Body Image

Being healthy is more about what you do than what you look like

uncchsmediaLeave a comment

This blog post was originally published on March 5, 2015.

If I asked 10 different people what physical health looks like, do you think I would get the same answer? My guess is I would actually get 10 different answers largely because there is no one right answer.

The purpose of this blog is not to try and change your mind about what it looks like to be physically healthy, but rather to suggest that using body image and weight as an indicator of health is misguided. Being healthy is not about how you look, but rather what you do. What you do in your everyday life often plays a very large role in determining your what the real important health indicators like blood sugar levels, triglycerides (fat content in blood), LDL cholesterol, and many others will be.

I think it is time that we start to shift our attention from what people look like to what they do when we think about health. There are so many factors that contribute to health and there are also many things out of our control, but what is in our control, at least somewhat, is whether you try and live a healthy lifestyle.

Body Snark Free Zone Sign by Treacle Tart (flickr creative commons)
Body Snark Free Zone Sign by Treacle Tart (flickr creative commons)

So what does this mean? This means that you cannot always tell if someone is healthy or not by just looking at them. But—and I say this with a big but– the majority of research shows that being extremely overweight or extremely underweight can be very harmful for your health. We also should maybe rethink how we look at individuals whose weight falls somewhere in between these two extremes and even reconsider what we would be considered overweight. I say this because last year, a large study showed that people that are overweight actually live longer than people who are “normal” weights. I also say this because in the middle of these two extremes is a very large group of people that could, or could not be very healthy but we really cannot tell just by looking at them. What it comes down to is that the deciding factor is what people do in their everyday lives (and genetics), not what they look like. I think if we started to be more concerned with things like how physically active people are, how much sleep they get, and the food they eat (in addition to many other things) instead of what they look like, we as a society could do a better job at not stigmatizing people for being either over or underweight.

I would like to emphasize that I am not saying to be whatever size you want because as I said earlier, there is very good evidence to show that this can be very harmful to health. What I am saying is let’s worry more about eating real food, food that has not been overly processed, and exercising in moderation among many other daily activities, and let’s worry less about what size we should be. This means that being “skinny” even if you can eat whatever you want without exercising, does not make you healthy. But it also means for people that get the recommended amount of exercise and eat real food in reasonable amounts, but still weigh more than society says you should, that’s ok.

I think the bottom line is we need to be real with ourselves, and stop using what we look like to determine our health. What we look like in a mirror is meaningless if we are not doing what we should be doing to promote physical health, and vice versa. Let’s start trying to live our lives in a healthier way and use that to measure our health instead of the numbers we see on a scale.

What is Weight Bias and How Does it Effect YOU?

Natalie RichLeave a comment

This week is weight stigma awareness week. Last week, I attended a lecture about Health At Every Size, a new movement that encourages acceptance of all body shapes and sizes and recognizes that health and weight are not necessarily correlated.

That’s right: WEIGHT is NOT correlated with HEALTH.

This shocked me, because the messages I’ve received are that smaller bodies are healthier than larger bodies…right?

But it turns out those messages are not true. The result of a 2013 meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed the people categorized as overweight or obese, according to BMI, actually have LOWER mortality risk than those in the normal BMI range.

And yet, the line between health and weight is so clearly drawn that many of us can’t help but make the assumption…

Skinny = Healthy

Fat = Unhealthy

Imagine that you were sitting at Lenoir or Starbucks with some friends, looking at the photo below in a magazine or online. What are people saying?

thin woman
“Models photo shoot” by David Yu, Flickr Creative Commons

Now, imagine ya’ll are looking at this photo. What are people saying?

Large woman wearing floral dress and coat
“It’s been awhile” by Amber Karnes, Flickr Creative Commons

What is weight bias and where does it come from?

These assumptions are examples of weight bias. The Binge Eating Disorder Association defines weight bias as “negative judgment based on weight, shape, and/or size.” It can be both explicit and implicit, and it leads to weight stigma, or internalized shame resulting from weight bias.

Weight bias stems from a culture that inaccurately equates thinness with health, happiness, and success. Add to that the growing “war on obesity” which has become a war on obese people, and it is clear that weight bias is increasingly pervasive.

