Girls Inc. just published the results of its depressing, nationwide survey called "The Supergirl Dilemma," which reveals that girls' obsession with thinness has gotten significantly worse in the past six years. Despite the efforts of the Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty – well-intentioned, though undeniably market-driven – and Love Your Body Day events sweeping every school from San Francisco to Syracuse, 90 percent of teenage girls think they are overweight today, compared with 24 percent in 1995, according to a recent ELLEgirl survey.
So what gives? Is it our celebrity-obsessed, extreme makeover culture? Is it the newest version of the age-old story of dysfunctional family relationships? Is it peer pressure – mean girls critiquing one another's every lunchtime indiscretion? Is it the $30 billion a year diet industry?
It is, in truth, all of the above. But there is also another profoundly important – yet little noticed – dynamic at work in the anxious, achievement-oriented lives of America's perfect girls: They have a sometimes deadly, often destructive, lack of faith.
So many perfect girls were raised entirely without organized religion, and the majority of the rest of us – I reluctantly admit to my own membership in the perfect girl club – experienced "spirituality" only in the form of mandatory holiday services with a big-haired grandmother or unconscionably elaborate and expensive bat mitvah parties, where everything but the Torah is emphasized.
As a nontheist that could stand to lose a few pounds, I'm pretty sure I disagree.
6 comments:
Well I read it. Noticed what page it was on and more importantly noticed the complete lack of references to any studies connecting atheism with a twisted self-image when it comes to weight.
It's just the usual "there's something wrong, it has to be lack of religion."
When I read this:
They have a sometimes deadly, often destructive, lack of faith.
I felt like I just had to share it. At most, I call believers misguided. Why do they have to call me "Deadly, Often Destructive"?
That was the same line that made me look up to see what page you had linked too. Right there I knew to be careful.
Well if I ever understand how lack of faith should be destructive and deadly compared to having faith, then I might find an answer for you.
That's given me quite a chuckle.
Whether or not the source is an accurate reference is irrelevant to me. Is there a problem with women and their weight? I'm not a woman, but I hear enough of their complaining to believe, that there is indeed a problem.
Blame a lack of faith, men, the media, Holywood, etc.. They don't seem to acknowledge their own weakness. To wit, that that they don't take responsibility for what they want; they want to be thin, because they want to be desired, because they don't want to be alone. Or they're easily influenced and unable or unwilling to follow their own ideas of what is right.
I'm not really a misogynist. I just play one on the Web.
Well, the commentator at the CSM was convinced all these Anas and Mias need are a little churchin' up.
I don't know what pushes these girls over the edge. I don't think it's what men think, since most men like "a little meat on them bones" as they say. I don't think it's not wanting to be alone, because these girls have to spend an awful lot of time alone to do what they do.
However, with church attendance at record highs and eating disorders at record highs, I don't think the writer is barking up the right tree.
And you aren't a misogynist. I think you dislike men and women equally. :)
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