“It's not about food, weight, or pant
size.”
That's what one of the social workers in the Psychiatric Partial Hospital Program used to say in regards to eating disorders.
That's what one of the social workers in the Psychiatric Partial Hospital Program used to say in regards to eating disorders.
“Eating disorders are a maladaptive method of coping with emotional distress,” he would say.
Not every patient was willing to buy into the notion that eating disorders were more about emotions than dissatisfaction with one's body. And, even the social worker acknowledged that body image was a contributing factor.
The first time I was hospitalized for anorexia nervosa, Dr. A asked me to draw a picture of my ideal male body. I drew a bodybuilder with wide shoulders, a V-shaped back, big arms, and a narrow sculpted waist.
I'm not much of an artist. I couldn't draw something impressive like Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.
Over 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci penned a picture of what is perhaps the most famous drawing of any man in the world. He's often considered to be an image of the "ideal man" You might not know his name, but that's because he doesn't have one. That's this guy:
This is the Vitruvian Man, often considered to be an expression of perfect and ideal human symmetry and form.
When I returned home after that first hospitalization, I felt uncomfortable and distended. I didn't like how I looked. One of my managers at work said, "You really piled the weight on. How much did you gain?" That is not a question you ask someone who just got out of treatment for an eating disorder. I understood that he didn't know much about eating disorders so I told him I'd put on about 40 pounds.
One coworker told me I looked good - that I looked healthy.
Another coworker said, "I just want to tell you that you look really good. I hope that doesn't upset you. But, you look really good."
She must have known that sometimes when a person is recovering from an eating disorder and hears a phrase like "you look healthy" what he or she actually hears is "you look fat."
A female patient once asked me what kind of body I looked for in a female. I was hesitant to answer. After she got tired of waiting for an answer she tried to help me. “Well, do you like big boobs or what?” she asked.
Elsa, a woman I met in inpatient treatment had muscular arms and a flat chest. Mentioning her flat chest might seem crass but another female on the unit teased her about her small bust size so I figure it's okay for me to mention. In addition to her flat chest, Elsa claimed she had “man hands.” Elsa was a gymnast, tumbler, and dancer. Her muscular build intrigued me. We became close and I fell in love with her, man hands and all.
A couple years later I found myself in a relationship with a different female who also had an eating disorder. She had "restored" a lot of weight in treatment (we're not allowed to use the word "gain").
She pulled me aside one afternoon after we'd spent the day in the partial hospitalization program and she said now that she had restored so much weight she was feeling unattractive and was afraid I wouldn't love her anymore. Of course, I told her that wasn't the case and that I loved her regardless of her weight.
I recall being on a youth group trip during high school and I passed some time during our van ride looking at a muscle magazine. The magazine happened to have some pictures of female bodybuilders in it. One of the girls in our group didn't care for the female bodybuilders. “They look masculine and it's not attractive,” she said.
My high school girlfriend had been overweight earlier in her life. When we were first getting to know each other she told me about her weight loss. “After I lost a lot of weight, all of the girls were nice to me because they were afraid I'd steal their boyfriends.”
I recall having a somewhat pudgy friend in high school who was very impressed with Sylvester Stallone's muscular and defined body in Rambo: First Blood II. After watching the movie he declared, "That's it! I'm going to start lifting weights!" I remember this same friend being concerned about how he looked in a particular pair of pleated jeans. "Do these pants make me look fat?" he asked. One of our mutual friends wanted to ease his concerns and said, "No, they make you look like you have a big dick." That didn't make my friend feel any better.
I had a good build in high school. I was muscular and lean. I had to diet a lot to make my wrestling weight. Then after the season was over I would overeat because it was so nice to eat again. One day at school after wrestling season had ended and I'd been indulging in a lot of eating, I had a friend walk up and pat my stomach and mention that I was getting a bit of a gut. That was quite a blow and I didn't like it.
I had a wrestler at wrestling camp once ask me how I had gotten such big pectoral (chest) muscles. He was pretty impressed. I didn't really have much of an answer for him. I'd always had a muscular chest.
