Ending the Objectification and Starvation of Women

According to the National Eating Disorders Organization, on any given day, 20-30% of girls in fourth and fifth grade report being concerned about their weight and trying to become thinner, and 30-50% of girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen say they have a problem with being or feeling fat. Research has shown that 80% of girls report having dieted before the age of thirteen. The National Adolescent Health Survey in 1989 reported that 57% of eighth grade girls had dieted at least once in the previous year, and at any given time, 40-60% of girls in high school perceive themselves as overweight and are trying to lose weight. In 1984, a study of 33,000 women, conducted by Glamour magazine, found that 75% of the women thought they were overweight, even though only 25% actually were, and in fact, 30% were underweight (Bordo, 56).

The statistics on how many American women are dieting at any given time vary widely, but have been shown in studies to range from 25% to 85%. One study found that 60% of average weight girls, and 18% of underweight girls, between the ages of nine and eighteen were dieting. Another found that 90% of seventeen-year-old girls were dieting (Tso).

The average supermodel weighs 23% less than the average woman. One of the criteria for anorexia is being 15% below your expected body weight. Although eating disorders in males have been receiving an increasing amount of attention, 90-95% of the people with anorexia and bulimia are still women.

Statistics on how many women have anorexia and bulimia differ according to their sources, but there are between five and eight million people with one of these disorders in the United States. Between 5 to 10% of American women have anorexia or bulimia. Among college students, the statistic most often cited is 20-25%. Anorexia results in death for about 15% of the women who have it. Many of those who recover suffer life-long health problems. While the effects of obesity are constantly publicized, most people are not aware of all the dangers of being underweight and/or malnourished.

Naomi Wolf reports in The Beauty Myth that the poorest women in India eat 1400 calories a day, and that at the Treblinka concentration camp, a diet of "900 calories was scientifically determined to be the minimum necessary to sustain human functioning." A study at the University of Oregon found that 40% of the college women interviewed were consuming less than 800 calories (Tso). If you buy a box of Dexatrim, which is advertised on TV frequently, the directions will tell you to eat 1200 calories a day, a number often cited by popular diet plans. The amount actually needed by most women is 2000, and more for adolescents.

Unlike cigarettes, diet pills are not kept behind the counters at any store. They are sold at K-Mart, Walmart, Target, every drug store, and most grocery stores. Any teenage girl in America can walk into a store any time and purchase diet pills to help her lose weight. She is not legally allowed to purchase alcohol or cigarettes, but she can buy as many boxes of Dexatrim, Acutrim, Chromium Picolinate, laxatives, and water pills as she wants. Most stores put the diet products all in a special aisle together, so that the diet foods are right there with the pills that will kill your appetite. No prescription is required. You do not have to show your driver's license for proof of age before you purchase diet pills. You do not have to be old enough to drive a car. You can be severely underweight.

If a girl can walk into a store at 95 or 85 pounds and buy these pills, she assumes that they are not dangerous. The Federal Trade Commission is currently responsible for regulating the marketing of dietary products, while the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for regulating the labeling. The problems they address are false claims made by companies selling diet aids, and determining whether products are dangerous to a person's health. This approach assumes that the people who are purchasing these products have normal health to begin with and actually need to lose weight. It does not take into consideration the fact that a large portion, if not the majority, of the women purchasing these products do not need to lose any weight to begin with, so they are at a higher health risk than the average person buying diet pills. I think that a law should be passed to prevent minors from purchasing over-the-counter diet pills at all. It would probably be unrealistic to expect that they could be taken off the market altogether, but at least they should not be sold to children.

The diet industry in the United States makes $40 billion a year. I think that the FDA should force all companies selling diet aids, such as pills, and shakes like Slimfast, to include a warning on the outside of every single package. Many studies have shown that 95-98% of the people who go on diets regain the weight, and also gain some extra with it. Medical research has also shown that the cycle of "yo-yo dieting" is dangerous to health. Dieting can cause fatigue, weakness, depression, mental confusion, low body temperature, low blood pressure, and a slowed metabolism. Women who are malnourished have muscles that are eating away at themselves. They may also be losing bone mass, which can never be regained, and its loss leads to osteoporosis later in life. They may have dangerous electrolyte imbalances, and any number of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. They are damaging their immune systems. In eating disorders, eventually organs will become affected, which can lead to death.

