Excuse Me While I Throw Up This Meal: How Media Creates Fear of Fatness in Females
...g to that pressure and taking any necessary means to alleviate it. This nonchalant attitude is most aptly seen in a commercial not for a weight loss solution, but for Coca-Cola. Notable Hollywood actress Salma Hayek plays the lead, donning a stunning red dress, accentuating her tiny, curvaceous figure. She is seen gorging plates of unhealthy food in the back of a kitchen and guzzling a Coca-Cola. She wipes her mouth and saunters into the dining area where she sits with a table of guests. When her artistically designed, and miniscule, meal comes to the table she politely refuses the waiter and whispers to her guests, “I’m watching my figure.” Her company looks at her in bemusement, except for the lone female who scoffs and turns her head away. This commercial is meant to be seen as joke and many may laugh. However those prone to and already battling eating disorders can read this commercial in an incredibly dangerous way. The actress is hiding her unhealthy eating from others and then refusing a meal in public. Not only is the audience shown that this is how Hayek keeps the “perfect body”, but also that consuming large portions and fatty foods is an act that is important to hide. In a way this message reinforces societal gender roles that portray hearty, ample appetites for males, while females are encouraged through media images to be petite with minimal appetites and diets. Hayek eats a seemingly generous amount of food, yet does so behind the scenes while maintaining the traditional image of self-restraint and body consciousness in front of guests and the public. The female dinner guest that scoffs and turns her head may be jealous of Hayek’s seeming self-control, but moreover appalled by her foolish antics. While all the men are amazed by the celebrity’s eating habits, the female is confused and angered by Hayek’s ability to laugh off the fact that she skips meals, which is incredibly unhealthy and unsafe. This woman may very well realize the detrimental effects that starving the body of food can produce, and has no humor toward Hayek’s unhealthy attitude and lifestyle. She may also scoff because while she knows this lifestyle is dangerous, she also realizes that it is practically required of Hayek, and other celebrities, in order to appease media standards, which in turn helps to maintain their status. The Coke commercial is just one of many depictions in mass media that reflects the demand for the “perfect body.” Hayek is “showing her secrets” to weight and image control, and if she has an ideal body (by societal standards) then her secrets must be the same as other celebrities. Hayek is then an extension of Hollywood, a kind of bubbly mascot for the dark celebrity underworld; making light of a dire situation involving media pressures, celebrities and seemingly forced unhealthy ways of life. It is easy to see how today’s society is helping to promote and encourage eating disorders. It is not only in the extensive coverage of those who are thin, but also in the almost non-existent exposure of obesity that these diseases are reinforced. Being overweight is seen as ugly, disgusting and more recently yet less widespread, as unhealthy. The issue at hand is that obesity is underexposed. The only spotlight it receives is usually in a negative light or in a weight loss success story. Programs like The Dr. Phil show and the countless weight loss ads that overrun television airtime only help to promote the idea that obesity is undesirable. While being overweight are serious health issues for some, for most the desire to lose weight stems from self-image issues that are reinforced by the media. One look at the October cover of popular adolescent magazine “Seventeen” proves that teens of today are pressured to be thin and attractive. “A Cute Butt in 3 Weeks” and “Get a Smaller Waist in 2 Weeks” blast from the cover, and inside are exercises and tips regarding eating habits. Most of these types of articles mention “becoming more attractive” or “burning calories and losing weight.” For adolescent girls, the media is the main source of information about women’s health issues (Commonwealth Fund, 1997) and with 60% of Caucasian middle school girls reading at least one fashion magazine regularly (Levine, 1997) it is easy to see how mass media is creating the context within which America’s youth is learning to place a value on the size and shape of their body. The pressures to be thin obviously come in many forms from the mass media, but another theory is that these eating disorders are partly to blame on the individual and his or her characteristics. The reasons for eating disorders largely stem from outside pressures (i.e. the media) that reinforce an already weak self-image (where this weak self-image comes from is debatable), the need to fulfill a desired image and maximize success, or the desire for control. While some can easily start and stop their eating disorders, for many others this is not a possibility. What makes it easy for some to turn on and off that switch ...