I went to my five-year class reunion after having not worked out much during my last couple years of college. I was kind of skinny and lacking the athletic build I'd had in high school. One of my classmates looked at me and asked, “What happened to you? You used to be built like a brick shit-house.”
I didn't know what the hell a brick shit-house was but I understood what he was saying and it hurt knowing I didn't look like that muscular guy anymore.
I was, however, fairly certain what the Commodores were expressing in their song “Brick House.”
Ow, she's a brick house
She's mighty-mighty, just lettin' it all hang out
She's a brick house
That lady's stacked and that's a fact
Ain't holding nothing back
I've seen family members comment on one another's weight or shape sometimes even to their fact. Comments were often made matter-of-factly without any viciousness.
I was at a football game with a friend once in high school and we ran into his cousin who remarked that my friend was getting fat. My friend just smiled and agreed that he was getting a bit of a gut. My friend seemed to take the comment okay but it made me mad.
I once witnessed a coworker say to a former coworker she hadn't seen for a while say, "You got fat!"
Brides often want to lose weight before the wedding day. The mothers of brides even go on diets wanting to look their best on their daughter's wedding day.
I've heard of elderly women working out because they were going to a class reunion and wanted to look their best.
When does the obsession end?
Appearance in general and body image in particular have become very important constructs in contemporary Western Societies. The strong emphasis on appearance is abundantly displayed-on billboards, in any shop window, in any magazine, in the ordinary conversations of individuals, in the amount of money, time, and effort invested in the pursuit of beauty through clothes, hair, dieting, and other everyday grooming practices, and in the increasing popularity of cosmetic surgical procedures.
Evidence has shown that both genders can experience body dissatisfaction.
2
Nancy was a teacher at the hospital who also ran one of the groups in the Partial Hospitalization Program. Even though I'd been involved in discussions of body image several times, Nancy was the first person who I ever heard discuss the concept of viewing one's body as primarily ornamental or functional. This concept of ornamental versus functional was intriguing to me.
Ornamental – experiencing the body in terms of how it appears to others; judging the body based on how it looks; relating to it as an object.
Functional – seeing the body as serving a purpose; perceiving and appreciating what the body does for the individual.
When we relate to our bodies ornamentally, we become vulnerable to the opinions of others and images of perfection.
When we relate to our bodies functionally, self-esteem tends to shift from being determined by external judgments to being shaped by abilities and accomplishments, a sense of competence and by our inner self-worth.
Sometimes the word instrumental is used in place of functional. Thus, we have the ornamental versus instrumental views of the body.
The process of viewing one’s body as an object, with a focus on its form or attractiveness, has been called an ornamental view, while a focus on the body in terms of its function has been called an instrumental view. It has been argued that in western society, boys have traditionally been socialized to view their body as an instrument, focusing on how well their body performs. In contrast, girls have been socialized traditionally to view their body as an ornament, focusing on their appearance and judging themselves according to how they look. This emphasis on physical appearance leaves girls more vulnerable to external messages and negatively influences their self-esteem, while boys’ self-esteem is more influenced by perceived body effectiveness.
Body image is a complex construct that incorporates the perception and experience of one’s body form and function. It is sensitive to age, gender, culture and life experiences.
Our bodies allow us to do many things. We can perform the duties of our occupations. We can enjoy our leisure pursuits. It's easy to take for granted being able to walk, run, dance, work, watch movies, listen to music, and have pleasant conversations with others.
There's nothing inherently bad about wanting our bodies to be perceived as attractive. Many of us have looked at ourselves and said, “Damn, I look good today!”
But, many of us have also been pleased that our bodies have allowed us to have fun swimming or skiing. We may have been pleased that our bodies allowed us to achieve athletic success. Some of us may be pleased that our bodies have allowed us to plant a garden or to bear children.
When we place too much emphasis on body form over body function it can negatively affect our feelings of self-worth. In fact, if a person becomes overly concerned about his appearance it can even cost him his life.
