All the CRAZYness
My body. It's always been there for me, doing its thing. I've rarely understood all the aspects of it but I can say now that I appreciate it. It hasn't always been that way though. I reached my peak height (5'2") around eight grade and have always wished for an extra couple of inches to stretch out my 'manly' legs. Having been a gymnast for much of my youth, as well as a diver, softball player and volleyball player my legs were (and are) a bit more muscular than I was comfortable with. I've never, ever been the type of thin you see on the T.V. or in magazines, locking in around a size 9/10 for most of my life, and at an early age I determined that the ideal body was unattainable for me. That resignation was a bit depressing during high school. I wondered if it was my body that kept me from being liked by boys. I also had facial acne that was socially crippling for me. I felt like the only girl in school that had pimples.
And then there was the period thing. I got my first period when I was 13 during Christmas vacation, at my grandparents' house in New York with all of my relatives packed into the house. I didn't have many cramps - I still don't really - but discovering the bleeding was a bit of an embarrassment. I knew exactly what it was having sat through four or five sex-ed classes at school and in church, one of which my mother taught. Through my teen years, after the moment my mother first taught me how to use a tampon in my grandparents' bathroom, that feeling of embarrassment plagued 'that time of the month.' There was the constant fear of bleeding through your pants at school and having someone recognize it before you. There was the fear that someone would make the connection between you grabbing your purse while asking to go to the bathroom. Worse yet, the fear that a teacher wouldn't get the message and would refuse you a pass to the bathroom.
Looking back all of that worrying, that fear is ridiculous. Entering my twenties, my period and the rest of my body became monitors of my health. I started taking birth control and was able to experience a certain predictability when it came to my period as well as watch my acne clear up. My body became a partner of mine instead of a source of resistance. Now I consider sexy being able to run a mile without feeling a sharp pain in my side. Sexy is eating foods that are delicious but won't clog my arteries. Sexy is getting through the semester with a 4.0 G.P.A. Sexy is feeling healthy for me, it's not fitting into size 4 jeans or having someone tell me I look like I could model (ha! yeah right). It's about being in touch with my body, mind and spirit.
Unfortunately some of my closest friends have yet to detach themselves from the idea that a perfect body is the key to having everything in your life fall into place. One of my friends is incredibly intelligent (1380 on her SAT!), has a great job and recently bought the most adorable house in Tampa. But her body is still a hang up for her. She recently lost about 20 pounds. She eats powdered peanut butter, where "all the fat is squeezed out of the peanuts." That mindset is scary to me. As Nada Stotland, a professor of psychiatry at Rush Medical College in Chicago and vice president of the American Psychiatric Association said in the USA Today article "Do thin models' warp girls' body image?" models and actresses that are incredibly thin"look scary. They don't look normal." My friend is far from the point of bone-thinness that often signals eating disorders. She is still healthy, running 5K's every weekend, attending graduate school and work. We joke that we could never be anorexic because we love food waaaay to much. Still, the fact that pressed peanut butter and running six miles every day are necessary for her to achieve bodily satisfaction makes me uncomfortable.
My friend's obsession is the obsession of so many girls and women in the U.S. Times have changed, sure. Sex and beauty are no longer the only viable avenues for opportunity for women, although they are still highly valued avenues. More curvaceous women are gaining celebrity, but in the back of many female minds we are still programmed to 'know' the waif-like model is the more desirable female. As the National Institute on Media and the Family reports in their online fact-sheet "Media's Effect On Girls: Body Image And Gender Identity" studies that look "at cartoons, regular television, and commercials show that although many changes have occurred and girls, in particular have a wider range of role models, for girls 'how they look' is more important than 'what they do.'" Much of this stems from the stigma that surrounds everything body-related, with the menstrual period being the ultimate topic shied away from by parents, teachers and even peers of young women. Luckily, my mother was a nurse practitioner and was less timid about the body talk than most parents - as I said before she even taught a sex-ed class for one of my seventh grade religious education classes. But what about the rest of the girls and boys out there who have to rely on playground talk and T.V. and other media to explain their bodies to them and what 'normal' is because the adults in their lives are too scared to speak up? As Amy Hunt writes in her essay "Sleeves" young women are "CRAZY" (Goldwasser 3). But their only CRAZY because of the cycle of silence that pulls girls in all directions when learning about their bodies. As Hunt writes "She's only CRAZY because you've drive her to be faceless and listless, only wants to please and fit."
As I've said before the solution to all this CRAZYness (this is an intentional misspelling) is not taking on the media and all the negative imagery pumped through by it. The media is a mechanism far too big, with too many resources to fall so easily. Rather the effort to appreciate our bodies is grassroots. It starts with a dual education, one that comes from both sides of the spectrum and teaches adults how to appreciate their bodies and healthiness as well as how to teach about the body and guides young people on personal discovery of the body, it's capabilities, it's delightful flaws and it's natural functions. A society that nurtures health as beauty and fosters a connection with the body in all of its members is more likely to bring the "women who do good" to recognition in media as opposed to only the "women who look good" as Audrey Brashich, a former teen model and author of All Made Up: A Girl's Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty, said in the USA Today article "Do thin models' warp girls' body image?" Let's make this a world where doing good surpasses looking good in the eyes of our children.