Unfortunately, it also starts young and often in the home: in one study, 47% of overweight girls and 34% of overweight boys were teased about their weight by family members. Many parents who struggle with their body image subconsciously pass this on to their kids, while others try intentionally not to.

What about weight bias for the thin folks (aka “thin-shaming”)?

I have written a few blogs about body image, and I try to veer away from promoting one body type over another, because thin people face assumptions that they are stuck up or vain or that they have an eating disorder. Songs like “All About That Bass” and campaigns like “Real Women Have Curves” send a negative message to thin women, and I’m not okay with that.

But…

When it comes to weight bias, people with large bodies have it worse. And here’s why:

People with large bodies don’t just face stigma from fat jokes, they also face discrimination. Weight discrimination has increased 66% over the past decade, making it comparable to rates of racial discrimination, especially among women.

Here are some of the inequities:

Education—compared to nonobese children, obese children are

  • Perceived as less likely to succeed by teachers and principals
  • Less likely to be admitted to college with comparable academic performance
  • Less likely to attend college
  • Subject to teasing and bullying which leads to increased absences and depression

Employment—compared to nonobese adults, obese individuals face

  • Lower employment with comparable qualifications and skills
  • Lower wages (1% to 6% less than nonobese employees)
  • Negative bias in performance evaluations

Health—compared to nonobese patients, obese patients experience

  • Negative stereotypes among health care professionals
  • Less time with their physicians
  • Increased depression, lower self esteem, and negative body image

In an earlier blog, I talked about how body shame hurts us all. And it does. However, the shame associated with larger bodies comes with a large dose of discrimination that affects people’s ability to get into college, get a job and get paid fairly, and get the medical attention they need. And that’s the real shame.

Help fight weight stigma by

  • Avoiding media that supports weight bias and weight stigma; read positive media like Yoga Body Project or join the Health At Every Size movement
  • Recognizing that body shame negatively affects everyone—large or small—but it results in some serious inequities for people with larger bodies
  • Taking Embody Carolina’s training to learn more about eating disorders and the healthy weight myth
  • Reading more about thin privilege and fat acceptance

Being healthy is more about what you do than what you look like

jedediahwoodLeave a comment

If I asked 10 different people what physical health looks like, do you think I would get the same answer? My guess is I would actually get 10 different answers largely because there is no one right answer.

The purpose of this blog is not to try and change your mind about what it looks like to be physically healthy, but rather to suggest that using body image and weight as an indicator of health is misguided. Being healthy is not about how you look, but rather what you do. What you do in your everyday life often plays a very large role in determining your what the real important health indicators like blood sugar levels, triglycerides (fat content in blood), LDL cholesterol, and many others will be.

I think it is time that we start to shift our attention from what people look like to what they do when we think about health. There are so many factors that contribute to health and there are also many things out of our control, but what is in our control, at least somewhat, is whether you try and live a healthy lifestyle.

Body Snark Free Zone Sign by Treacle Tart (flickr creative commons)
Body Snark Free Zone Sign by Treacle Tart (flickr creative commons)

So what does this mean? This means that you cannot always tell if someone is healthy or not by just looking at them. But—and I say this with a big but– the majority of research shows that being extremely overweight or extremely underweight can be very harmful for your health. We also should maybe rethink how we look at individuals whose weight falls somewhere in between these two extremes and even reconsider what we would be considered overweight. I say this because last year, a large study showed that people that are overweight actually live longer than people who are “normal” weights. I also say this because in the middle of these two extremes is a very large group of people that could, or could not be very healthy but we really cannot tell just by looking at them. What it comes down to is that the deciding factor is what people do in their everyday lives (and genetics), not what they look like. I think if we started to be more concerned with things like how physically active people are, how much sleep they get, and the food they eat (in addition to many other things) instead of what they look like, we as a society could do a better job at not stigmatizing people for being either over or underweight.

I would like to emphasize that I am not saying to be whatever size you want because as I said earlier, there is very good evidence to show that this can be very harmful to health. What I am saying is let’s worry more about eating real food, food that has not been overly processed, and exercising in moderation among many other daily activities, and let’s worry less about what size we should be. This means that being “skinny” even if you can eat whatever you want without exercising, does not make you healthy. But it also means for people that get the recommended amount of exercise and eat real food in reasonable amounts, but still weigh more than society says you should, that’s ok.