Dr. A and Sam (a social worker and
therapist) often told us male patients that they had nothing against
“attractive bodies.”
“Would you rather weigh more but be muscular and ripped or weigh less but be scrawny?” Sam would ask. Most of us chose weighing more but being muscular. He and Dr. A were advocates for sensible weight resistance training. They didn't care if you were muscular or not as long as you stayed in your target weight range.
“It's our job to help restore your body to a healthy weight. What you do with that healthy body is up to you.” Dr. A would say.
Kay, a nurse and therapist in the treatment program, also spoke to us about body image at times. Her message was a lot simpler. She'd ask us, “Don't you all have better things to do with your lives than spend all of your time worrying about how you look?”
I liked looking lean and muscular. I still do even though I often don't these days. But, I also appreciate what my body can do. I enjoyed wrestling. I enjoyed lifting weights not just to look a certain way but because it felt good to be strong and to be in good condition.
I used to take long walks when I was a college student. I didn't walk to lose weight or to be healthier. I simply enjoyed walking and thankfully was healthy enough to do it.
And, I liked to dance at bars and clubs. I wasn't very good at it but it was fun.
I'm glad my body allows me to do many things. Of course, I still flex in front of the mirror sometimes and think, "Damn, you look pretty good for an old guy."
3
buff (adj.) “well-built, hunky,” 1980s, from buff (v.) “polish, make attractive.”
In my younger days, if a guy had a muscular body you might describe him by saying he had a “good build” or that he was “well built.” Or, you might simply state the obvious by saying, “That guy is really muscular.” You might have even used adjectives like defined or ripped. As I recall, though, we tended to use simple terms like muscular, scrawny, skinny, and fat when describing someone's physique.
A guy commenting on a girl might refer to as skinny, thin, slim, fat. He might simply have said, “She has a hot body.” I don't recall any guys commenting on a girl's “hourglass figure” or even using the word “curvy.” I might have heard the words voluptuous and full-figured on TV. A guy might comment on a girl's breasts or her rear end.
On TV, I occasionally heard a woman mentions her “measurements.” I seemed to hear 36-24-36 a lot but didn't know what it meant.
36-24-36
What many believe to be the perfect measurements for a woman. Numbers refer to the measurements of the chest, waist, and hips respectively.
So, a female could be described in a number of ways. But, again, the language and descriptors we used were pretty simple and straight-forward.
In this new millennium, things seem to have changed in terms of describing male and female bodies. A man or a woman who's in good condition might be described as buff, cut, chiseled, defined, lean, jacked, ripped, sculpted, shredded, sliced, or swole.
We can't seem to come up with enough adjectives.
We've come up with new body types. We used to be content with adjectives like "pear-shaped" or "apple-shaped." Or, we were content with scientific-sounding names like ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph.
The dad bod is a nice balance between a beer gut and working out. The dad bod says, "I go to the gym occasionally, but I also drink heavily on the weekends and enjoy eating eight slices of pizza at a time." It's not an overweight guy, but it isn't one with washboard abs, either.
Women are celebrating the popularity of descriptors like “thick” and “slim thick.”
The term slim thick as defined by Urban Dictionary is a girl with "big/toned thighs, plump booty, and a flat/toned stomach." Kylie Jenner and Nicki Minaj are said to examples of this now popular body type.
It wasn't always that way. One woman says:
"Thunder thighs", "fat ass", and "pear shape" were all terms that friends associated with me. Family and friends would say these to my face not knowing that these simple words tore me up inside.
But things are different now. It's okay to have a big “booty.”
By the way, when KC and the Sunshine band sang “Shake Your Booty” I thought they were singing about a boot on one's foot.
When a college friend was excited about a Best Booty Contest being held at a dance club, I wasn't exactly certain what he was talking about.
I only knew about pirate booty.
Booty
1 Plunder taken from an enemy in time of war.
2 Goods or property seized by force or
piracy.
3 A valuable prize, award, or gain.
A male high school friend of mine once said of a girl I was going to take on a date, "The problem with her is she has a fat ass." She did, in fact, have some wide hips but I thought she was beautiful and just ignored his comment.
