Body Images

As any female can tell you, beauty standards imposed on women are apparent in every area of society. From the food you buy at your grocery store to the clothes you wear and the shows you watch. This is not anything new, in fact, these messages are ingrained to our everyday thoughts. In fact, Susan Bordo has thoroughly explained the history of the way that beauty has been perceived throughout the decades and how it has, in fact, changed several times. For example, Bordo claims "the bulging stomachs of successful mid-nineteenth-century businessmen and politicians were a symbol of bourgeois success, an outward manifestation of their accumulated wealth... the ideal began to be appropriated by the status-seeking middle class, as slender wives became the showpieces of their husbands' success." Unfortunately, the idea that being slender is good has been perpetuated much too often in society. Society's image of beautiful has translated to slender bodies, but it does not equal healthy bodies. Instead, it perpetrates unhealthy and troublesome eating disorders that pressure people, women especially, to look skinny rather than being healthy. This is a troubling idea because anorexia is a prevalent issue in America. Almost every commercial that promotes cutting back on food calories or going on a diet is targeted at women. And more often then not, it is typical to see a young, slim woman suggesting other women to diet in the same way she does.

What comes to mind is a video report about women who go onto a corset-diet in which patients train their body to eat less and to have a smaller waist. One patient even said that she "wants to have a tiny little waist, like a barbie doll." This is compressing bottom ribs and making a waist look smaller. My intial reaction is that this Victorian-era practice is extremely disturbing and should not be happening now. It seems very uncomfortable and is not worth the pain and discomfort that patients have reportedly experienced. Not to mention that this definitely does not support healthy eating habits. I believe that media advertisements should be promoting body-positive ideals instead of marketing such things. Ads should be showing that as long as one eats healthy and takes care of themselves, they should be proud of how they look. Women are constantly bombarded by ridiculous images in magazines and television on how the perfect woman should look like. Bordo's history really put everything into the history of this way of thinking into perspective.