I think the bottom line is we need to be real with ourselves, and stop using what we look like to determine our health. What we look like in a mirror is meaningless if we are not doing what we should be doing to promote physical health, and vice versa. Let’s start trying to live our lives in a healthier way and use that to measure our health instead of the numbers we see on a scale.

WORKOUT WEDNESDAY: A Beautiful Body is a Masterpiece. Your Masterpiece.

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The following fantastic article was written by Jordan Lee for the UNC 2015 Body Beautiful Project. Jordan is a Fitness Graduate Assistant for Campus Recreation and is a second year master’s student in the Exercise Physiology program.

A beautiful body is a masterpiece. Your masterpiece.
A beautiful body is individual and unique in that it literally can’t be like anything else. It is original and independent. It has no loyalty to the preordained, finds joy in the potential for change, but exists as a delicacy.
A beautiful body always juggles its strengths and weaknesses. It admires room for improvement but doesn’t injure itself with intentional pain. A beautiful body is a canvas for development, decorated with the impact of both disasters and dreams.
A beautiful body seeks and explores its limits, but is conscious of absurdity. It is both nourished and occasionally indulgent, but lacks intention to seek drought as balance. By the grace of self-perseverance, a beautiful body salutes dangerous frontiers.
A beautiful body collaborates with both the extravagant and the mundane. It is creative and curious, learning the lessons of mistakes and the glory of discoveries. It does not gloat in the spotlight nor undermine it’s own success. It is able to step up or step aside, but never surrender.
A beautiful body grits its teeth and lies perfectly still. It is dedicated to challenge itself as a precious machine, yet it finds peace and repair in the silence of nothing.
A beautiful body is attentive to the vivacity of laughter and the depths of tears. It is thankful for the repair reflected in scars, but does not dismiss or forget their birth. A beautiful body is dynamic and malleable, experiencing the pull of a strong-will and the tremors of fear. It brims with self-purpose, even when mute.
A beautiful body is bold but patient. It seeks novelty and endures struggle, but never abandons its intrinsic flame. It venerates opportunity and obligation, even in the face of mystery. Without excuses as a crutch, it takes a conscious oath to respect, nurture, grow and protect the fragile life beneath the skin.
A beautiful body is inextinguishable, thriving, and is an entity of its own. It is everlasting. Granted with the most precious privilege there is, a beautiful body holds itself accountable. For its own sake and not for you or me.
Because responsibility is the cornerstone of beauty.

Forbidden Fruit: Black Women and Eating Disorders

kenalwLeave a comment
(“Black Ana on Scale-1969” by Tiffany Gholar, Flickr, Creative Commons)
(“Black Ana on Scale-1969” by Tiffany Gholar, Flickr, Creative Commons)

Typically, when we think about those that suffer from eating disorders the image of young, privileged, white females clouds our minds. This stereotype prevails due to the vast amount of literature and media that reflects Western mainstream thin ideals that are often portrayed by White women. Narratives of how young women of color are supposedly not affected by White beauty ideals and the lack of diversity on informational resources and eating disorder treatment facility web pages help paint the picture that eating disorders for black and brown women simply do not exist.

Many assume that women of color, specifically Black women are immune to developing eating disorders which can lead to these women being overlooked by friends and family and/or misdiagnosed by physicians. Ultimately, this means not getting the help they need, which increases their mortality and morbidity rates.

Biases within the Black community also contribute to the lack of awareness. With the high rate of obesity in the Black community, worried Black parents often communicate with their daughters about the importance of watching their weight, which unfortunately can lead to an obsession with weight for a young Black girl. However, a common assumption is that black women are more accepting of having a larger body type, especially with the rise of hit songs like Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda.

But what happens when a young Black woman does not fit this voluptuous mold?

Body dissatisfaction and using eating as a coping mechanism can develop in response to not fitting into this mold. Women of color that are highly acculturated, or have adopted the beliefs and values of Western culture, have been found to have a greater risk of developing an eating disorder.

For Black women on a predominately White campus, identifying with White standards of beauty may lead to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating.

