but also sans makeup.

Both women are known for their beauty (oh, and by the way, Ms. Obama might also be married to the President of the United States, or something) and have been targets of intense media scrutiny regarding their looks. So it is fitting that each in her own way -- and you can't possibly be more surprised than I am that I'm putting Michelle Obama and Jessica Simpson into the same category -- is on a current campaign to reshape global attitudes about our bodies.

Ms. Obama has made headlines recently for departing from previous First Ladies' safe platforms and tackling the touchy subject of childhood obesity. After launching a nationwide initiative to "end childhood obesity in one generation" she reinforced her point by revamping the traditional Easter celebration at the White House. This past weekend she removed all candy from the candy-infested holiday and instead treated children to exercise stations hosted by Olympic athletes, hand-washing stations and the inexplicably named "pre-screened" fruit in their goody bags.

Strangely, the same media that laments the obesity crisis on a daily basis lambasted the First Lady for "stealing Easter." The Easter Bunny notes that he is "not threatened" by Ms. Obama, although he thinks some of the Olympians might have been looking at him funny.

Also making mixed headlines, Ms. Simpson has been traveling the world for her new reality show "The Price of Beauty" showing what women in other cultures perceive as beautiful and the means they use to achieve it. This week's episode had the girls and their hairstylist visiting Uganda to watch women being fattened in the name of beauty. This ritual, which to my Western eyes seems every bit as eating disordered as anorexia or bulimia, highlights an important point: not everyone thinks thin is as in as we do. In fact, adiposity is adorable in some cultures.

Somewhere in these extreme messages, there is a middle ground. Catwalk thinness and obesity are both undesirable from a health perspective. And neither should be a moral statement about the person possessing said body. Now, if only we didn't have to photoshop our already-gorgeous First Lady or take contrived pictures of the already-gorgeous Jessica Simpson to prove it.

To view the article as it was published on the HP, follow this link.

Teenage Girls and Body Image: A Lesson For All of Us

According to a new study published in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior (2010), teenage girls tend to compare their bodies more to their peers (who appear to be more similar to themselves) than they do to celebrities in the media (who appear to be in a 'different league'). An article published recently by Nancy Tracy on this very subject points to the Social Comparison Theory, a psychological theory which holds that more often than not people tend to compare themselves more to people who are similar to themselves than to those who seem to be inferior or superior. So- for example, rather than comparing your cooking skills to someone who is featured on the Food Network, maybe you compare your cooking skills to those of your neighbor, sister, friend, cousin, etc. And the analogy follows with anything- your looks, your athletic ability, your body, etc. Anyways, what they found was that in schools where the average BMI (body mass index) was higher, girls felt less pressure to diet and be thin, whereas in schools where the average BMI was lower, girls felt increased pressure to be thinner.


I think that the results of this study are powerful in that they affirm what we might already know and experience about what happens when we make comparisons about ourselves to others- which is that often, we feel that we need to be something other than what we are. We feel like we don't measure up to those around us, or that we are just not as good as so-and-so. Teenage girls might compare themselves to their peers more than they do to celebrities, but who knows what the statistics look like for adults (who probably compare themselves equally to their peers and celebrities). I think the media still shapes and influences our standards of beauty in a way that we may never fully comprehend, but I think the act of comparing ourselves to others is an important thing to step back and evaluate.


Someone very wise once told me that "comparison is the thief of all joy" and that has stuck with me ever since-- it is so true! That phrase often comes to mind because we are conditioned to look around us to see where we fit in the pecking order, and usually the act of comparing ourselves to others leads to feelings of inferiority, insecurity, anxiety, frustration, discontentment, and so on. Whenever we compare ourselves to others, we don't usually feel better about ourselves- we feel worse! And on the rare occasion that we do feel better, the sense of confidence we gain from that is false and empty. One quote (by Max Ehrmann) that I love which speaks to this: “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” We all at times are so busy worrying about how we measure up that we lose out on being ourselves, and we aren't able to enjoy who God made us to be. Another one of my favorite quotes is by Judy Garland- she said, "Be a first-rate version of yourself, rather than a second-rate version of someone else." I think she had it right! We are the only ones who can be the best at being us- so let's focus on that!! We all have strengths, talents and interests that make us unique and when we aren't able to see those for what they are, we miss out! The next time you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else, stop and consider your God-given strengths, abilities and beauty. The idea is not to become vain or to become self-absorbed; however, it is important that we strive to see ourselves for who we are, rather than viewing ourselves through a filter that is designed to categorize and classify our worth based on another.






*On a side note, one other thing worth pointing out from Tracy's article is the following: "Perhaps one exception to the rule of teenage girls comparing themselves to their peers is teenage girls with low self-esteem, a subgroup that often develops eating disorders. These teenage girls tend to compare themselves upward instead of to their peers, a possible subconscious attempt to preserve their negative self-image by comparing themselves to a less attainable ideal." Just an interesting sub-point that I will come back to in another post that highlights the perfectionistic nature that tends to pervade those who suffer from eating disorders. And just for the record, how many teenagers out there don't suffer from negative self-image? That is a post for another day... To read Tracy's article in full, follow this link.

