You wouldn’t like yourself, even if you were perfect. That’s one of the slogans BuzzFeed recently posted online. After having a few professional photoshoots, four women got to the conclusion that pursuing the idea of beauty of our times is nothing but an “endless battle”. All we do is wasting precious moments of our lives.
Actually, modern society tends to push the idea of beauty and its standards to the limits – especially female beauty, that’s always been subjected to changes and discussions throughout the centuries. Nowadays, a beautiful woman must be slim, tall, skinny. Not matching these characteristics automatically leads a person to hiding in a corner, along with all the other girls who don’t look like the models in the magazines or all over the internet.
In the last decades eating disorders have increased in the US, and also in the realities closer to us. According to the Italian Society for the Study of Eating Disorders (Sisdca) , in Italy 0,5% of young women between 12 and 25 years old is suffering with anorexia and 1% to 2% is suffering with bulimia.
However, it’s not only about the percentages we have to worry about, but it’s about how opinion has already got used to the existence of this eating behavioral issues among the young. To the point where these issues are not even treated anymore as defects: they get underestimated instead. The people suffering with them are insulted for their eating behavior, which is seen as a selfish exaggeration. As if a girl who stops eating properly could do so on a whim, just to seek attention.
Nowadays the diagnosis of anorexia, bulimia or obesity it’s commonly perceived as a mere answer to how modern society wants women to be: slim, toned, flawless and smiling.
We surely can’t doubt that there are boys and girls who adjust their diets to comply to this new standards of beauty, trusting diets from questionable sources – diets which may indeed have been drafted by optimistic adolescents on the internet.
It’s no surprise to know that the main causes leading to the disorder are the lightness the topic is treated with and the excessive trust that kids these days have within the internet community – be it out of fear or simply because they don’t want to open up to their parents or doctors.
If a girls stops eating to lose those kilos that the fashion world really can’t accept or if she swallows a couple of laxatives after each meal to avoid absorbing whatever she ate, she’s already on the path for developing the disorder – and it’s going to be difficult to walk out of it.
But there are other kinds of disorders.
It’s not always the outside that dictates our actions, even though it may seem so. When it’s about what’s inside we always tend to be more harsh in our judgement, because anyone who lets themselves be dragged down by their own weaknesses is always accused of being childish, a slave to their own emotions and a girl who answers, «no, I’m not hungry» is immediately defined as a slave to this society that wants us all to look pretty, thin, slim, perfect. A series of good-looking empty dolls with clear skin and a bright smile.
We are taught to keep male’s opinion in the highest regard since we’re children. We’re taught to always keep it in mind when we’re deciding everything. What should I wear? What dress is the boy I like going to appreciate more? What will men think of me if I wear this skirt? Would I be noticed more if my eyes were bigger? Should I lose some weight to be considered more attractive?
These are just some of the questions that most modern women ask themselves on a daily basis.
It’s not a rational thing, it’s not something we have control on: we’re so used to this standard, sadly still dictated by a patriarchy, that it’s impossible for us not to doubt ourselves and let insecurity assault us.
With our minds clumped with the goal of always being chosen as the prettiest and the most desirable, it’s easy to slip into the thought that the shy girl who loses ten kilos in a few months and doesn’t eat much, but does so obsessively, is acting like this because she wants to uniform herself to this beauty canon fixed by some «higher» authority, and mostly, is acting like this because she wants to be found beautiful and desirable in the eyes of the boy she likes.
«You’re so pretty, though, why don’t you like your curves?», or, «You know that boys like girls like you, don’t you?» are two of the most frequent sentences girls hear in the toughest moments of their struggle against eating disorders. It’s not easy like this, and sometimes it’s not even about physical appearance, but it’s rooted in the very relationship between the person and food, more often than not dramatically altered. So no, apparently she doesn’t like her curves at all, she’d want to weight five kilos less like all her classmates, but that’s not the point.
It’s probably true that many boys would like this «potential her» – and there’s no denying how this delights her – but what does being liked matter when you’re so embarrassed you can’t be like all other girls no matter how hard you try? It’s not a love story that heals delusion and failure.
It’s not like sentences like these are spoken out of evilness. It’s just way easier to give in to public opinion, which sees these problems as «b-series disorders» and indirectly says that «yes, we’re sorry you’re feeling bad living in your own skin, but there are people out there who are suffering much more than you do».
There’s no denying that humanity is faced everyday with enormous catastrophes – one example above all, all the natural disasters that bring down cities to the ground or deadly illnesses we still have no cure for – but it’s not like recognizing the small battles that every person has to brave on his own will diminish the gravity of these bigger episodes; and at the same time, discrediting one’s troubles doesn’t solve bigger issues more quickly.
Like many other topics, even eating disorders are exposed to gender discriminations, both from girls and boys.
Is it sexist to think that someone is wearing a tighter dress just to please a boy, or is skipping meals just to look more attractive? And what about sticking one’s fingers down one’s throat, just to vomit all the too-much- food previously eaten, in order to go out and about without worries? Above all, is it sexist to think that this little known disorder, which is extremely complicated to understand, and which casts many ambitious life projects into question, is driven by the compelling desire of looking good just at one’s (or even worse, at boy’s) eyes? Yes, it is.
Our society respects all those celebrities who set unrealistic and controversial beauty standards, made of plastic surgery, Photoshop and anorexic models, and which consequently push many girls into striving for a size 0 (‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, said Kate Moss in 2009). This attitude is to blame for the alarming pro-anorexia movement, which is becoming more and more popular among young teenagers. However, our society seems to respect more those models and celebrities, rather than showing a little respect, or help, to all those girls and boys who are fighting against a persistent inner voice, which constantly reminds them how much they will never be able to fit into what the public opinion regards as normality.
