Way back in 1966, long before many of you were born or even thought
of as an idea, your lives took a definite turn. I was a sophomore in
college and Leslie Hornby was just a freshman or probably not even in
college - in England. That was the year she was voted "British Woman of
the Year" and named "The Face of 1966". But it actually wasn't her face
that changed everything. It was her body. You can check her out online.
Her nickname, of course, was/is Twiggy - because her body was like a
twig. One of the, if not the, earliest supermodels, Twiggy maybe caused,
or maybe evidenced what I believe has been the most destructive and
craziest changes in what at least is in the western world, but pretty
much is actually now world-wide - she was held out as a body ideal
presented to girls and young women to emulate. Note the year. Some of
you remember it. 1966. Note the year. If it didn't directly influence
you, it most certainly influenced your parents. This thin and basically
androgynous looking girl became what girls and women were told they
should look like. It became what parents thought their daughters should
look like. Why did this happen? The answers are complicated and complex.
But that it happened is very real and the impact he had was also so
very real. I mean it, the impact was that your life most likely took a
very definite turn. Even if you were not yet born or conceived
of....here was the look .....  And as you can see, the Twiggy prototype continues today with Versace supermodels such as : Pursuit
of a ridiculous and unhealthy and unattainable ideal...in search of a
beauty that doesn't come...ending in eating disorders and self-loathing
and depression... And so we come now to you and body image. And we come now to these specific issues: accuracy of body image; and esteem of body image... *************************************************************************************** To
whit. Here is what you need to know about self-esteem theory and
self-esteem measurement (please feel free to learn more than this- there
is a lot of interesting stuff to learn, but the following is what you
need to know for our discussion). . Self-image: How you see yourself Self-ideal: How you think you should be Positive self esteem:
Results from a positive correlation between self-image and self-ideal.
The closer how I see myself is to how or who I think I should be, the
more positively I feel about myself. Negative self-esteem:
Results from a negative correlation between self-image and self-ideal.
The further how I see myself is from how or who I think I should be, the
more negatively I feel about myself. Applied
to body image: The correlation between my body image and my body ideal
results in how I feel about my body. If I have a positive body image, it
is because my body image and my body ideal are pretty close. If I have a
negative body image, it is because my body image and my body ideal are
pretty far apart. I am betting that makes sense. Right? Kool. *************************************************************************************** So
then. So many of you have the experience of looking back to pictures of
yourself as a child - at a time when you were told you were fat - and
think now, "I wasn't fat." I really wasn't. Why did she say I was fat?
Why did I think I was fat? Why did I think I was so hideously fat and
ugly??? I am here to say that it is in part because of Twiggy. I am here
to say that with our/your culture holding out an ideal (which becomes a
self-ideal) that you are fat if you don't look like Twiggy...and if you
have a body that is actually normal and which looks like your tribe is
supposed to look...then you end up with a negative body image by virtue
of the disparity between image and ideal. It's Twiggy's fault. Please think about this. What is your body image? How accurate is it? I can tell you that I,
for example, am still often startled when I see a picture of myself and
notice the man has white hair. I have even begun noticing he doesn't
actually have all that much hair at all...Body image is often not all
that accurate - because of changes that are not kept up with -because of
changes not wanted - because of it being ignored. How is yours? If you
take a quick mental snap shot of how you see yourself and then weight
the person in that snapshot, do they way what you do today? Does it
matter? Why? What is your body ideal? Is it what you think it should be? Why or why
not? Is your body image ideal primarily visual? Do you think it should
be? Why or why not? These are the kinds of issues ahead for us. |
