The Media Told Me I’m Fat! How Celebrity Figures Promote an Unhealthy Body Image
By Hugh C. McBride
David Beckham hasn’t transformed the entire world into soccer worshippers (yet), but that doesn’t mean he’s not having a dramatic effect on individuals around the globe. Unfortunately, his impact may not be universally positive.
Health experts have expressed concerns that some boys and young men are taking drastic (and dangerous) steps to give themselves Beckham-like bodies. Though attempting to look like a world-renowned sports star sounds like a healthy pursuit, the extremes to which some people are going to try to replicate Beckham’s sculpted physique can have devastating results.
“It is a complaint usually associated with teenage girls, but the number of men being treated for the eating disorder anorexia has gone up by 67 percent in the past five years,” Jo MacFarlane wrote in an Aug. 2, 2008 article on England’s Daily Mail Online website. “The increase is being blamed partly on the rising popularity of lifestyle magazines for men featuring pictures of trim sportsmen such as David Beckham.”
The famous footballer is not the first celebrity to inspire less-than-healthy behaviors among his fans – and no one has accused him of encouraging (or even directly causing) the self-destructive actions that some of his admirers have engaged in. Eating disorders manifest themselves in myriad forms, and can be preceded by a varied and complex set of internal and external triggers.
However, the “Beckham effect” on the body image of some fans is the just the latest in a long line of incidences in which the glamour of fame has collided with the devastation of eating disorders.
THE SCOURGE OF ‘SIZE ZERO’
Perhaps nowhere is the celebration of unhealthy body image more pronounced than in the fashion industry, where freakishly slim models starve themselves in order to earn coveted spots on the catwalk.
The prevalence of “size zero” models earned international attention in 2006, when – after protests by physicians and women’s rights advocates the year before – the organizers of fashion week in Madrid, Spain, announced that they were banning all models whose body mass index fell below 18. “Fashion is a mirror and many teenagers imitate what they see on the catwalk,” official Concha Guerra told BBC News.
Although event organizers in Milan followed Madrid’s lead, others have not – and the devastating effects of ultra-thinness continue to be felt in the modeling community.
A month before the 2006 Madrid fashion week, 22-year-old Luisa Ramos died of heart failure brought on by anorexia nervosa during a fashion show in Uruguay. According to Australian publication The Age, Ramos “was reported to have adopted a diet of lettuce leaves and Diet Coke for the three months before her death.”
Six months later, Luisa’s 18-year-old sister, Eliana, was found dead in her bedroom. Martin Beckford, a writer for The Telegraph newspaper, reported that “A source involved in the investigation into the teenager’s death said: ‘The primary diagnosis is death due to symptoms of malnutrition.’”
WARNINGS OR ENTICEMENTS?
As counterintuitive as it may seem, while many view celebrities’ weight-related struggles as cautionary tales, some look to them for tips on how to accelerate their own diminishment. For example, the Internet is rife with pro-anorexia sites featuring images of abnormally thin celebrities that are posted as “success stories.”
For example, just as David Beckham’s body has inspired some men to alter their own appearance, so, too, has his wife’s physique prompted some women to attempt extreme changes. And not even Victoria Beckham’s admission that she had been plagued by eating disorders has been enough to stop legions of young women from insisting that hers is the body shape to strive for.
As Dr. Jennifer L. Derenne and Dr. Eugene V. Beresin wrote in their article “Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders” (Academic Psychiatry, June 2006), this unhealthy tendency to emulate is not limited to typically star-struck cultures such as those found in the United States and United Kingdom:
No discussion of body image and the media would be complete without referencing Becker’s landmark study comparing rates of eating disorders before and after the arrival of television in Fiji in 1995.
Ethnic Fijians have traditionally encouraged healthy appetites and have preferred a more rotund body type, which signified wealth and the ability to care for one’s family. Strong cultural identity is thought to be protective against eating disorders; there was only one case of anorexia nervosa reported on the island prior to 1995.
However, in 1998, rates of dieting skyrocketed from 0 to 69 percent, and young people routinely cited the appearance of the attractive actors on shows like "Beverly Hills 90210” and "Melrose Place” as the inspiration for their weight loss. For the first time, inhabitants of the island began to exhibit disordered eating.
LIMITING CHILDREN’S EXPOSURE
How, in today’s media-saturated world, can parents possibly shield their children from the unhealthiest aspects of modern celebrity culture?
Writing in the May 1999 edition of AAP News (the official publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics), Dr. Marjorie Hogan acknowledged that avoiding media is virtually impossible, and instead advised parents to educate themselves and their children on the strengths and limitations of the information deluge.
“From fashion magazines to television, the Internet to billboards, video games to film, and music lyrics to the novel on the best-seller list, we live in a media world and can only appreciate the good in media – and comprehend and ferret out the harmful – if we are media-educated,” Hogan wrote.
She also listed four elements of an effective media education plan for parents and children:
- No televisions in children’s bedrooms.
- A prohibition on any media use during meals.
- Parents as positive role models when it comes to media use (and avoidance).
- Encouraging children to pursue a variety of non-media-related activities – especially reading – during leisure time.
Seven years after Hogan’s article appeared, Drs. Derenne and Beresin advocated on behalf of a similar approach. “Parents need to limit children’s exposure to media, promote healthy eating and moderate physical activity,” the researchers wrote, “and encourage participation in activities that increase mastery and self-esteem.”
Though media management and education are important tools in promoting proper body image, the experts who contribute to the Eating Disorders Help Guide emphasize that the most effective means of warding off eating disorders is to instill a sense of positive self-worth.
“The biggest challenge with developing a healthy body image is that it’s all internal. It ultimately has nothing to do with how someone actually looks, but only how she thinks she looks and how she thinks others react to her looks,” the site advises. “You need to reinforce accurate definitions of beauty; definitions that go beyond looks and place the importance and focus where it belongs, on who a person is inside.” |