During my college days I had a female friend say of a girl I was dating at the time, "I was surprised when I heard you were going out with her. She has a fat butt." So much for sisterhood.
A few years ago I ran into a female friend who I hadn't seen in several months. She looked as though she'd gained about 50 pounds. She asked, "Do I look fat?" What do you say to someone who is, in fact, much larger than she was months earlier. I told her she looked fine. I meant it. Maybe some people can gain weight and still look good depending on where the extra weight is distributed. I'd always thought this particular woman was cute and she still was even at this heavier weight.
The American-born Jennifer Lopez, whose parents are Puerto Rican, has become one of the highest-paid women in Hollywood and a top musical performer marketed primarily for her exotic beauty and her curvaceous body. Lopez's famously curvy figure has been the subject of public and media fascination for over a decade. In particular, Lopez's iconic ethnic butt became a type of fetish object in and of itself, much-hyped in the media and magazine pictorials.
“What’s your size?” has always been a loaded question, but it has become virtually impossible to answer in recent years. The rise of so-called vanity sizing has rendered most labels meaningless. As Americans have grown physically larger, brands have shifted their metrics to make shoppers feel skinnier—so much so that a women’s size 12 in 1958 is now a size 6. Those numbers are even more confusing given that a pair of size-6 jeans can vary in the waistband by as much as 6 in., according to one estimate. They’re also discriminatory: 67% of American women wear a size 14 or above, and most stores don’t carry those numbers, however arbitrary they may be.
Some people maintain that vanity sizing is a myth and that the sizing discrepancy you observe is better described as size inflation. Many manufacturers maintain that sizes have just grown to match the increasing sizes of people. In the last five decades, the average size 8 woman’s waist size has gone from 23.5 inches to 29.
The debate over sizing is an emotional one, especially right now, when so many shoppers are rejecting labels of all kinds, from sexual orientation to gender to, yes, size. For decades, major retailers have generally catered to one (white, slim) consumer even as America has gotten more diverse. Now shoppers are pushing back. They’re turning away from stores like Victoria’s Secret that market a single way to be sexy. They’re demanding that mass-market chains like Forever 21 carry a wider range of sizes in-store. Even celebrities, like Beyoncé and Melissa McCarthy, are calling out high-fashion designers for ignoring the millions of women with curvier figures.
A totally rational consumer wouldn't care what the size label says - she would worry about the fit and appearance of the product.
It's never quite that simple when our emotions and ego are involved.
In the movie The Last Time I Saw Paris, the character Helen Ellswirth (Elizabeth Taylor) bemoans her weight gain in a scene after giving birth to her daughter.
I'll never, never be a size 10 again," she says sadly.
4
Beauty contests became more popular in the 1880s. In 1888, the title of 'beauty queen' was awarded to an 18-year-old Creole contestant at a pageant in Spa, Belgium. All participants had to supply a photograph and a short description of themselves to be eligible to enter and a final selection of 21 was judged by a formal panel. Such events were not regarded as respectable. Beauty contests came to be considered more respectable with the first modern "Miss America" contest held in 1921.
A male high school friend of mine once said of a girl I was going to take on a date, "The problem with her is she has a fat ass." She did, in fact, have some wide hips but I thought she was beautiful and just ignored his comment.
During my college days I had a female friend say of a girl I was dating at the time, "I was surprised when I heard you were going out with her. She has a fat butt." So much for sisterhood.
A few years ago I ran into a female friend who I hadn't seen in several months. She looked as though she'd gained about 50 pounds. She asked, "Do I look fat?" What do you say to someone who is, in fact, much larger than she was months earlier. I told her she looked fine. I meant it. Maybe some people can gain weight and still look good depending on where the extra weight is distributed. I'd always thought this particular woman was cute and she still was even at this heavier weight.
