A few months ago, I came across a photograph at work. It was taken by Lauren Greenfield, a photographer for the VII agency. It was a portrait of a young woman, about my age, standing outdoors with verdant green grounds behind her. She wore a tank top and light blue drawstring pants, and her hair was straight and dark brown, hanging down around her shoulders. She was thin, with prominent collarbones and a flat belly and long neck.
I remember noticing it for several days, pinned to our edit wall as part of a layout, and thinking, “ahh, I wish I was that thin”. Now, let me put something in perspective for you – I will never look like that girl, nor did I imagine I might even with the most diligent exercise and diet in the world. I am curvy and short, she is tall and lean. So it wasn’t any kind of direct envy. It was more a passing realization, like I do so many times on the streets around me, that this person was thinner than me and I wish I was thinner.
Imagine my own shock and consternation when I realized that of course, the photograph featured in Greenfield’s spread was promoting her new body of work – Thin. A book and documentary about – you guessed it – eating disorders and obsession with thinness. In fact, without the book in front of me it’s only a guess but I’m willing to hazard that those light blue pants were actually scrubs, and that my dream girl was actually at a clinic for rehabilitation from eating disorders.
So I’d been staring at a picture of an anorexic girl thinking she looked good, wishing I had an approximation of her figure. She was sick, and many women in her predicament are dying, but I was unable to see it for what it was.
Perhaps, if you’re a man, you need a few minutes to let the enormous sickness of that sink in. You women, you already understand. Most of you are all too familiar with how horrifically we women can get our visual perceptions into such a twisted frame of mind as to imagine an anorexic woman as a symbol of envy.
I don’t want an eating disorder. In fact, I could say with some confidence that it’s unlikely I’ll ever develop one. This isn’t to say I’m any better than these women but there’s been no sign or behavior in even my darkest moments where that kind of illness could take root. And I am thankful for that. But it makes what happened even worse. It means that even with a relatively healthy frame of mind, I am still so self-critical as to see a girl so thin she’s killing herself and think, “yeah, that’s sexy”.
It was a jarring moment for me. If the lens of self-criticism over my eyes swerved so badly in that direction, it also means what I’m seeing in the mirror is tainted with a funny-house effect. So I’ve made an effort, even while I struggle with the right diet and exercise, to stop being so harsh on myself. Because the harsher I get, the more divorced from reality my eyes become.
And this is coming from someone who’s still relatively healthy about her image. I can only imagine how many other women are reacting to the messages of thinness around us. I know that, for me, every single time I’ve seen a girl as thin as Greenfield’s photograph, I’ve forced myself to stop and think about whether it’s healthy – not just for her, but for me. We have to stop doing this to ourselves. I have to stop doing this to myself. Illness isn’t sexy, and thinness doesn’t need to be universal.
I wish we knew this better, we women who are so bright and full of life and energy and who spend too much negative energy agonizing about our bodies instead of positive energy improving them – and our minds, too, which is more important. I hope I will learn.
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I wish I could say I hadn’t done the same thing many times.
Thanks for writing about it. I shared it with some folks.
Are you so sure it could never be you? I used to be, but over the course of the last year have managed to lose the tenuous hold I had on “healthy” and allowed my similar self criticism to degrade into an eating disorder. I am very much trying to get that hold back, but it is an everyday, no, every minute struggle. Don’t fool yourself — if you were caught admiring the anorexic, its buried within you too. I know you are essentially saying the same thing, but let me reiterate — LOVE YOURSELF. No one else can. Seriously, no one. Not even your darling husband can love you enough to fix this issue. It is yours and yours alone. Be strong and love yourself.
When I was in college I did a psych study on anorexia and bulimia – in men.
There is no doubt you are right that in our society there is a difference between men and women when it comes to body image, but there may be more men who understand what are you saying than you think.
What’s wonderful about your story is you caught yourself doing it. Hopefully you’ll remember your story the next time you have another one of those passing thoughts!
Oh, no, Daisy – trust me, when I say it’s not in me, I mean it’s because I’ve never done anything more self-destructive than negative self-image. But that, I understand, is in and of itself a form of self-destruction.
