A launch event for the new online magazine “Real” magazine took place on Matador Walk Tuesday, October 27. CSUN students stopped by the “Get REAL!” event where free food and free massage therapy was offered courtesy of the University Counseling Services (UCS), despite strong winds.
The magazine was a project that had been in the works for the past three years.
I am both humbled and a little daunted by the invitation to write a blog about body image and eating problems for Psychology Today. For one thing, I'm not a psychologist. And although I have learned a great deal from the field of psychology, I'm not technically trained in this area, nor do I work in a clinical setting. Instead, I am a scholar of religion, trained in theological and religious studies. I teach college students in the upper Midwest, and I have a particular interest in the relationship between religion, gender, embodiment, and culture.
So what does a religion scholar like myself see when she looks at women's manic and often dangerous attempts to reduce the size of their bodies? What new insights might emerge from considering our culture's devotion to thinness through the lens of spirituality and religion?
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American women have a problem.
You can't blame it 100 percent on the media, although researchers estimate women see 400 to 600 images each day promoting weight loss, or a "thin look."
Neither are family and friends unduly responsible for this problem. But they have been shown to contribute.
The bottom line is, most women in this country are dissatisfied with their bodies, according to psychologists and nutritionists. Studies show as many as 86 percent of American women want to lose weight, and girls as young as age 5 have been shown to engage in dieting.
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When Joanna Elmquist was attending an all-girls’ school as a teenager, “fat talk” was everywhere.
“The girls would say, ‘I’m so fat’ or ‘Does this outfit make me look fat?’” says Elmquist, 22, now a senior at Trinity University. “I could see how it made them more appearance-conscious and ultimately made them feel badly about themselves.”
That’s why Elmquist participates in Fat Talk Free Week, a five-day initiative launched by the international sorority Delta Delta Delta (Tri Delta) to create public awareness of the damaging effect of fat talk, or talk about weight. The campaign kicks off today and runs through Friday.
Her reaction is on target, says body-image expert Jess Weiner, who speaks about the eating disorders that began for her at age 11.
"Every single person here wonders whether they've got the right body or the right look," says Weiner, who writes a body-image column for Seventeen magazine. She spoke to more than 200 tween girls, ages 9-14, gathered for the first National Tween Girl Summit here over the weekend.