The American-born Jennifer Lopez, whose parents are Puerto Rican, has become one of the highest-paid women in Hollywood and a top musical performer marketed primarily for her exotic beauty and her curvaceous body. Lopez's famously curvy figure has been the subject of public and media fascination for over a decade. In particular, Lopez's iconic ethnic butt became a type of fetish object in and of itself, much-hyped in the media and magazine pictorials.
* * *
“What’s your size?” has always been a loaded question, but it has become virtually impossible to answer in recent years. The rise of so-called vanity sizing has rendered most labels meaningless. As Americans have grown physically larger, brands have shifted their metrics to make shoppers feel skinnier—so much so that a women’s size 12 in 1958 is now a size 6. Those numbers are even more confusing given that a pair of size-6 jeans can vary in the waistband by as much as 6 in., according to one estimate. They’re also discriminatory: 67% of American women wear a size 14 or above, and most stores don’t carry those numbers, however arbitrary they may be.
Some people maintain that vanity sizing is a myth and that the sizing discrepancy you observe is better described as size inflation. Many manufacturers maintain that sizes have just grown to match the increasing sizes of people. In the last five decades, the average size 8 woman’s waist size has gone from 23.5 inches to 29.
The debate over sizing is an emotional one, especially right now, when so many shoppers are rejecting labels of all kinds, from sexual orientation to gender to, yes, size. For decades, major retailers have generally catered to one (white, slim) consumer even as America has gotten more diverse. Now shoppers are pushing back. They’re turning away from stores like Victoria’s Secret that market a single way to be sexy. They’re demanding that mass-market chains like Forever 21 carry a wider range of sizes in-store. Even celebrities, like Beyoncé and Melissa McCarthy, are calling out high-fashion designers for ignoring the millions of women with curvier figures.
A totally rational consumer wouldn't care what the size label says - she would worry about the fit and appearance of the product.
It's never quite that simple when our emotions and ego are involved.
In the movie The Last Time I Saw Paris, the character Helen Ellswirth (Elizabeth Taylor) bemoans her weight gain in a scene after giving birth to her daughter.
I'll never, never be a size 10 again," she says sadly.
4
The requirement for contestants to wear a swimsuit was a controversial aspect of the various competitions. The controversy was heightened with the increasing popularity of the bikini after its introduction in 1946. The bikini was banned for the Miss America contest in 1947 because of Roman Catholic protesters.[When the Miss World contest started in 1951, there was an outcry when the winner was crowned in a bikini. Pope Pius XII condemned the crowning as sinful, and countries with religious traditions threatened to withdraw delegates. The bikini was banned for future and other contests. It was not until the late 1990s that they became permitted again, but still generated controversy when finals were held in countries where bikinis (or swimsuits in general) were socially disapproved.
Critics of beauty pageants argue that such contests reinforce the idea that girls and women should be valued primarily for their physical appearance, and that this puts tremendous pressure on women to conform to conventional beauty standards by spending time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling, and even cosmetic surgery. They claim that this pursuit of physical beauty even encourages some women to go on a diet to the point of harming themselves.
It is argued that rather than being empowering, beauty pageants do exactly the opposite because they deny the full humanity of women by placing them as the subject of objectification; they reinforce the idea that a woman's only purpose is to look attractive.
I remember watching the Miss America Pageant as a kid sometimes. It seemed fun and innocent enough. I suppose I thought a beauty queen with her crown and sash was just as pretty as any fashion model. I wasn't familiar yet with concepts like the sexual objectification of women. I'd probably heard of the women's liberation movement. I may have even heard a few men on TV referred to as male chauvinist pigs. But, as a boy I may not have understood people's opposition to beauty pageants.
Why are skinny models still held up as the paragon of female beauty? Do men really prefer models to so-called regular women? Why do men dream of dating supermodels? Why do some women aspire to look like supermodels? Why did one survey find that teenage girls would rather be models than scientists?
Of course, some people and groups have been critical of stick-thin models and the influence that their appearance may have on young women.
One of the most well-known attempts at changing the way people view female body image has been Dove’s “Campaign For Real Beauty.” This company has made it their calling to promote self-esteem through commercials, magazine ads, and even a self-esteem fund devoted to helping educate and inspire young women not to give into the stereotypical definition of beauty—whatever its current parameters.
