Here's an excerpt from an article written by Susie Orbach that appeared in the International Journal of Epidemiology. It seems concerning that along with the hope of prosperity and opportunity, America is exporting its obsession with "thinness" and its preoccupation with body image.
"We now know unequivocally that the result of their promotion of thin is having serious psychological and physical impacts on girls and women. Consider for the moment one of the hidden aspects of global culture: the export of body insecurity and body hatred throughout the world. In 1995 TV, with mainly US programming, was introduced to Fiji, a country not known to have eating and body image problems. Three years later, 11.9% of teenage Fijian girls were found to be bulimic. Anne Becker identifies this phenomenon as a move towards perceived modernity and upward mobility on the part of Fijian teenage girls. To be part of the new global village, girls believe that they need a body that approximates the ones they see on their televisions and billboard. They need to be thin."
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/1/67
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ReplyDeleteHello Fijian Group, I think it is crazy how this skinny trend is going all over the world. When I lived in Brazil I had a dancer friend of mine (former ballet dancer) who was so ashamed of how skinny she was. She had that kind of body. Guys didn't like skinny girls, and that is still the going opinion down there. Also when you spoke of this problem with teen girls in Fiji I was reminded of a song by Mahotella and the Mhalatini queens. The singer sing "I want I woman who is tall, fat, with big eyes, and of course beautiful." I always loved those lyrics because they were not made as a statment for the Western audience but a genuine praise of the singers own taste. I wish the European model of beauty would stop invading the rest of the world.
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