Costumes and Body Image

[Yame]

So who is putting thin people down? The general consensus of the posters on this thread seems to be health is valued above body shape and all natural body shapes are acceptable.

Terms like "walking skeletons," "repulsive," "clothes hangers," "pubescent teen" were thrown around.

Comments about how people should look at thin women and feel bad for them if they look smaller than what would be a "realistic" size.

Plus the photos and drawings of very thin or very muscular women being compared with thicker or "softer" women as if to imply the latter should be the ideal over the former. As if people could not simply appreciate that women come in ALL the above shapes and sizes?

I appreciate that the discussion has remained mostly positive and that most people have a pretty open-minded and realistic attitude towards body image on this board, but if all of the above examples had been reversed (people referring to obese women as "walking pieces of lard" or saying we should assume they are unhealthy and feel sympathy towards them, or throwing around photos of Victoria's Secret models vs. "real women" and implying that the former are more beautiful), we would be up in arms, and with very good reason.

I just don't think it's okay to have a double standard and nothing you said justifies that double standard.

When I was a teen, I went to a doctor about my weight, explained I was only eating once a day, and was still having trouble losing weight. The son of a bitch sneered at me and said he knew people who only ate every third day in order to lose weight. And there I had medical advice to starve my body into submission.

Your doctor's attitude was horrible and I'm sorry you went through that. Sadly, doctors are hardly the experts on good nutrition, and sometimes have no idea how to have tact, either. Receiving comments like that from someone in a position of authority like that, at that age, must have had a really negative impact on your self-esteem, but I hope you didn't listen to him at the time. What an idiot.

Listen, I understand that at this moment in time, in this part of the world, people who are overweight (especially women) are at a severe disadvantage and suffer all kinds of prejudice, MUCH MORE than women who are underweight. I'm not arguing that "model thin" women have it worse, by any means, because they don't. The amount of fat-shaming that I see when people talk about others behind their back, or when they talk about celebrities, or people they see on the street, is alarming.

With that said though women who are very thin also get bullied, teased, and insulted. And even if it happens to a much lesser scale, in a lot of cases nowadays while it is politically incorrect to make comments about a person's weight to their face if they are "too fat," many people still think it's okay to make the same sorts of comments if the person is "too thin," as evidenced by this thread for example.

So the answer is not to transfer those very same prejudices and disadvantages onto thin women. The answer is to embrace the fact that we are NOT just bodies, and to embrace variety in our body types and shapes when we do talk about our bodies.

 

[Yame]

The thread opened with a post about the appalling lengths to which people go to remain unnaturally thin. I've not heard of people dying in attempts to gain weight but dying to get or stay thin- oh, yeah.
(...)

Derogatory comments about body size hurt when a person is "too thin" but society's attitude toward body size can kill when a person is too heavy.

I'd be very careful about using this line of reasoning to justify shaming people for being too thin, because that is precisely the line of reasoning fatphobic people use to oppress and shame people who are overweight.

I don't know of anyone who has died in an attempt to gain weight, but actually so many health problems result from unhealthy eating habits, from eating the junk food which makes many of us fat, which is a much bigger epidemic than anorexia or bulimia. Some people HAVE eaten to death.

You can go to unhealthy extremes on both ends of the scale, and unhealthy extremes at the heavier end of the scale are much more prevalent in the US right now. You will see people using that logic in order to justify bullying of fat people, claiming they are just trying to save them from their own fate, trying to spare them health problems down the road, but really it's just bullying.

So no, it's still not cool to call women "walking skeletons" and say this woman is a "real woman" versus that skinny bitch who needs to eat a sandwich under the guise of discouraging people from dieting to death.


Dove isn't on a campaign to save the world or help women's self esteem. They are trying to sell a product and they figured out a way to appeal to women on a different level from the usual cosmetic brands. Which is great actually, I'm surprised it took people that long to figure out that this sort of marketing would work. And I DO think that girls and women need more realistic and positive role models. We DO need to see a MUCH wider range of looks and sizes portrayed on TV, magazines, etc. So ultimately these sorts of campaigns do help if they are broadening our examples of beauty. I hope that things continue to change in that direction.

What I don't agree with, and where I think we are crossing the line, is when we start comparing women and implying one look is superior to the other... and shaming women for either being too muscular and manly or too thin and boyish. When we start saying this beautiful thick woman is "real" but that skinny woman is ugly and must be anorexic, that's crossing the line, and I'm not cool with that.

 

[Ariadne]

Terms like "walking skeletons," ... "clothes hangers," "pubescent teen" were thrown around.