Nike has been, undisputedly, one of the top manufactures of athletic apparel since its debut in 1972, but has never until recently pushed the door open into women’s advertising. In an effort to appeal to, design for, and communicate to women Nike, like Dove, made the decision to feature “real” women in their ads . Athletes, moms, and young girls were plastered onto the pages of magazines, dressed in the usual running shorts, sports bras, and the ever present Nike shoes. One of Nike’s campaigns, “Thunder Thighs and Big Butts,” featured close-ups of toned, athletic women showing off some of their most prized possessions: their muscles. Accompanying one advertisement was a clever and witty paragraph about the feature being targeted:
I have thunder thighs. And that is a compliment because they are strong and toned and muscular and though they are unwelcome in the petite section they are cheered on in marathons. Fifty years from now, I’ll bounce my grandchildren on my thunder thighs, and then I will go out for a run.
* * *
Liposuction, or simply lipo, is a type of cosmetic surgery that removes fat from the human body in an attempt to change its shapeAfter formal trials, on April 12, 2002, the FDA announced regulatory approval of botulinum toxin type A (Botox Cosmetic) to temporarily improve the appearance of moderate-to-severe frown lines between the eyebrows (glabellar lines). Subsequently, cosmetic use of botulinum toxin type A has become widespread.
Collagen has been widely used in cosmetic surgery, as a healing aid for burn patients for reconstruction of bone and a wide variety of dental, orthopedic, and surgical purposes. Both human and bovine collagen is widely used as dermal fillers for treatment of wrinkles and skin aging.
Restylane is the trade name for a range of injectable fillers with a specific formulation of non-animal sourced hyaluronic acid (HA).
Restylane is most commonly used for lip enhancement (volume and contouring). It is used to diminish wrinkles and aging lines of the face such as the nasolabial folds (nose to mouth lines), melomental folds (sad mouth corners), "crow's feet" and forehead wrinkles (frown lines). It may also be used for filling aging-related facial hollows and "orbital troughs" (under and around the eyes), as well as for cheek volume and contouring of the chin, forehead and nose.
5
By the early twentieth century, Eugen Sandow was recognized as the most perfect example of the male human form.
The strongman and "Father of Modern Bodybuilding" was an image of masculine perfection. He had a muscular and defined body.
Sandow organized the first bodybuilding contest on September 14, 1901.
What people considered the ideal physique varied over time.
Back in the day, the bodybuilding trainer Vince Gironda was the first to bring the ultra-ripped (shredded) physique to the bodybuilding stage. Gironda was sometimes called – ‘too lean’. Believe it or not, there was such thing as ‘too lean’ at the time. People were just not used to seeing so much muscular definition. Gironda was even punished and received lower scores for his leanness.
Says a former student of Gironda:
Well the simple fact is that back in
his day there was a different style to bodybuilding. Either you looked like John Grimek - bulky and smooth - or you weren't a bodybuilder. Now, the authorities might not want to recognize this fact, but Vince Gironda is the father of modern bodybuilding. He created definition. Hell, in the 40's he was ripped to shreds. He never placed higher than second or third in a contest. They looked at him and said: "What is this? Who is this? What kind of physique is this?" Some winced at his incredible muscularity.
Some women also endorsed bodybuilding and weight training. Gladys Portugues is an American former professional female bodybuilder and actress. As a bodybuilder she twice placed in the top 10 in the Ms. Olympia contest. Her husband is Belgian actor and martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Some people thought bodybuilders were too big but many people liked the physique of actor Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was a legendary martial artist and a movie star. He was famous for his feats of strength, power and aesthetic body.
I've been interested in bodybuilding since a young age. I used to look at my dad's old copies of Strength & Health. I always wondered how those men could have such big muscles and yet have such small waists. My fascination with bodybuilding came to a peak when I ordered a bodybuilding course the summer after my senior year of high school.