App-orexia??

Apple has secured a pretty dominant place in pop culture (and the world of technology!) and continues to do so with every increasing product that they put out--it's hard to imagine life without the iPod:). Just yesterday, the iPad came out and people woke up in the middle of the night to go wait in line to purchase one. There are many perks of having an iPad (or an iTouch, or an iPhone, etc)- one of them is that you can download applications, or 'apps' as they are commonly referred to. There are over 3 billion (!!), and they serve a variety of purposes (entertainment, news, health, finance, etc).

Something that I have noticed lately is the increased attention being given to apps that are designed to assist people in their dieting endeavors... by tracking their daily intake of food and calories. I read a really good article recently (which you can read here) that challenges the notion that these apps cause eating disorders. A lot of articles have come out saying that these apps cause eating disorders, but many people use these apps to count their daily caloric intake and never develop an eating disorder (although this does not elevate my opinion of them- more on that in a minute). Eating disorders are not usually 'caused' by one thing (for more on this and other eating disorder myths, follow this link). People with a genetic predisposition to developing an eating disorder may be triggered by using a calorie counting app, but the app is not usually the culprit. One phrase that I have heard often (as related to causes of eating disorders) is that 'genes load the gun, and environment pulls the trigger.'

While these apps may not cause eating disorders, I think that they can foster an unhealthy dependence, as well as an unhealthy attitude towards food and calories. It is important to be able to fuel our bodies and get what we need nutritionally, and it is good to be knowledgeable about healthy portion sizes! But if we cling too tightly to numbers, whether it is how many calories we are eating, or the number that is on the scale, I think that we run the risk of being occupied with the wrong things. Health is important. And our health does not just consist of our physical health- it consists of our emotional health, our mental health, and our spiritual health as well. I think that each component of our health is extremely important and without one piece, we cannot function at an optimal level. Rather than getting hung up on numbers, it might be to our benefit to focus on our overall health- how we feel, how quickly we can recover when we are active, building character, finding lasting significance, identity and purpose through faith, and working to maintain stability and positive coping skills through the ups and downs of life!

Plus-Size Models Don't Promote Positive Body Image??

The other day, I was reading The State Press-- Arizona State University's daily campus publication. To be honest, I rarely ever read it, but every so often I like to check in and see what it is going on around campus (it’s been almost two years since I graduated from my graduate program there!). Anyways, I came across a pretty interesting article on body image and marketing that I have been trying to make sense of!

One of the principle researchers in the study, Naomi Mandel, is an associate professor of marketing at ASU, and she partnered with two other professors from universities across the country to examine how advertisements (and the models used in them) impact women’s body image and self-esteem. They wanted to determine if using plus-size models and women of all sizes to sell products in ads promoted positive body image in women. What they found was that ‘plus-size models don’t promote positive body image for consumers.’ To read the entire article and to read more about their study, follow this link.

After reading this article, I was sort of confused because I was wondering if the researchers expected a different outcome? Let me explain. I know that we all hope (me included) that seeing women that are a range of sizes will contribute to us having a better and more healthy body image, and I really DO believe that it can and does help (in spite of these findings)-- but I also think that more than anything, our culture’s narrow definition of beauty is what really challenges us the most, and ultimately influences the context in which we view ourselves and others. Anyways, their study (as far as I’m aware) seems not to take this very important component into consideration, which is essential because the way in which we define beauty culturally impacts the way that we see and interpret what is beautiful (maybe they need a social scientist to join their research team!). I almost laughed this morning when I came across an opinion piece on the Huffington Post-- the title alone screamed at me in regards to this very issue- “Why Media Literacy Alone Won’t Make Women Love Their Bodies.” Follow this link to check it out. The premise of the article is based on a study done amongst Girl Scouts- and what they found was that while girls and women are able to critically observe models and unhealthy images that we see in the media, we still want to pursue unhealthy means to achieve this ideal standard of beauty that exists culturally. Here is a snippet that sums up it up, and sums up my thoughts about the ASU study as well..

The young women in the Girl Scouts study are media literate. They view the images they see in magazines and on television with critical eyes. They know full well that what they see presented as beautiful is all but impossible to achieve. They even suspect, rightly, that some of the women they're seeing are sick. And yet, they still think those women are beautiful, and they still want to look like them.

 What's clear then, is that changing how we see fashion models is only half the battle. That so large a proportion of the women surveyed in the Girl Scouts study were media literate, and were able to view fashion critically, represents enormous progress. But until we change what's considered beautiful in our culture, until we broaden the definition of female beauty to encompass more than 2% of the population, young women will continue to emulate the current ideal, even as they know it to be unrealistic and unhealthy. The other equally important half of the battle, though, is to change how we see beauty, to expand the definition beyond young, white and painfully thin. If we can do that, we can create a world in which young women who want to be considered beautiful by media standards, who want, like all teenagers, to be accepted and liked, don't feel the need to starve themselves in order to do so.

This is obviously a huge challenge and task- and as we all know, cultural change does not happen over night. Starting small is essential- one small way that you can participate is to take part in Operation Beautiful. For more information on Operation Beautiful, follow this link.