I only meant to say I have never taken it farther than that, and I’ve always had a part of my brain aware of how I’m magnifying the problem to something bigger (!) than it is. I’m more than aware of how slippery the slope is.
And I’m still committed to solving it the healthy way – even if it’s been harder than I ever thought it could be. I told Stuart today that just because I’ve failed at conquering my weight issues in the past is no reason to quit trying. So try I do.
Just yesterday my boyfriend and I were walking out of the grocery story as a thin woman walked in, my boyfriend said, “Eat, Tatala, eat.” I looked at him with surprise and said, “I was just thinking how I wished I looked like her.” “Like a skeleton?” “I guess.”
All very eye-opening. I know exactly how you feel, Krissa.
Wow, what a great post. It made me think a lot, on so many levels.
I have this friend who had a baby 2 months ago, and she’s right back into shape (she was slim to begin with). I told her she looked great, and she said she wanted to lose another 20. “I like to see ribs and bones,” she said. “My husband told me not to lose it, he thinks I look great.” Only after reading your post do I realize that her comment was actually an unhealthy one.
I think a lot about this issue. Personally, I like zaftig women (which actually translates to “juicy” in yiddish). But for myself, I like to stay slim. I ask myself, “why do I appreciate someone else’s plumpness, but I won’t allow it for myself?”
And another thing, I think as much as society pushes the image of uber-bodied women, that men secretly (or not so secretly) prefer a fuller figure. Look at Marilyn Monroe, right? Size 12/14. I have this full-figured Russian friend whose grandma always told her; “Men want meat, bones are for dogs.”
I dunno. What an issue. Let’s all have a cookie (or 3) and celebrate our bodies.
Oh yeah, one more thing:
Since you mentioned you want to tackle your own weight issues, I heartily recommend Weight Watchers. Specifically the “Points” system. I did great with that and so did many of my friends. It’s so sane and easy. And you can eat whatever you want, as long as you account for it.
I can’t wait to get back on it after I have this baby (since I’ve gained almost 50 pounds already, yay!). I eat so much when I’m pregnant because I’m so careful when I’m not! My midwife loves this.
Oh, I’m well acquainted with Weight Watchers! It’s the only diet I trust for the long term.
a post that many of us can relate to. and such beautifully written. thank you, krissa.
When I was at Sarah Lawrence, I was in dance class one day and the teacher was late, and I had already warmed myself up as much as I needed to, so to pass the time, I was looking in the mirror at the people in the class and trying to decide which body was the one I would most like to have. I narrowed it down to three, then two, and then I made the final decision of the best one. Then I looked at the face to see who it was, and to my shock, it was me! Then, all the sudden I started to doubt my decision. Let that be a lesson to us all.
I’m sort of tall and thinish normally. I got very sick once and pretty much stopped eating, and lost about 15 or 20 lbs. I’m just over 5 foot 8 and I was down to, like, 115 lbs. Not normal in my book unless you’re a ballerina or supermodel or something where there’s a whole other kind of normal going on. So, I was really sick and I went to the doctor. And when I was there they were examining me and I knew something was horribly wrong; severe weight loss ( I didn’t yet know how much), down to a size four or something equally absurd for my normal build and no one thought anything was wrong until I forced them to weigh me. Just looking at – sickly, skinny, pants falling off, they thought I looked perfectly fine – the picture of health. It took the numbers on the scale to prove something was amiss with my weight. That and the fact that fainted.
Side note – If you’ve got to faint do it at the doctors.
Second side note – it’s not always great to be tall. The last thing I remember before toppling over was the nurse, shorter then me, yelling “SHE’S GOING DOWN!”. Because I was so much taller then her that she needed help.
Are you looking for this one?
http://www.laurengreenfield.com/news.html
Lovely post. You’re completely right: guys will never understand.
I have finally, FINALLY switched my head from “be thin” to “be fit.” It is so satisfying to have more energy and strength. I think I probably have had an eating disorder in the past, unless eating nothing but packages of frozen spinach and air-popped popcorn is normal — but I caught myself the other day thinking entirely sincerely, after eating too many cheetos, “Wow, I really wish I had taught myself how to throw up, that would come in handy right about now.” DUH.
