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Fat-Phobic and Blinded by Media


scale.JPGTap, tap, tap. Hey, is this soapbox on? Because a good mini-diatribe needs amplification.

A new Arizona State University study has found that (and I quote the research):

[Women] were asked to choose whether they would rather be obese or have one of 12 socially stigmatized conditions, such as alcoholism or herpes. In many cases, the women would rather have more of the other conditions, with 25.4 percent preferring severe depression and 14.5 percent preferring total blindness over obesity.

Did you get that? One in four women would rather be severely depressed than obese, and one in six would rather be completely blind than carry extra pounds. Some would even choose an incurable, painful sexually transmitted infection than risk sporting a muffin top.

Seriously?! Has our culture placed so much pressure on women to be thin that they would forsake health and commonsense for a myopic standard of beauty?

Yep.

Equally incensed Salon columnist David Sirota thinks so, too. He writes:

Whether from ubiquitous waifs on highway billboards or from the tabloid fetishization of celebrities' emaciated bodies, women are pressured by a chauvinist culture to prioritize the thin aesthetic over genuine wellness—and that pressure has consequences. It is, for example, one of the roots of eating disorders. It also fuels a market for weight-loss drugs that can have toxic side effects. And it can also be a major factor in smoking—and specifically, the decision by women not to quit for fear that doing so will make them fat.

The ASU study, then, confirms just how powerful this pressure really is—and how it's become so intense that women may now be willing to endure far more than eating disorders and smoking in the pursuit of thin.

Being overweight isn’t healthy, and taking care of one’s physique is important for a host of reasons. But our media’s obsession with women’s appearance above all other qualities devalues them, warping their sense of self-worth and priorities. Wouldn’t it be interesting to give men the same survey? I bet they’d opt for obesity over all of the choices any day, because culture doesn’t place the same destructive pressure on them to look “perfect.”

It will not stop until enough of us comprehend media’s illogical beauty standards—and are courageous enough to resist them.