Whose responsibility is diet, body image and self-loathing? (From Bucks Free Press)

Whose responsibility is diet, body image and self-loathing?

10:08am Thursday 18th March 2010

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Around 1997 I boycotted women’s magazines. They just got silly. Any article was good enough for print, fashion photography seemed dominated by chaps or girls who preferred models in the shadows and I’d just had enough. I haven’t bought one since.

So I’m not in a position of authority but the recent concern by the Royal College of Psychiatrists points to the use of ultra-thin models and airbrushing as a cause of eating disorders.

Can presenting a visual image bring about a mental disorder? I’m not convinced.

Yes, the wonderful variety of women’s shapes needs to be represented. Airbrushing? Maybe more people need to be aware of how much of it goes on with already attractive people. But do we now want to blame the fashion industry for Britain’s growing number of people with eating disorders?

I don’t know. This is what I think. Eating disorders are not physical ailments. They are mental illnesses. Mental illness is a result of vulnerability – grief, stress, emotional pressure, inability to cope, frailties formed in childhood.

”The turnaround of the show’s women isn’t attained by bombarding them with images of bodies like their own”

You only need to watch How to Look Good Naked once to see that body shape has nothing to do with self-esteem.

The women’s bodies don't change over the six-week journey with Gok; their confidence, sense of self-worth and relationship towards their bodies, however, do. They learn to love their bodies. How? By nurturing, confidence boosting, repetition of the good aspects the women have – skin, legs, eyes, curves, whatever.

So many of Gok’s women reveal that their mothers didn’t encourage touching their own bodies, didn’t like their own bodies/breasts/nudity and so on. The turnaround of the show’s women isn’t attained by bombarding them with images of bodies like their own. It’s all in the head.

When I was growing up, my mother and all her friends bought Cosmopolitan. The covers always showed voluptuous women with their lovely full cleavage on display. They had huge manes of healthy hair, straight teeth and good complexions. I didn’t have any of those.

When people called me skinny (which they did), it felt like an insult. I understood that I wasn’t sexy, womanly, desirable or feminine. The physical attributes of models and the ideal body shape has changed but the pressure is still there.

If the fashion industry is now responsible for young people’s mental health, aren’t we just doing more of the same: handing over all the power to an irresponsible, indifferent and rather stupid group of people?

First we blame them for the people who suffer from eating disorders, then we say, ‘Fix it’. Is it really appropriate that the fashion industry – whose priority is selling clothes – helps those with mental illness? I don’t think so.

I feel I’m going back to my piece about UK’s children and the UNICEF report. If we nurture our young to feel good about themselves, surely the focus on physical perfection diminishes. If mydaughter became obsessed with her physical appearance, I’d feel I’d failed as a mother.

Are we to have everything and now everyone labelled with a warning? My daughter and I have fun reading juice cartons, packets of nuts, cereals and tinned foods. ‘May contain nuts. Made in a nut-free environment. Cannot guarantee nut free.’ Perhaps the exact same warning should tag alongside models: the fashion industry is full of nuts.

Will they have to label Barbie dolls too? And Action Men? And will cartoons have to carry warnings? ‘Shaun the Sheep is a fabricated model. Please be aware that real sheep have a rougher appearance, walk on four legs and cannot descend their barn on a zip wire.’

”We need to grab the reins back and acknowledge that our children’s well-being is mostly down to us as parents”

But it also doesn’t look good for us, the population. Are people suggesting that images really play a big role in deciding how we behave? Does the same go for ads telling us what to eat (yukky pasta with yukky bottled sauce and vile garlic bread you only need to microwave), where to holiday (anywhere Thomson dictates), how to be parents (feed your little ones coco pops while you do the washing up with your back towards them), how to be friends (eat your mate’s luxury biscuits)...

Images are powerful but surely serious mental conditions are not uniquely caused by the portrayal of bony models. It’s bizarre to suggest that. And I wonder that the Royal College of Psychiatrists is linking the two.

Perhaps more balanced information needs to be published too. Like the fact that these young women are unhappily starving; that sample clothing generally comes in size 8 or 10 (source: How to Look Good Naked...) and some intelligent debate needs to be encouraged where models themselves speak.

There was an article a while age citing Liz Hurley who said she cried many nights as she went to bed starving hungrybut you don’t often hear that.

So who are we dieting for? Women? Why? I can’t answer that.

Funnily enough talking to men, they are unimpressed by skinny and want curves. Years ago, I had a conversation with some chaps about Pammy Anderson believing that she would be many men’s’ dream woman and they all agreed they much preferred Helen Mirren.

We seem to be stuck between worrying about obese children and concern that others are dieting to death. Diet, as the RCPsych, propounds, is of greater importance. Most importantly, we need to grab the reins back and acknowledge that our children’s well-being is mostly down to us as parents.