The Shape We're In

In our image-obsessed society beauty is a valuable commodity, so it’s not surprising that Chloe Marshall is making headlines. But the Miss Britain hopeful isn’t just beautiful, she’s a size 16, and that’s news. The fact that a full-figured, beauty pageant finalist creates a ‘stop the presses’ moment vividly demonstrates the fact that larger women are not usually considered ‘fairest of them all’. Open a magazine or newspaper on any other day of the week and the message is loud and clear: thin is in.

It’s a message that women hear loud and clear. And as the average Aussie woman is said to be a size 14, the comparison isn’t great.  A recent Newspoll survey of women aged 18 – 64 revealed that only six percent were ‘very satisfied’ with their looks.  Think about that: 94 percent of Australian women are critical of their appearance. It’s a sobering thought that begs the question – how and why have women become so obsessed with physical appearance?  And why haven’t we wised up and shrugged off the stereotypes?

“If every woman in the world woke up, slapped herself on the head and said: ‘I’m happy with who I am’, entire economies would collapse,” says Jane Caro, an award-winning advertising writer and co-author of The F Word: How We Learned to Swear by Feminism. The author and lecturer believes that the fashion and cosmetic industries have a vested interest in keeping women insecure by presenting an ideal that no woman can hope to achieve. “Advertising isn’t immoral, it’s amoral,” she says. “It responds to where the money and the desire is.”

Logically we know that the perfect women in advertisements, magazines and film are idealised versions of reality, often photoshopped to perfection, but still we agonise over the difference between them and us, often in minute detail.

“In the visual media, women are depicted as objects to be evaluated piece by piece,” says Professor Marika Tiggemann, from Flinders University’s School of Psychology.  “Women see perfection around them and compare themselves bit by bit.” The dissection of the female form in advertising, where bottoms, legs, breasts and mouths are isolated and glorified, is known as ‘bodyism’.  Similarly, women single out aspects of their bodies, typically for negative attention. A recent HealthSmart poll, for example, revealed that women are most critical of their bellies, waists and thighs.

The media is often portrayed as the bogeyman in the body image debate, but experts believe they are only part of the picture.“We blame media for disseminating unrealistic images of women, but they are not the only influence,” says Professor Susan Paxton from La Trobe University’s School of Psychological Science. She says that the media reinforces messages that women are getting from family from an early age.  “There is evidence that by age three, children prefer thin people to those that are not so thin. When given the option of picking a picture of a plump or thin person to be their friend, they opt for a thin person.”