Black women are often underrepresented in eating disorder research and often times the signs and symptoms of eating disorders are unknown within the Black community. So, it may seem like Black women affected by the disease aren’t a significant problem when compared to White women. However, Black women have been found to suffer just as much from Binge Eating Disorder as White and Latina women.

Eating disorders are so often suffered in secrecy, so this February while observing National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, let’s keep in mind that one of the biggest kept secrets of this disease is that it does not discriminate against anyone.

If you or someone you know struggles with food and/or body image concerns be sure to check out Nutrition Services, Campus Health and/or CAPS.

Cat-calling: It’s NOT a compliment

kenalwLeave a comment
"20140404-123815"Paul Weaver. Flickr Creative Commons
“20140404-123815″Paul Weaver. Flickr Creative Commons

Ever spent countless hours going from store to store in search of that perfect piece to complete your vision for tonight’s special event? For me, there’s no better feeling than getting all dressed up and seeing the masterpiece in the mirror you’ve hunted high and low for. However, getting all dressed up can be a double-edged sword: the end goal is to feel good about yourself in your attire, however it can also come with seeking validation from others. We typically want someone to notice all of the effort we put into our ensemble, like a simple “You look nice.” We don’t, however, wish to hear something crass, like the sexualized comments we might hear from passersby on the street, otherwise known as cat-calling, or unwanted provocative verbal comments, whistles or gestures usually from men directed towards women.

Oftentimes, beauty ads for products that are meant for women, such as handbags and makeup, are not actually geared towards women. Instead, they are geared towards what heterosexual men find attractive with the assumption that heterosexual women will want to buy these items to attract men. We all subconsciously gain our social cues from ads like these, including men, who may take cues on how men relate to women. Unfortunately, mass media often portrays women as sexualized objects for viewing pleasure, negatively affecting how men may choose to communicate with women in their daily lives. Ironically the term “cat-calling” is blatantly reflective of women being viewed as sex objects; a kitten or cat in this case. Using this perspective, it becomes possible to see how cat-calls can become a part of our social interactions. Not only do unwanted comments about one’s body have an impact on how you view others, it also can shape how you view yourself. These types of comments can impact your emotional wellbeing in terms of developing a negative sense of self or deflated body-image.

So what can we do?

  • Become a critical consumer of media. There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the viral video of a woman’s perspective on being cat-called, and even more responses to this video. It is so important to actively engage in analyzing how media affects us emotionally and socially to start a dialogue and raise awareness. Click here for more info on becoming a critical media consumer.
  • “KIC and KIM”: “Keep it Cordial and Keep it Moving.” Like the old saying goes, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.” And if you feel like what you have to say may make someone feel threatened or unsafe—or if you wouldn’t want someone saying that thing to your friend/partner/relative—don’t say it either.
  • Sometimes cat-calling can lead to seriously unwanted attention that can become dangerous—for example, stalking, harassment and/or sexual violence. If you or someone you know has experienced this, the Women’s Center and CAPS can offer support.

‘Weigh’ed Down by Discrimination: The Truth about Weight Bias

Natalie RichLeave a comment

This week is weight stigma awareness week. Last week, I attended UNC’s Smash TALK, an open discussion with leading eating disorder experts, and I was shocked to learn that weight stigma is much more than the brief sting of hearing the words “you’re fat.”

Imagine that you were sitting at Lenoir or Starbucks with some friends, looking at the photo below in a magazine or online. What are people saying?

Thin woman wearing black shirt and jeans
“Models photo shoot” by David Yu, Flickr Creative Commons

 

Now, imagine ya’ll are looking at this photo. What are people saying?

Large woman wearing floral dress and coat
“It’s been awhile” by Amber Karnes, Flickr Creative Commons

 

We did a similar exercise at the Smash TALK event, and it really illustrated the assumptions we make around body size. The thin-framed woman drew words like hot, confident, disciplined, healthy, social, popular, and vain. The large-framed woman was described as both happy and unhappy, weak-willed, lazy, lonely, not-as-popular.

Wow. That’s a lot of assumptions based on one photo and NO interaction.

 

Where do these assumptions come from?

These assumptions are clear examples of weight bias. The Binge Eating Disorder Association defines weight bias as “negative judgment based on weight, shape, and/or size.” It can be both explicit and implicit, and it leads to weight stigma, or internalized shame resulting from weight bias.