And then there was the period thing. I got my first period when I was 13 during Christmas vacation, at my grandparents' house in New York with all of my relatives packed into the house. I didn't have many cramps - I still don't really - but discovering the bleeding was a bit of an embarrassment. I knew exactly what it was having sat through four or five sex-ed classes at school and in church, one of which my mother taught. Through my teen years, after the moment my mother first taught me how to use a tampon in my grandparents' bathroom, that feeling of embarrassment plagued 'that time of the month.' There was the constant fear of bleeding through your pants at school and having someone recognize it before you. There was the fear that someone would make the connection between you grabbing your purse while asking to go to the bathroom. Worse yet, the fear that a teacher wouldn't get the message and would refuse you a pass to the bathroom.
Looking back all of that worrying, that fear is ridiculous. Entering my twenties, my period and the rest of my body became monitors of my health. I started taking birth control and was able to experience a certain predictability when it came to my period as well as watch my acne clear up. My body became a partner of mine instead of a source of resistance. Now I consider sexy being able to run a mile without feeling a sharp pain in my side. Sexy is eating foods that are delicious but won't clog my arteries. Sexy is getting through the semester with a 4.0 G.P.A. Sexy is feeling healthy for me, it's not fitting into size 4 jeans or having someone tell me I look like I could model (ha! yeah right). It's about being in touch with my body, mind and spirit.
Unfortunately some of my closest friends have yet to detach themselves from the idea that a perfect body is the key to having everything in your life fall into place. One of my friends is incredibly intelligent (1380 on her SAT!), has a great job and recently bought the most adorable house in Tampa. But her body is still a hang up for her. She recently lost about 20 pounds. She eats powdered peanut butter, where "all the fat is squeezed out of the peanuts." That mindset is scary to me. As Nada Stotland, a professor of psychiatry at Rush Medical College in Chicago and vice president of the American Psychiatric Association said in the USA Today article "Do thin models' warp girls' body image?" models and actresses that are incredibly thin"look scary. They don't look normal." My friend is far from the point of bone-thinness that often signals eating disorders. She is still healthy, running 5K's every weekend, attending graduate school and work. We joke that we could never be anorexic because we love food waaaay to much. Still, the fact that pressed peanut butter and running six miles every day are necessary for her to achieve bodily satisfaction makes me uncomfortable.
My friend's obsession is the obsession of so many girls and women in the U.S. Times have changed, sure. Sex and beauty are no longer the only viable avenues for opportunity for women, although they are still highly valued avenues. More curvaceous women are gaining celebrity, but in the back of many female minds we are still programmed to 'know' the waif-like model is the more desirable female. As the National Institute on Media and the Family reports in their online fact-sheet "Media's Effect On Girls: Body Image And Gender Identity" studies that look "at cartoons, regular television, and commercials show that although many changes have occurred and girls, in particular have a wider range of role models, for girls 'how they look' is more important than 'what they do.'" Much of this stems from the stigma that surrounds everything body-related, with the menstrual period being the ultimate topic shied away from by parents, teachers and even peers of young women. Luckily, my mother was a nurse practitioner and was less timid about the body talk than most parents - as I said before she even taught a sex-ed class for one of my seventh grade religious education classes. But what about the rest of the girls and boys out there who have to rely on playground talk and T.V. and other media to explain their bodies to them and what 'normal' is because the adults in their lives are too scared to speak up? As Amy Hunt writes in her essay "Sleeves" young women are "CRAZY" (Goldwasser 3). But their only CRAZY because of the cycle of silence that pulls girls in all directions when learning about their bodies. As Hunt writes "She's only CRAZY because you've drive her to be faceless and listless, only wants to please and fit."
As I've said before the solution to all this CRAZYness (this is an intentional misspelling) is not taking on the media and all the negative imagery pumped through by it. The media is a mechanism far too big, with too many resources to fall so easily. Rather the effort to appreciate our bodies is grassroots. It starts with a dual education, one that comes from both sides of the spectrum and teaches adults how to appreciate their bodies and healthiness as well as how to teach about the body and guides young people on personal discovery of the body, it's capabilities, it's delightful flaws and it's natural functions. A society that nurtures health as beauty and fosters a connection with the body in all of its members is more likely to bring the "women who do good" to recognition in media as opposed to only the "women who look good" as Audrey Brashich, a former teen model and author of All Made Up: A Girl's Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty, said in the USA Today article "Do thin models' warp girls' body image?" Let's make this a world where doing good surpasses looking good in the eyes of our children.
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