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Body Image in America

"In the New year I Will Not Gain Weight," is an entry in my first grade journal. I was a gaunt kid in elementary school, and I hardly even knew what body weight was.

The fact that a naïve first grader a new year's resolution like this one gives us the message that body image is a serious problem in American society. Many people, of course, already know this.

They know that the majority of high school girls diet. They know about anorexia and bullemia. But if society knows such things, why are women (and men) still gorging and starving themselves?

Even though our society does admit that body image is a problem, we still try impossibly hard to look like the 2004 American ideal. I am a perfect example of this type of hypocrite: In theory I think that looks are overemphasized in our society, yet I gel my hair and wear makeup.

I much prefer to date good-looking people, and I even like to show off a good-looking friend as opposed to an unattractive one when I go out at night. For a while I tried to be completely moral and judge people solely on personality, but I was in denial. Subconsciously, I had some not-so-PC values.

I know I'm not the only person who was or is in denial about her values, but we can't immediately transform ourselves into a society that values personality much more than looks. What we can do is expand the types of people who we deem beautiful.

Appearance is and always will be a factor in how a person sees another, especially during first impressions, but if the media shows its audience that many types of people can be beautiful, the difference between fat and thin will be as small as the difference between blonde and brunette.

What the mainstream media needs is a 4-step program that will help shed pounds of viewer misperceptions about beauty: 1. Make every model in magazines have at least one trait that is not conventionally accepted in the world of pop culture, or have some models that look like real people, or have some models who don't wear make-up and tight clothing.

2. Show pictures of conventionally attractive men with "ugly" dates and vice-versa. Run rap videos where the star is gettin' down with a fat but attractive woman, dramas where a good-looking football player dates a dykish looking woman and teen movies where a hot girl dates a dork from the math team.

3. Stop running articles and ads advocating low-carb diets. 4. Make fat people in sitcoms main characters, rather than just comical sidekicks. Fashion and looks will always be important to any society, and I'm not saying it shouldn't be, but we are perfectionists and we only accept one look and body type.

Calming society's craze over body image will be a slow process, but once our culture learns to see everybody and every body as beautiful, we will then be able to see through to personality. The human body will simply be the wrapping, but the human mind will be the present inside.

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