Weight bias stems from a culture that inaccurately equates thinness with health, happiness, and success. Add to that the growing “war on obesity” which has become a war on obese people, and it is clear that weight bias is increasingly pervasive.

Unfortunately, it also starts young and often in the home: in one study, 47% of overweight girls and 34% of overweight boys were teased about their weight by family members. Many parents who struggle with their body image subconsciously pass this on to their kids, while others try intentionally not to.

 

What about weight stigma for the skinny folks?

I have written a few blogs about body image, and I try to veer away from promoting one body type over another, because thin people face assumptions that they are stuck up or vain or that they have an eating disorder. Songs like “All About That Bass” and campaigns like “Real Women Have Curves” send a negative message to thin women, and I’m not okay with that.

But…

When it comes to weight stigma, people with large bodies have it worse. And here’s why:

People with large bodies don’t just face stigma from fat jokes, they also face discrimination. Weight discrimination has increased 66% over the past decade, making it comparable to rates of racial discrimination, especially among women.

 

Here are some of the inequities:

 

Education—compared to nonobese children, obese children are

  • Perceived as less likely to succeed by teachers and principals
  • Less likely to be admitted to college with comparable academic performance
  • Less likely to attend college
  • Subject to teasing and bullying which leads to increased absences and depression

 

Employment—compared to nonobese adults, obese individuals face

  • Lower employment with comparable qualifications and skills
  • Lower wages (1% to 6% less than nonobese employees)
  • Negative bias in performance evaluations

 

 

Health—compared to nonobese patients, obese patients experience

  • Negative stereotypes among health care professionals
  • Less time with their physicians
  • Increased depression, lower self esteem, and negative body image

 

In an earlier blog, I talked about how body shame hurts us all. And it does. However, the shame associated with larger bodies comes with a large dose of discrimination that affects people’s ability to get into college, get a job and get paid fairly, and get the medical attention they need. And that’s the real shame.

 

Help fight weight stigma by

  • Avoiding media that supports weight bias and weight stigma; read positive media like Yoga Body Project or join the Health At Every Size movement
  • Recognizing that body shame negatively affects everyone—large or small—but it results in some serious inequities for people with larger bodies
  • Taking Embody Carolina’s training to learn more about eating disorders and the healthy weight myth
  • Reading more about thin privilege and fat acceptance

WORKOUT Wednesday: I Hope That One Day My Kids Don’t Believe In “Normal” Body Types

HealthyHeelsLeave a comment

If you have no idea what specific event I’m referring to in the title, I’m proud of you. Obviously you’ve been a having lovely summer away from social media. However, I will now bring up the topic that countless others have doubtlessly already written about over the past few days: the 2014 Miss America Pageant. One contestant has received special attention this year for something that I find a bit unusual; she has been both praised and insulted for flaunting a “normal body type” in the swimsuit portion of the Miss America competition.

Even though I didn’t even know that the pageant had happened until it was over, the barrage of talk about Miss Indiana, Mekayla Diehl, was inescapable. I’m not writing to express my approval, my disapproval, or frustration. I’m writing to express a hope that I never realized I had until I read comments that other people made about a Miss America Pageant contestant. Who knew?

I’m not including a picture of Miss Indiana because copyrights are frustrating and I figured that if you want to see what thousands of Twitter users consider a “normal” body type and what thousands of other Twitter users don’t, you’re only a Google image search away. I will explain why I think her body caused such a stir, however. The Miss America Pageant is, in the most basic terms, a beauty pageant. The girls who compete in it typically have a very predictable, similar body shape. This year, one girl had a body shape just the slightest bit different from the others; perhaps her waist curved in slightly less from her chest and hips than the others, her legs were a bit more muscular, and if she sat down, her stomach might compress into the natural softness that most people have and like to pretend like they don’t. I thought she looked extremely fit, and personally, I thought she was beautiful, but I thought it was a little odd that she was lauded not for being especially fit or beautiful, but for being “normal.”

And after about the twentieth time I read the word “normal,” sometimes in quotation marks and sometimes without, I realized that as a woman who hopes to be a mother some day in the future, I hope that my children don’t really believe in the word “normal” in the way others want us to believe it. Sons or daughter, I hope they are quick to realize that “perfection,” “beauty,” and “normalcy,” are, like so many other things in this life, entirely relative and impossible to truly define.

