By KATELYN HAND
From the time girls are in their pink bassinets, they are fed the distorted notion that to be attractive they must have the measurements of a Barbie doll.
But what society doesn’t tell them is that for most women to attain this body size is about as unlikely as finding a Bahama Barbie with love-handles.
Just by looking at the models in magazines and commercials it is easy to see what the ideal female body type is supposed to be: roughly 5 foot 8 inches, with long legs and overly skinny. But by taking a quick glance around the quad at BYU, or any college campus, it is obvious women who are equally attractive come in many shapes and sizes.
Marleen Williams, clinical psychologist and assistant professor of clinical services at BYU’s Counseling and Development Center, said the media really does a number on women in presenting idealized images that aren’t consistent with the way most woman are built.
“Probably one in ten thousand women have a natural body build that is like Cindy Crawford,” she said. “Yet that is what the media portrays as how we ought to look like.”
Damaris Methner, clinical psychologist and assistant professor of clinical services at BYU’s Counseling and Development Center, said that while women are told to be smaller, biologically Americans are becoming taller and weighing more — making it harder to fit the stereotyped model.
But being bombarded with the idea that only one body type is attractive can cause feelings of guilt and worthlessness, leading many women down the path of starvation, excessive exercise and a binging-purging cycle that women feel will make them look thin. This tremendous pressure that women receive is one of the reasons eating disorders are increasing, Williams said.
“It is very easy — even for women who don’t have eating disorders — to experience those pressures and conflicts,” Williams said.
Katy Rees, a freshman from Springfield, Va., with an open major, agrees that the media and society influences the way women feel about their bodies.
“Girls grow up with a certain mind-set of what you are supposed to look like and when you don’t meet that a lot of girls blame themselves,” Rees said.
Rees, a resident at Deseret Towers, whose bedroom is next to a full length mirror in the hallway, often hears other female students complain about their bodies as they pass.
“They say things like ‘my thighs are too big,'” Rees said. “It’s not like they are overweight, they just don’t have this body type they have grown up looking at.”
But while most women are convinced that skinny figures are more attractive to men, that is not always the case.
Harold A. Frost, Ph.D., who treats many women with eating disorders said the overly thin look that women with eating disorders often have is not what men find attractive.
“A lot of guys think, ‘hey when i hug my girlfriend, I don’t want to hug a skeleton,'” he said.
Greg Shriber, a sophomore from Pleasanton, Calif., majoring in Political Science, thinks that weight is not an important issue with most men.
“As long as you fall into the regular category then weight is not really a consideration to me,” Shriber said.
“A girl can look good without being skinny,” said Troy Engstrom, a senior from Lakeport, Calif. “Personally, I want (a woman) to look healthy — not that emaciated runway model look.”
Even though men are not overly concerned with how thin women are, women still think being skinny is what is attractive.
“When I see thinner girls I think that is what guys are attracted to, but I think that i have just been conditioned by society,” said Adrianna Hovenden, a senior from Glide, Ore., majoring in history.
Williams, who also treats women with eating disorders, said that studies have been done on male and female college students comparing what body types men found desirable to what women thought that men would find most attractive. In most cases, Williams said that the women chose the body types with very thin features while men tended to choose figures with more rounded type features.
By looking through men’s and women’s magazines the difference between what men and women think is desirable is also noticeable. Female models in men’s magazines tend to have more rounded and fuller figures while the models in female magazines are much thinner and have less curves, Williams said.
“We live in a culture where the media presents an overemphasis on physical attractiveness in relationships. But there should be something (more) that holds you together long after mid-life gives you wrinkles and changes the shape of your body,” Williams said.