I did gain muscle mass and strength. I enjoyed seeing my muscles grow bigger and more defined. But, I also enjoyed how I felt working out. I enjoyed feeling my heart pound and my muscles becoming fatigued as I pushed myself. I never became extremely defined. I never developed six-pack abs.
It seems that most everyone these days wants to have so-called six-pack abs. Well, never fear, if you don't have the genetics or will power to get the defined six-pack you can have a plastic surgeon simply etch a six-pack onto your abdomen.
Liposculpture is a more advanced form of liposuction and is a term that describes a type of surgery performed to remove fat between your skin and muscle, using a suctioning device called a cannula.
Abdominal etching is a variation of liposuction used to create the illusion of six-
I should note that not everyone has aspired to look like a bodybuilder. Some men have endorsed the look of skinny rock stars like the late Kurt Cobain or lean and toned athletes like soccer great David Beckham.
6
Scholars have long documented the significance in young people’s lives of popular culture ideals. These ideals can come in many forms including fashion models, singers and actresses, video game characters and toys.
What's all the fuss about children's toys?
Millions of children own them, millions of parents buy them, and most of us have played with them at one time or another. So why should we worry about the messages that toys such as Barbie or GI Joe convey about femininity, masculinity and the ideal bodies and behaviors for men and women?
If the traditional Barbie doll was a
real woman, she would be 5’9” and weigh 120 pounds. Her body fat
percentage would be so low that she would not be able to menstruate.
Her measurements would be 38-18-34. The average woman’s
measurements, on the other hand, are about 41-34-43. In the book “Ken
and Barbie at Life Size,” author Kevin Norton states that only
about one in 100,000 women actually match the Barbie body image.
A new line of Barbie dolls, available for order today, comes in original, petite, tall, and curvy sizes. This diversity in body types is a huge change for the 50-plus-year-old doll brand.
Will the change prove beneficial to young girls? Mattel has long faced intense criticism based on the idea that playing with Barbies harms children's self-esteem, since these children might aspire to look like the doll, but her figure is naturally attainable by virtually no one.
Perhaps Barbie is just one of countless influences in girls' lives that stresses the unrealistically thin figures Western culture expects of them. The very youngest girls may not yet think to compare Barbie's shape with their own. By the time they're seven or eight, however—as the 2006 study shows—they may be getting the message from so many outlets, it's impossible to suss out the effect of Barbie on her own.
I've enjoyed TV shows and movies featuring superheroes since I was a boy. I enjoyed playing with action figures as well. But new research shows most kids today prefer to play with the bulked-up versions of their superheroes, suggesting muscly body image ideals are being inculcated early in life.
Superhero figurines have become significantly more muscular in the past 25 years, with their necks, chests, arms, thighs and calves up to 70 per cent bigger than the originals.
The actors portraying superheroes in films are getting more muscular as well.
In fact, the changing bodies of Superman, Batman, and other superheroes of the DC and Marvel universes illuminate the ways the ideal male physique has evolved in American pop culture over the decades.
Batman Used to be one of us.
He was the only superhero without super powers, but now he looks more like the Hulk. “Batman used to be portrayed realistically and with a very functional body,” says Dr. E. Paul Zehr, author of Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) and professor of neuroscience and kinesiology at the University of Victoria. “The later images of huge, steroid-monster Batman are not only inaccurate but nonfunctional for most of the things Batman would need to do,” he says. This unrealistic body type is the male equivalent of the Barbie doll.
We are no longer content to see a "normal" looking man like Adam West portray Batman.
In the ’50s and ’60s, the film and television industries began their love affair with men in capes. Though these heroes stopped locomotives, jumped over buildings, and retreated to secret lairs, they didn’t have quite the same look (massive shoulders, V-shaped torsos, and rippling abs) as today’s superheroes.
Researchers who study body image and boys note that while a variety of influences contribute to body dissatisfaction-including parents and peers-the lean but muscular male ideal increasingly portrayed in advertising and other media may be as harmful for men as thin ideals are for women.