I hope they realize that magazine covers are photoshopped, and that that’s fine and they can enjoy them and still realize that it’s not reality. I hope that they realize that no matter how much we are told to “love our own bodies” amidst the storm of media images, it is entirely natural to still have moments of jealousy and frustration when you wish you could change something about yourself. I think that the more honest that we are about the way we feel and think, the more those who look up to us will realize that their frustrations and fears only follow the pattern of human nature. Someone will always want to be thinner and leave a store wishing that they could fit into the clothes made for narrow hips and straight shapes. At the exact same time, someone else will leave the same store upset that said store doesn’t even sell their bra size, because a B cup is their smallest in stock. They wish for the fuller, curvy figure that another wishes to give away.

That’s the problem. These two people are hypothetical, yet at the same time they’re entirely real. Is either one of them normal? For me, the answer is no. I want my kids to know that neither one of them deserves to be praised for the way they look in a bikini more than the other. I wish that instead of judging, people could look at someone and have a glimpse, for even a second, of the way someone who loves that person sees them.

If we’re being honest, I would think that the majority of those people who saw Miss Indiana and viewed her shape as the “normal” body shape probably had a body shape very similar to Miss Indiana. I’m not saying that they are at fault for that at all. I’m saying that we have a natural inclination to want to believe that we are the way that we should be. As much as we talk and joke about hipsters, there are many, many people who have the underlying desire to be normal, because not to be “normal” implies strange, weird, or freaky. For the rest of the world that is shaped absolutely nothing like Miss Indiana, calling her “normal” feels like an insult.

Parents have the great responsibility to teach their children. I can only hope that if I have the opportunity to be a parent one day, I will be able to raise children who don’t believe in “normal,” but who do believe that they are beautiful. I hope that I can teach a son that a girl doesn’t have to look any particular kind of way or wear any specific thing to be pretty. I hope I can teach a daughter that nice abs and nice clothes or a chiseled jawline will never be as attractive on a man as the ability to make you feel special. Out of all of the things that someone could appreciate about me, one of the last ones I would pick is normalcy. I refuse to believe in normal the way I refuse to believe in taco salad without sour cream: for some people it exists but for me it doesn’t, and that’s fine by me. 🙂

 

This post was written by Emily Wheeler at Campus Recreation. Emily is a sophomore Biology-Hispanic Linguistics double major at UNC Chapel Hill. She’s passionate about helping people realize that they can become happier by becoming healthier and that our small daily choices affect our health in big, long-term ways. Her favorite forms of exercise are swimming and yoga, and she is slowly becoming more acquainted with and fond of weightlifting.  Her favorite color is green, and she says she is too uncoordinated to be any good at any sport that requires a ball, and her favorite food to eat at any time of the day or night is waffles.  Waffle House waffles, to be more specific.  (She’s not going to lie to you and say that her favorite food is broccoli.)

Why Strong is Not the New Skinny

Natalie Rich5 Comments

baby strongBecause, like many women, my body is not strong. It’s soft. If I work really hard, I can do push-ups and I can run really far. I can work to be strong. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was born into a body that is not naturally strong. At least not in that chiseled-lean-muscle way. Think about how newborn babies can’t hold their heads up or control their body movements–that’s because muscles are something that develop over time when we train them.

But soft is not the new skinny either. Neither is fat. Or thick. Or curvy. Or bootylicious. Or boobalicious. Or tall. Or short. Nope.

None of those things is the new skinny. Why? Because replacing one “ideal” physical characteristic with another does nothing to solve the problem of body dissatisfaction. I understand the appeal of using “strong” instead of “skinny” to create an ideal, an aspiration. Who doesn’t want to be strong?

Actually, our bodies are already strong. As strong, or stronger than a man’s (childbirth–hello!). But most women’s bodies are not strong in the bench-press-a-million-pounds-rock-hard-abs kinda way. (And most men’s bodies aren’t cut like male models in the mag photos either.)

So, we have traded a demure, fragile, thin ideal of women’s bodies for a traditionally masculine-muscle-y ideal. So what? What’s the big deal?

1) It perpetuates the idea that we have to strive towards a pre-determined ideal, rather than self-acceptance.

No singular physical form encompasses beauty. If strong is the new skinny, what about the soft women? If real women have curves, what about the women without them? If a product has to be “strong enough for a man,” what does that say about our definition of masculinity?

Lauding one type of body over all others inevitably leaves people out; it is purposely exclusive rather than inclusive. But it goes deeper than body image. If a “real woman” must have curves or a product has to be specially made to be “strong enough” for a man, that means there is only one way that a woman—or man—should look and act in order to be attractive, accepted, loved. When we measure ourselves against the ideal and find we fall short, the real message becomes: you are not good enough. And that’s just wrong.

2) The “strong” ideal equates beauty with masculine physical ideals, which only perpetuates the degradation of “feminine” qualities.

strongTrying to get women to look and act more like what we expect of men is not progress. Imagine the flipside: targeting men with messages like: “Soft is the new strong” “Vulnerability is the new power” “Tears are the new sweat”. Why aren’t we peppered with these types of messages? Because we are trapped in a gender binary that categorizes certain qualities as feminine (compassion, vulnerability, sensitivity) and masculine (strength, power, courage), and it’s the masculine qualities that we tend to idolize. But the truth is, these qualities are not inherently masculine or feminine, because no matter our gender or sex at birth, we are all born with sensitivity AND strength, vulnerability AND courage. And forgetting that is a disservice to us all.

Besides, “strong is the new skinny” is a farce. Look at the women in strong is the new skinny pictures–the skinny is still there. With a thin layer of muscle over it.

This Week at UNC – NEDAwareness & Body Beautiful

HealthyHeelsLeave a comment

by Ben Smart, Campus RecreationHands holding quote - "Be you. Find you. Be happy with that."There’s something new happening right now at UNC. From February 23rd to March 1st, UNC is celebrating NEDAwareness Week.

The mission of NEDAwareness week is to raise awareness of and to prevent eating disorders and negative body image issues. In short, this week is all about maintaining a positive mindset towards your body. There are several events each day, so make time this week to learn more about these issues, but more importantly – to learn more about yourself.

Event schedule for NEDAwareness week (February 23rd – March 1st):

Monday:

  • All day – Mirrors will be covered in the SRC for “Mirrorless Mondays”

Tuesday:

  • 12-1:30 pm – Chobani samples will be available at Lenoir Mainstreet
  • 6:30-7:30 pm – “Smoothin’ Out the Psyche,” a presentation on body image and healthy eating habits will be featured in Ehringhaus

Wednesday:

  • 8 pm – A candle light service featuring acapella groups and speakers will take place in the Pit

Thursday:

  • 6-7 pm – Lenoir Hall will host a healthy cooking demonstration
  • 7-8 pm – Body kind yoga will take place in the SRC

Come see us at our tables to learn more about how our bodies are truly beautiful!:

  • Everyday from 4-7 pm in the SRC
  • Monday & Wednesday from 10 am-2 pm in the Pit

Why is this week so important? Let’s look at the facts. An estimated 24 million Americans of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder. Furthermore, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. For the health and sanity of our friends and neighbors, the events this week are of paramount importance.

I spoke with Colleen Daly, fitness instructor and positive body image advocate, about NEDAwareness Week. “I love NEDAW because it brings an issue to light that is extremely important and all too often falls to the wayside,” said Colleen. In the past, Colleen has been front and center as a motivator for students struggling with body image issues, leading groups like Embody Carolina. “My role in this week’s program has primarily been connecting departments, brainstorming ideas, gathering and organizing materials, and planning events with the embody team,” Colleen explained. It’s important to realize that NEDAwareness week is beneficial to everyone, not just those suffering from negative body image. “Sometimes we can’t understand what others are going through – eating disorders are no exception. In order to be an effective ally, we have to acknowledge the problem and utilize the resources that are available.” Colleen is right – these issues deserve our attention to help the millions who are suffering.

Set aside time this week and go to several events for NEDAwareness. If you are busy – pick just one. Chances are, you will learn something. Not to mention, someone you know may be suffering from an eating disorder. Be an ally.

Join the conversation at #UNCbodybeautiful

https://www.facebook.com/events/694002873954885/

image courtesy of Embody Carolina​