Eat a Peach

I've discussed in the past the overall lack of stellar writing in the Delaware Spark, a free weekly paper in Wilmington, DE. However, the latest wonk has me really infuriated and wanting to act out scenes from Kung-Fu Panda. Not only does the author of this of exercise in falacies, Kelly Housen, go for the jugular on something she has clearly not researched, she mocks the individual who was not going after Barbie per se, but making a message about mental health and what we can do about it. Nice cut job, lady!

First thing first -- the woman behind the plastic. If Barbie were real, she would be a 7 feet tall with a waistline of 18inches and with a bust size of 38-40. Given these dimensions, she would need to walk on all fours just to support her peculiar proportions. Yet we all know who Barbie is and we do not discuss her ability to trump science and physiology.

What influence does Barbie have on children? Let's take a closer look at this published research that does suggest that the youngest of girls exposed to Barbie are affected by body image. Thus, Represenative Eldridge's point is well taken here. We have a problem that needs to be addressed:

In a survey of girls 9 and 10 years old, 40% have tried to lose weight, according to an ongoing study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (USA Today, 1996).

A 1996 study found that the amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos is associated with their degree of body dissatisfaction and desire to be thin (Tiggemann & Pickering, 1996).

One author reports that at age thirteen, 53% of American girls are "unhappy with their bodies." This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen (Brumberg, 1997).

In a study among undergraduates media consumption was positively associated with a strive for thinness among men and body dissatisfaction among women (Harrison & Cantor, 1997).

Teen-age girls who viewed commercials depicting women who modeled the unrealistically thin-ideal type of beauty caused adolescent girls to feel less confident, more angry and more dissatisfied with their weight and appearance (Hargreaves, 2002).

In a study on fifth graders, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show "Friends" (Mundell, 2002).

In another recent study on media's impact on adolescent body dissatisfaction, two researchers found that:

Teens who watched soaps and TV shows that emphasized the ideal body typed reported higher sense of body dissatisfaction. This was also true for girls who watched music videos.

Reading magazines for teen girls or women also correlated with body dissatisfaction for girls.

Identification with television stars (for girls and boys), and models (girls) or athletes (boys), positively correlated with body dissatisfaction (Hofschire & Greenberg, 2002).

By the time a young woman has reached the age of 17, it is estimated that she has been exposed to more than 250,000 commercial messages through the media. Body image disturbances, typically the result of such exposure, are clearly dangerous to our youth not just because their preoccupation precludes clarity of thought, the ability to concentrate and learn, and attaining the developmental milestones of childhood, but also because they typically lead to the fear of being overweight, and therefore to dieting and food restriction, to becoming malnourished and/or excessively thin, and ultimately to the onset of clinical eating disorders. Eating disorders are the one of the most potent and preventable diseases that are afflicting youth today, as the youth under 20 are estimated to represent 87% of the demographics of the disorder.

Ms. Housen also surmises through her own somewhat limited personal recall that parents are to blame because we get our messages about our bodies from them. Sadly, she and several bloggers I have read recently are incorrect in their assumptions on this too. While media is influencing our youth, even more significantly, it is also influencing their parents. Remember, young women grow up to become mothers who parent their own children. Since a plethora of parents struggle with their own dysfunctions around body image and eating, they pass their messages onto their children. As role models for their own offspring, even healthy normal women typically experience body image distress today. 75% of normal women think they are overweight. 90% of women overestimate their body size, and 50% of American women report currently being on a diet. (Sadly, AG is one of them.)

Adults are equal victims of the pernicious messages sent by the media as are their children. They are party to reports of fashion models in our society being thinner than 98% of the American public. To that end, one recent study reports that 75% of women and 54% of men report being dissatisfied with their physical appearance and wish their bodies were different. The diet industry in America generates $33 billion annually because of this. With the trendy diets that go in and out of popularity so frequently in our culture, myths and misconceptions about the benefits of diets and restrictive eating abound. Increasingly, adult women admit to suffering from unresolved eating disorders has moved into their 50s. This has a devasting effect on one's health and development.

With women increasingly in the work force and/or at the health club, only 50 percent of American families sit down together at the dinner table these days. Kids are left to fend to themselves when it comes to what, when, and how they eat. At the same time, fast foods have become more available and affordable with obesity on the rise, afflicting one out of three in the U.S. today. Studies show that mothers with their own eating disorders, body image conflicts and dysfunctional eating habits have children who are more apt to suffer eating problems and depression by the time they reach age five.

It is hard to take what Ms. Housen says seriously given that her photo in the center of the article is centrally focused on seeing down her shirt to her wanton cleavage. Probably not a role model for young women and feminists alike. Oh and while I am picking things apart, it's Representative Eldridge or Eldridge in popular modern journalism, not Jeff. Again, not a role model for young women, feminists, and speakers of English.