"Thin is In" and It's Toxic
Gym Selfie
“Want to do a gym selfie for Beach Body?”
Her daughter stared up at her, wide-eyed and suddenly excited, “Sure!” She exclaimed. “What’s Beach Body?”
I was at the YMCA doing some stretching as I watched the exchange between the school-aged girl and her mom. She had been patiently waiting for some time, watching her mom do a weight lifting routine and seemed thrilled to join when her mom offered the mother-daughter selfie opportunity.
Simultaneously a mom and her preteen-aged son stood next to each other a little further down the mat. They lifted weights in unison until her son paused to call attention to the skin that hung below his mom’s upper arm in a taunting fashion. He laughed at her. She looked diminished.
“I know,” exclaimed his mom. “That’s why we do these! I’m working on it…”
“Thinner is better”
So this is the legacy we’re passing on to the next generation about our bodies, what is considered beautiful and acceptable. This is what we and what they should strive for: bodies that look good at the beach, perfectly toned upper arms, perfectly toned body.
In America, we have been taught that thin is beautiful. Our standard for beauty is aesthetic perfection and physical trimness. We have learned that “beach ready” means slim, toned, and ready to rock a bikini.
With tag lines and sales pitches like these, we are lulled into the idea that “thinner is better.” As in, being thin equates with physical health, happiness, and social acceptability.
The glorification of weight loss and thinness is unhelpful at best.
These subtle and not so subtle messages saturate our psyche and souls day in and day out via media and advertising. As activist and writer Jean Kilbourne discusses, advertising not only sells products, but it “sells values, images, and concepts of […] normalcy.”1 The images and lifestyles portrayed in advertising, “tells us who we are and who we want to be.”2
If advertising and media weren’t enough to saturate us with the “thinner is better” idea, leave it to social media to reverberate the message. Apps to “perfect” one’s image, one’s arms, one’s age are now available to the general population, including your school-aged child or middle-schooler or high-schooler. We see the heralding of the slim, toned image in media and advertising and then we do one another the favor of reflecting it back to the world in our social media accounts.
I think it’s time the “thinner is better” myth be debunked. For one, our cultural understanding of “thin” is become increasingly “thinner.” Currently, the typical model is 20% underweight, meaning they meet diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa and then some (according to diagnostic criteria listed in the DSM-IV). Meaning, the standard so often upheld in advertising and on the runway is by definition undernourished and unhealthy.
From the perspective of the beauty and dieting industry, that’s great news. If our models for “beauty” are increasingly unrealistic, people will keep buying products as they try to “attain” the ever-shrinking “thin ideal.”
But what does that kind of model for beauty do to the hearts and minds of young girls and women?
The trouble is that the beliefs we have about our bodies matter. All over America, women and girls are engaging in unhelpful practices, restrictive eating, cosmetic surgeries, extreme exercise behaviors, and demeaning self-talk all in the service of the thin ideal.
Even elementary school-aged girls have picked up on the trend, as 40-60% of elementary-aged girls (ages 6-12), are worried about their weight or becoming “too fat.” 4
The reality is, thoughts, practices, and regimes in service of the elusive “beach ready” can take incredible energy of the mind and heart, in addition to time. Exercise regimes, cutting out food groups, fixating on perceived physical “imperfections” can so easily become a steadily growing and consuming force in our lives.
The pursuit of the elusive “thin enough” has a certain gravity to it.
Even more, I think the “thinner is better” message is so much a part of the air we breathe in America, as women it’s easy to miss that it affects us at all. For me, it’s been a process of holding up my beliefs about my body, about food, about movement and asking first “is someone trying to sell me something?” and secondly, “does this belief or practice bring me life?”
It’s not a perfect assessment, but it’s a place to start. To start questioning and critically assessing the messages our culture is feeding us about our bodies and what they should look like or how fixated we should be on eating the “perfect” foods or finding the latest cleanse or fitness craze.
After all, in the end I don’t think our ultimate life purpose is to have perfectly toned arms or have a killer beach body. In fact, I think when our aesthetic or the pursuit of a “beach body” or “thin enough” becomes a driving force in our life it can easily become a black hole.
Of course, I think it’s good to nourish our bodies with nutrient-rich foods when possible and move our bodies in ways we find enjoyable and that refresh us.
But, focusing on our bodies, food, and moving our bodies are not an end in and of themselves. I don’t think they were ever meant to be. Rather, they support us in living life fully. In energizing us to play with our kids, or do good work in the world, or create something magnificent.
I actually think our lives are part of something much bigger, much more beautiful, than beach bodies and all the rest of it.
So, what if we stopped inviting the next generation into endless body critiques or the latest weight loss craze? And while we’re at it, maybe we could do the same for ourselves.
The truth is, we have been given glorious bodies that do miraculous things everyday. Perhaps it’s time we offered our whole selves (including our bodies) some compassion and gratitude. That message likely won’t sell any diet products or programs, but it may situate your mind and heart to see the beauty that is already present in every fiber of your being and in the world around you.
Are you tired of being sold a broken brand of beauty?
The brand of beauty we are so often sold as women is way too small. It divides and dis-integrates us. I am on a mission to expand and re-discover beauty, authentic beauty. I believe beauty is the life of God at work in us and among us. Will you join me in exploring that kind of beauty?
Sign up and follow along on my journey. Let’s re-define beauty. Together.
[1]Kilbourne, Jean. Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight Against the Addictive Power of Advertising. New York, NY: Free. P. 74.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Dittmar, H., Halliwell, E., & Striling, E. “Understanding the Impact of Thin Media Models on Women’s Body-Focused Affect: The Roles of thin-Ideal Internalization and Weight-Related Self-Discrepancy Activation in Experimental Exposure Effects.” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 28.1, 43-72, 2009, pg. 44.
[4] Smolak, L. (2011). “Body image development in childhood.” In T. Cash & L. Smolak (Eds.) Body Image: A Handbook of Science, Practice, and Prevention (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford.