Food.
For decades, this subject has proved to be an uphill battle between women and the media, and has recently reached a disturbing, all-time high.
From newspapers to television to radio to the Internet, the press sets impossible standards for women to achieve, calling the super thin too skinny and the healthy overweight. These absurd standards only fuel the staggering number of eating disorders.
Susan Bordo tackles this in her essay titled "Hunger as Ideology." In it she notes that women with eating disorders crave a "state they aspire to" that is "beyond appetite, beyond desire."
Namely, eating-disordered women are stimulated by the mysterious and phony world of retouching. Models and celebrities are made to look virtually flawless and are expected to convey that notion.
Scrolling through magazines, from advertisements to full-page spreads, these public figures are skyrocketed to a degree of perfection.
Although women with eating disorders know these photographs are a bogus facade, they ironically provide a great deal of willpower for those with the dreadful battle of the brain.
In a civilization filled to the brim with scrutiny over a woman's body, it seems almost impossible for women to knock the blasted devil off their left shoulder. Week after week, entertainment programs and tabloid magazines flash the latest celebrity diet and exercise regimens "guaranteed" to make women drop the pounds.
At the close of the summer, Star Magazine released a special "Summer Weight Winners and Losers" issue, analyzing the frail from the fat.
Likewise, People magazine recently reported actress Jessica Alba's routine that she implemented to acquire her post-baby body.
Not once was health cited in either of these accounts. All attention remained on how the celebrities lost the weight, not whether they were feeling energetic and healthy.
It is no wonder then that women, young and old, cannot help succumbing to the notion that a thinner body is a better body.
As a society, we naturally associate negative with bad. In the case of food, however, it appears that negating its presence is a good thing.
The media constantly report how celebrities cut and burn calories in order to rid food from their bodies, therefore presenting food as somewhat deconstructive.
Women readily absorb this information, essentially because there are not enough media sources combating the negative. Why? It is simply not as appealing, and the press is fully aware of that.
Women have long been fed the idea that glamour - not health - corresponds to happiness, so it makes sense as to why they would strive for such appeal.
According to Bordo, women have been taught to eat small amounts of food as far back as the Victorian era.
This tradition has been implemented throughout history, and is notorious in today's diet supplement and weight loss advertisements and infomercials.
The media understand these ideal standards are unachievable and preys upon women vying to lose weight, especially those with eating disorders.
They uses marketable strategies to target women and encourage them to "indulge" in unhealthy pills and undersized portions, further distorting people's grasp on the proper serving size.
The renowned diet supplement, Dexatrim, emphasizes the substantial amount of weight its pill-popping followers lose by investing their money in the product.
According to a "certified specialist," often an actor portraying a doctor, a "perfect" body is effortless, provided you use their supplement.
Ironically, however, in 2001, Dexatrim was recalled because of confirmed allegations that it contained phenylpropanolamine (PPA), an ingredient strongly correlated with a heightened risk of stroke. As a result, PPA was banned by the FDA.
NutriSystem, a diet planned around frozen pre-packaged meals, places an emphasis on a way to "lose weight without feeling hungry."
Statistics, however, show quite the opposite. Multiple complaints have been filed indicating NutriSystem's lack of variety, heavy amounts of sodium, as well as customers' tendency to feel weak and tired.
Despite such allegations, eating-disordered people and weight-loss hopefuls alike are susceptible to these products' claims - but not for the reasons most people would think.
The people in these advertisements and television commercials appear to be in a mental state that women with eating-disordered women want so badly. For the men and women in the commercials, eating is "no big deal."
These poster dieters appear satisfied in their current stage of life as a result of losing weight. They are not starving themselves or hoarding food into their mouths one binging session at a time. Eating is not a constant fly buzzing in their ear.
The minds of eating-disordered women desire this more than anything. It is not the physical, but the mental results that matter most to them.
For those with eating disorders, however, "big deal" does not even begin to describe what eating is to them.
It is their torture chamber. It is their crutch. It is their everything.
The media become so consumed with trends and will blindly follow them in order to make a profit.
Starting with our generation, it up to us to work together to combat the media's claims. We need to start the movement that is tried, true and acceptable: no body is perfect.
Heather Waxman is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at hwaxman@student.umass.edu.
Be the first to comment on this article!