Re-Embodying Beauty
The Time Has Come
Tannis Hugill MA, RCC, RDT, ADTR
Ideals of beauty are a part of every culture. If we look at
images throughout Western History alone, we can see these ideals
change according to what is valued and needed by the culture’s
world view. Historically, women’s bodies have been the primary
images representing human beauty. Women have long been valued
mainly for pleasure, adornment, and procreation. Often a culture’s
ideals oppress the body. This is true of our era where the oppression
of women and the cult of thinness are linked to the objectification
of all living bodies. We live in a society that emphasizes the
surface, not the substance of the human being. After over 25 years
of feminism, women’s’ self-image, as well as social
and economic success are still largely determined by their looks.
Standards of beauty and fashion are often intertwined. How we
choose to dress is a complex cultural phenomenon, an art in which
we create ourselves, participating in cultural norms of acceptance
and self-expression. An essential part of being human, this helps
us to connect, while affirming our differences.
Slenderness came into fashion in North America and Europe at
the turn of the twentieth century, manifesting the esthetic of
modern mechanization, and coinciding with the increasing freedom
of women. Fat phobia began after World War II, when the health
industry and insurance companies began to persuade Americans to
loose weight, and has intensified throughout the century. Weight
loss techniques proliferated, the fitness craze developed, and
plastic surgery expanded. The bare-boned adolescent image of Twiggy
appeared in the 1960’s. Now fashion models weigh 25% less
than the average woman - a diagnostic criteria of anorexia nervosa.
In 1950’s models weighed 4% less. The current fascination
with altering the body is poignantly demonstrated by the popularity
of TV shows like “Extreme Make-over.”
Weight prejudice in this culture is rampant and not significantly
challenged. Fatism is as damaging as sexism, or racism. The corporate
world, advertising world, cosmetic world, diet industry and cosmetic
surgery industry have huge amounts of money invested in deluding
us into starving, cutting and mutilating our bodies. In this environment
where normal weight women are considered overweight or ‘fat’,
it is no wonder that so many women and girls have the negative
body image and chronic low self-esteem that leads to eating disorders.
Simultaneously, more and more people are poorly nourished with
fast foods and obesity is on the rise, causing a new wave of fat
phobia. The pressure to be thin is now affecting men. One in ten
who present with eating disorders now are men and boys.
Though obviously damaging, it is socially, even morally, acceptable
to support our life -denying standards of beauty. The mandate
to be ultra thin is everywhere: in magazines, newspapers, billboards,
movies, stores, and on TV. The cult of thinness promises that
if we fit this image we will be successful and happy. We are brainwashed
at a level that evades our conscious, critical intervention so
we cannot see that the promise is false. We live in stressful
times and displace our anxiety on what we imagine we can control
– how our bodies look. Driven by guilt and shame, many castigate
themselves, diet, limit their self-image, disable their imaginations,
and keep themselves in a sado-masochistic spiral of self-hate.
We must break this addictive pattern and discover the true beauty
that is our birthright.
Culture is made up of individuals. If we become media literate,
develop a healthy relationship to food, nourish our self-esteem
by loving the bodies that we have, and focus on what really fulfills
us, we can challenge the collective obsession with distorted ideals
of perfection. We can talk to each other and validate the ways
we are each beautiful inside and out. By joining together, speaking
out and stepping out, we can create and celebrate new images of
beauty that reflect diversity and humanity of all. |