I think all these facts should be printed on labels for diet products. It is not enough to have a little RDA chart in minuscule print on the directions inside a box of Dexatrim. There should be a clear warning on the outside of these packages and on every advertisement for these products, just like there is with cigarettes, to tell people that dieting can be a hazard to their health, especially if they are not overweight. This may not actually deter many people from taking the products, but it is irresponsible of the United States government to not be putting any information on these packages when all evidence shows that none of them work. It is irresponsible not to have some kind of warning on these products, because they contribute to dangerous eating habits. The huge majority of women with eating disorders start off by going on a "normal" diet.

I was surprised to find that the National Institutes of Health has never had a public awareness campaign on eating disorders. There needs to be a large-scale, national campaign that addresses the issues of body image, facts and lies about weight, real nutrition, what real women look like, chronic dieting, and eating disorders. If the government can have anti-smoking and say-no-to-drugs campaigns, there is no reason why it cannot afford to do this. If Congress would allow it, there could even be a tax on diet products to pay for such a campaign. The media has a huge influence on people, especially young people who watch television. Something must be done to combat the unrealistic depictions of women that are on television, in magazines, and on billboards. The government has to take the responsibility for it since mass media is mostly controlled by advertisers who are not going to pay for a campaign that criticizes their tactics.

I think there should be ads placed in women's magazines, and especially in the magazines for teenage girls, and on television, especially during shows like "Oprah" where you always see a lot of commercials for diet products, and on the radio. There should also be information sent to schools and doctors to inform them of the effects of body hatred, chronic dieting, and eating disorders on young women and girls. Most of these problems start in adolescence, but many times they last for life.

If people were educated about what women are really supposed to eat, and weigh, and how advertising, television shows, and films present ideals that are impossible to maintain, they might be less likely to purchase diet products. The only way the diet industry will ever stop growing is if women stop contributing to its profits. An educational campaign about this issue would help, at least in a small way, to make men and women question the lies that the diet industry sells every day.

This campaign could also have suggestions for parents which might encourage people to change some of their behavior. The objectification of women cannot be blamed entirely on the media, since it is very pervasive. Little girls need to be taught by their fathers and their mothers that they are valued for who they are. Adults should not be telling little girls, "You could be a model when you grow up", and "you look so pretty", instead of telling them they are smart. People need to quit perpetuating the myth that boys are naturally supposed to eat a lot more than girls, with comments like, "He's a growing boy". In fact, men only need 300 calories more a day than women do.

Of course, the objectification of women happens for a reason, and I think sexism as a whole will need to be defeated for it to be really eradicated. Any measures such as more education about women's history, women's literature, and accomplishments by women would help. It would be harder to see women as things if education did not focus so predominantly on the accomplishments of men, the writing of men, and the history of men as it now does. All these discrepancies make it easier for people to think of women as bodies more than as people.

On a more personal level, I think women have to make the individual decision to refute the myths about what we are supposed to look like and how much we are supposed to weigh. I think that more women need to start thinking about these things and talking about them. If women could get over their eating disorders, dieting addictions, and body image problems, and start trying to refute the cultural ideals, younger women and girls could learn from their example. This is a lot easier said than done, but I think it is necessary for the younger generations to not have to come into a world where every woman they know is worried about eating too much and taking up too much space. Women will have to stop complimenting each other on weight loss, and refuse to buy into the diet obsession themselves.

I remember a lot of women telling me how much they envied me for being skinny, and one saying, "I wish I was anorexic!", and a saleswoman saying how lucky I was to not be able to wear size four petite pants since they fell off my hips. I think we need to stop complimenting each other for weight loss, and stop viewing each other as competitors in a beauty contest. If we are going to change things for women, we will have to do it ourselves, because men are never going to take the initiative to do this.

Ideally, I would like to see the entire diet industry collapse, but this is not likely to happen any time soon. I think that it could happen eventually if enough women were determined to refute the idea that weight is our most important concern in life. If women stopped going to Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and all the other weight loss centers, and if they stopped buying all those package foods, and all the Slim Fast products, and if they stopped buying books buy the supposed experts on the supposedly best new way to lose weight, these people would lose profits, and, eventually, go out of business. There is a $40 billion a year diet industry in the United States, and somebody is supporting it.

Eating disorders are very secretive, and, even when people get over them, or partially get over them, they do not usually go around talking about them. There are not too many books about anorexia and bulimia written by women who had them. Most of the books are written by doctors and psychologists who consider the culture that we live in to be a tiny, possible contribution to the problem, worthy of about one paragraph. It is much easier to think that women with anorexia and bulimia are suffering only from some internal psychodrama, than to question the objectification of women that is furthered by every form of media in this country every day. It is also a great way to allow the problem to continue.

