Media should accept all body weights
Editorial
At the end of Body Image Awareness week, after assessing all the gains we have made in changing our self-conceptions, it is important to realize how much society still has to change. The forum with the greatest amount of changes to make is the media. The media have established body style trends throughout history, supporting and rejecting certain body types and deciding what weight is acceptable for women and men. Their current support of impossibly perfect body images has become far too culturally accepted. Combating unhealthily thin body images with support for body types on the opposite sides of the spectrum, while leaving little acknowledgement for the middle ground where most people fall has not compensated for the prevalent social acceptance of thin models.
The media, a force in society that Notre Dame history professor Gail Bederman refers to as "encompassing" and "pervasive," fail to accept or display mid-range weight groups. While heavier celebrities Drew Carey, Catherine Mannheim and Rosie O'Donnell have been accepted and supported in their careers, entertainment television has focused on the weight struggles of Oprah Winfrey and Rikki Lake. While the extremely thin and overweight are embraced by the public, the average body type has been ignored. The media should address such weight image disparities. Instead of merely supporting one extreme or the other, magazines, television, advertisements and the news media should support all sizes and shapes. With the acceptance of all body types in the public spotlight, Americans of all ages will gain a more healthy concept of their own bodies.
In addition, promoting more typical body types as attractive will lead us to find ourselves as equally appealing as the models and images the media present.
All Viewpoint Stories for Friday, March 2, 2001