Sally, I completely LOVE that story, even though I’m sure the bump on your head hurt at the time.
It’s so sick that even the DOCTOR didn’t think there was anything wrong with you.
Weetabix, thanks so much. I feel like, somehow, I can’t make it clear until someone else sees the picture. Thanks.
As naturally thin girl, this post got my rackles up. It’s been a life long affliction, trying to convince people that I didn’t have an eating disorder, and I wasn’t happy to read that you had joined the thin=sick camp.
Then you updated the post to include the link to the picture… and yes, that girl is sickly skinny. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.
I’m pretty happy with the way I look. I’ve really grown to like and appreciate my body, even with it’s extra pudge and ample curves.
Yet I still find myself thinking “I wish I had narrow hips like her” or “If only I could be as thin as that girl.”
Why? Why, if I’m healthy and happy with myself, do I still think thinner is better, prettier, sexier? Where do I get that from?
Damn society…
Err, thanks, Tara.
Literally thirty seconds before I clicked over to petithiboux and read this post, I was reading another weblog with a photo of a skinny (healthy, but skinny) woman and thinking, “MAN, I want to look like that.” And that wasn’t unusual – I do it all the damn time. So, a timely post for me, to say the least.
For me, the issue gets a little thornier because I know that when I am my happiest, I am eating well and exercising regularly. (I could write for hours about the chicken-and-egg nature of this: am I happier because I am exercising and eating well, or am I exercising and eating well because I’m happier?) And naturally, with that comes weight loss. And it’s hard, harder than it should be, to not equate that new (relative) thinness with happiness.
I have 5,000 more thoughts swirling around in my head about this, a big melange of thinness and healthiness and true happiness and disorders and those size eight jeans which are totally getting snug and the more I think about it, the more I just want to sit on the couch with a plate of french fries watching TV and feeding all the soggy fries to the dog.
Did someone upthread say this post was thought-provoking, as usual? Because it totally was.
I once wrote a blog post about how anorexic Hollywood actresses seem to be, and it must have gotten linked on two “ana” sites. At the time, I had no idea what this meant, but when I checked them out through my stats, I found out that these were forums for young women who were advocating anorexia as a “lifestyle.” I found it very disturbing to see how many young women were hurting themselves.
It’s very odd that we have such a fat country, and at the same time have so many people who are so “disgusted” at the idea of “fatness” — even when being “fat” is actually the norm. So many women’s stores don’t even carry anything over size 8, as if everyone over that size isn’t deserving of walking into the store. Did you hear about the recent study where somewhere like 70% of Americans would rather lose their job and be in poverty than be overweight? This is definitely a culture that has a problem with this issue, with much of the pressure being on young women.
(came to you from Ali Thinks)
Very good post, though-provoking. BUT – I have to point out that eating disorders are not about “being thin” or “feeling fat.” I had raging bulimia from age 16 – about 20. I went into what I guess you could call remission for quite some time – now again, at the age of 30, after a million different factors going wrong in my life and going back to a therapist, I’ve found myself battling the same old demons. I’m lucky in that I realize fully it isn’t about my body image – and I’ve actually managed to hang on to much of the comfort with my body that I’ve developed over the past decade. But I can’t always get past or push down the feelings of control and panic that go with the eating disorders. I’m also lucky that I’m self-aware enough to have some control over the “illness” and I consider it a triumph if I only do the binge and purge a couple times a week.
Yes, we’re hit with these images every day and women do need more positive influence and to learn to accept themselves. But unfortunately, when it comes to eating disorders, it’s not about the images. It makes me nervous that many people want to simplify it to that. I wish it were as easy as just “I want to be thin.” That alone would be so much easier to fix. And it would save me a LOT of money in therapy bills.
Am I the only one who thinks that woman looks disgustingly thin? No. I just showed it to Jeff and said, “what do you think of this woman?” and he replied, “disgustingly thin.”