Love Your Body

My Masters thesis in graduate school was on the perceptions of body image among Greeks, both male and female students. It was interesting to see what either sex had to say about their body. During that time I was immersed in to numerous articles about eating disorders, body image and disordered eating. Much of the material I still have in a huge binder at work.

During that time, I met up with a psychologist in the counseling center who's doctoral work was on body image as well, together we hosted a brown bag lunch during Eating Disorder Awareness week. In addition, we were asked to lead a break out session at the First Annual Greek Leadership Conference at GVSU. I was on that planning committee for that, and used the conference to gather a lot of my data. We called the breakout session "Growing up Barbie", how the images of Barbie influenced the reality of girls growing up.

Barbie has been around since 1959, and has changed her image as many times as the current trends of society. However, if she had been a real women she would have had to walk on all four do to the unrealistic proportions of her body. Seven feet tall, 110 lbs, bust between 38-40 inches, waist 18-24 inches. THIS is NOT realistic for any women, so what does that say about the influence she has/had on girls growing up?

Barbie isn't the only image in the media which creates this sense of "I'm not good enough". "I need to tuck, cut, or suck all my extra..." Cosmo, Vogue, Allure, all have air brushed images, and pieced together images of what women and girls look to as "ideal".

Welcome to Love Your Body, a new post that'll be starting! Here we are going to reclaim beauty and learn about body image and eating disorders!