Of course there is a reason why women are buying into these cultural messages in mass numbers, and it is too complicated a problem to solve in any one, simple step. I think that fighting sexism in general is the most important way to prevent chronic dieting and eating disorders. This is, oddly enough, a point that is lost on most of the people who write books about eating disorders.

A big fallacy, which many professionals seem to believe, is that there is no way to prevent eating disorders because there is no integrative theory about the cause. That is totally ridiculous. There will be any number of causes why any individual will have a problem. There is only one cause why so many women have this particular problem.

This is because of our society. An eating disorder is addictive just like drugs or alcohol. But, unlike drugs or alcohol, starvation is a socially constructed addiction. There is no physical reason why a person would feel control, power, self-confidence, motivation, and freedom from guilt by not eating. Society made up those ideas. People on diets have those ideas, not just people with anorexia or bulimia. Also, when you are an alcoholic or a drug addict, you do not usually get complimented for it. You are not surrounded by images that tell you every day that the best way to be is drunk or on drugs, as society tells us that thinness is the is the expected norm.

The huge majority of people who get eating disorders start off by going on a "normal" diet. This is an important fact, since it might lead people to wonder what exactly a "normal" diet is. When is it healthy for a little girl or a teenager to go hungry on purpose? It is very hypocritical of any magazine or television show to run articles on eating disorders, when they simultaneously profit from the advertisements that feature underweight women, and when the magazines have diet articles in every issue. The ironic part is that they always preface these articles by saying, 'This is the healthy way to lose weight'. They tell women that the alternative to a starvation diet is a supposedly liberating diet, where you can eat fat-free, and low-fat cookies, and rice cakes, and bagels, all you want, as long as you deny other groups of food. Or you can eat whatever you like, but only in tiny portions; never fill yourself up.

Yet millions of women are buying these magazines and not writing letters to complain, and men are not writing letters to complain about the fact that people are marketing starvation to their daughters. I think this is something that will never change unless people actual make a commitment to make it change. Companies are not going to decide to give up billions of dollars in profits. They will continue to sell starvation, and sell women's bodies, and sell misogyny, as long as there is someone willing to buy.

In order to persuade people to stop buying diet products, magazines with diet articles, and products that are advertised by malnourished models like Kate Moss, a large educational campaign would have to take place. There will have to be several aspects to this. First, women's history, and women's literature, and the achievements of women in science and other fields needs to be taught more in schools. If a Federal law could be passed to guarantee that education included these topics, and if the books could be written by women and not just men, we could make a huge improvement on the knowledge both men and women have of women as people. If children were taught from an early age to view women as people and not bodies, they would be more likely to challenge images of women in the media, and less likely to buy into them.

Another part of this educational process would have to include a campaign to educate the public about how damaging images of women in the media are to the self-esteem of girls, and to the general status of all women. If the government can afford to have say-no-to-drug campaigns, and anti-smoking campaigns, and drink-milk campaigns, I think that it can afford to have a campaign the addresses the fact that women are human beings and need to eat. Talking about eating disorders is never going to be enough, because this is a problem that affects all girls and women, not just those with eating disorders.

There are small organization trying to promote the prevention of eating disorders, and there are screenings done at some college campuses, but these sort of measures do not get to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is sexism and the objectification of women, and that needs to be addressed on a very large scale. I think that it is unlikely this will happen, but not impossible. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was obese, and she helped women get the right to vote only 78 years ago. Maybe if women became determined to make a change take place, 78 years from now we could see ourselves depicted as we actually are on television, and be able to eat without feeling guilty. It might take longer than that, but it is not impossible.

I think that starvation is one of the few socially sanctioned forms of self-destruction we have. Anorexia and bulimia are addictive, just like alcohol and drugs, but, the difference is, you do not get complimented much for being drunk or on drugs.

People can also write letters to advertisers to complain, although this would not be likely to make much of a change unless it there was a massive effort involved. At the same time our government has a responsibility to end this problem, and people should pressure their Congressmen and women to make that happen. There could even be a march on Washington to end the objectification of women in media and the ignorance of its effects.

This is a vitally important issue, because it has a direct effect on the future of this country. Young women are being sent the message every day that it is more important to be pretty, emaciated, and popular like the actress on that TV show Ali McBeal, than to be the Attorney General and look like Janet Reno. We are never going to have a female President with this kind of mindset. The word calorie literally refers to the making of energy. The obsession with cutting calories has been draining women of tons of energy that could be better spent in a million different ways.

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the

Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Tso, Rosemary Depolis. "Statistics About Eating Disorders." Controlling

Eating Disorders With Facts, Advice, and Resources. Phoenix:

Oryx Press, 1992. 11.

Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against

Women. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.