7
For those unfamiliar with Ancient Greek
mathematics, the golden ratio or ‘divine proportion’ appears
throughout the natural world and is considered to be the most
visually pleasing measurement.
The golden ratio is numerically expressed as follows:
1:1.618 (1 to 1.618)
The golden ratio is everywhere.
At the atomic level, in the skeletal
system of animals, tree branches, the veins of leaves and the human
body, of course.
The ancient Greeks had a definite ideal
regarding how the male physique should look. In the 19th century,
newly excavated Greek and Roman statues highlighted similar physical
characteristics such as a small, muscular waist, wide shoulders and
detailed, but not overwhelmingly huge, muscles.
The great Eugene Sandow (the man the
Mr. Olympia statuette is based on and the first man many regard to
have achieved true muscularity) achieved close to this ideal around
this time, and was widely revered for fitting what Victorian society,
at that period, considered being the perfectly proportioned physique.
The physique of 1940s-1950s
bodybuilding legend Steve Reeves will go down in history as being one
of the most perfectly proportioned of all time. Many feel his body
represents what a bodybuilding physique should look like - flawless
and beautiful. His measurements (18.5-inch arms, calves and neck)
were regarded as a benchmark for symmetry and proportion, and his
philosophy was to keep the body balanced.
Ancient Greek mathematics are the latest tool making women feel bad about themselves.
A lingerie brand has kindly discovered that Scarlett Johansson has the ‘perfect’ body, by measuring her against the Ancient Greek beauty formula, the golden ratio.
She really IS the ideal woman! Scarlett
Johansson beats Kim Kardashian to be named 'physically perfect' as
her body is closest to Ancient Greeks' Golden Ratio.
Scarlett's figure of 1.560 is close to
the Golden Radio of beauty of 1.618
Kim Kardashian was second closest to
perfection, with Helen Mirren third
Lingerie brand Bluebella analysed
Golden Ratios of leading celebrities
Scarlett Johansson is as 'close to
physical perfection' as any celebrity currently alive, according to a
new study.
The 30-year-old American actress has
been found to have the perfect 'Golden Ratio' figure by lingerie
brand Bluebella who analysed the figures of leading celebrities.
The ancient Greeks claimed there was a
Golden Ratio for all things when they approached perfection.
The Grecian Ideal isn't as bad as you may think, dear reader. According to bodybuilding promoter Joe Weider:
The Greeks believed in all-round development. In the ancient Olympic Games, men were glorified for the attainment of physical perfection, an achievement labeled arête - total perfection of mind and body. The ideal of excellence also encompassed the intellect, for it was believed that a well-developed and finely tuned body had to be accompanied by an alert mind and a pure conscience. Arête could come only from the perfect balance of mind and body.
In the educational system of ancient Greece, athletic, intellectual, and cultural pursuits were rated equally.
8
What is the ideal body composition?
Hard to say, although questions of what
is "ideal" or "perfection" when it comes to human
bodies have been around for centuries.
The problem with “ideal” is that it
is an inherently subjective word, an adjective that means different
things to different people that can change depending on the
situation.
One person’s ideal body composition
might be completely different from someone else. What really matters
are your own personal goals.
Still, even the most educated and
driven among us still fall into this trap from time to time. You work
hard to lose fat and gain muscle, and it’s not easy. You sacrifice
the food you crave and spend endless hours working out to achieve
some vision you have of your ideal body.
Although working hard to change your
body composition is a great goal, this can be problematic and even
dangerous if you have an unrealistic image of the “ideal” body
composition or body type in your mind.
What's ideal is whatever is ideal for
you.
You can optimize for strength and focus
on developing as much Lean Body Mass as possible, while accepting a
moderate (but not unhealthy) amount of Fat Mass.
If appearance and leanness is important
to you, you can optimize your body composition for a low body fat
percentage, but not to the point where you get towards essential fat
and risk health complications.
Whatever your goals are, don't worry about aspiring to an ideal. It doesn't exist. You can be fit and you can be healthy, but there is no ideal you. The only ideal you is the one you set for yourself.