That would be me and I was applying it to a very specific group. Do you think that this...

...is a healthy state? I don't, or at the very least that it should not be a standard being held up as an ideal, and yes that is the point that started the thread so it is very pertinent to the discussion. These women are literally starving themselves to work. The "clothes hanger" comparison was made originally by a model herself and the discussion with the phrase had to do with what the designers were creating for. If those things hurt your feelings then I find that rather concerning.

There are three subjects really being discussed here;

• is the media/model/societal ideal harmful,
• what should societies view be,
• and do those involved in bellydance have a healthier view then the general public?

You have just taken all the answers to all of that and scrambled them into one jumbled mess that ends with what sounds like you assuming we all think you are too thin.

I appreciate that the discussion has remained mostly positive and that most people have a pretty open-minded and realistic attitude towards body image on this board, but if all of the above examples had been reversed (people referring to obese women as "walking pieces of lard" or saying we should assume they are unhealthy and feel sympathy towards them, or throwing around photos of Victoria's Secret models vs. "real women" and implying that the former are more beautiful), we would be up in arms, and with very good reason.

I just don't think it's okay to have a double standard and nothing you said justifies that double standard.

You are assuming a negative in the absence of evidence. I don't know a single person who said that the above is unhealthy but to be morbidly obese isn't. That is really the two extremes that should be compared, health-wise BOTH will kill you. I would assume that anyone who is morbidly obese is unhealthy and think that we should have sympathy for those who deal with it. I will say as much to anyone who asks.

You mention the picture I posted and I find it interesting that you don't see what I consider to be the issue it highlights.

The Victoria's Secret ad was titled by them "Love My Body Campaign" and consisted of women who were either extremely thin or extremely fit. Can you even conceive what impression that leaves for most women who cannot ever look like that no matter what they do and could die if they tried? These women already ARE the ideal that society says we ALL should be yet supposedly these women still need to learn to "love their body." On the other hand the Dove Real Women ad consisted of beautiful HEALTHY women who do not look like the societies "ideal" promoted by Victoria's Secret. It is important that women who can never look like the first can see that they can be beautiful too. Can you even see why people would be mad at Victoria's Secret and love the Dove ad? There are plenty of examples of beautiful thin women, we are constantly surrounded by them. Why are you so threatened by one ad campaign that tries to teach women to love themselves and that they are beautiful even though they don't fit that steriotype?

Did you even hear everyone, myself included, that said that the ideal is about being HEALTHY and not weight?

So the answer is not to transfer those very same prejudices and disadvantages onto thin women. The answer is to embrace the fact that we are NOT just bodies, and to embrace variety in our body types and shapes when we do talk about our bodies.

No one has transferred anything (nor called skinny people "bitches" except those defending being thin) in their posts and yet you are calling anyone who says someone eating tissues to stay "skeletally" thin is not healthy and should not be held up as something to be emulated prejudiced? Do you even see the double standard in that? Calling unhealthy weights unhealthy is being realistic. Describing it as what it is (excessively thin) is also being realistic. I don't think you are though if with everything that has been said all you hear is that someone might think you are too thin and think we should all shut up. On the contrary like any serious problem with society we should not only not shut up we should talk about it as publicly as possible until something changes! Being extremely thin or extremely overweight is unhealthy for MOST people and we should be concerned with our HEALTH and not whether we fit some unrealistic visual ideal.

Let me be really clear as to my views of the three subjects above:
1. I think the media/model/societal model is very harmful.
2. I think societies view of "perfection" needs adjusting badly to something more realistic to the majority of women.
3. I do think those who bellydance are more likely to have a more healthy concept of beauty then those who don't.

Let me also say that I do think you are beautiful. I am now concerned about how you may view yourself and the rest of us though.

 

[Yame]

That would be me and I was applying it to a very specific group. Do you think that this...
View attachment 9571View attachment 9572View attachment 9573
...is a healthy state?

For some people, it is. Certain people might have to starve themselves and eat tissues in order to achieve this level of thinness, yet other people look like that simply by eating normally and working out. I am not saying the modeling industry is a healthy industry I want to support, I am just saying that people CAN look like that without starving themselves.

The problem with people on BOTH sides of the spectrum, is that they assume that just because THEY wouldn't be healthy at that weight, that means all or most people at that weight are generally unhealthy. So then you have people saying "model thin" women must be unhealthy, and on the other side you have people saying if you have any amount of body fat at all you must be unhealthy. There are lots of super thin women who are fit and healthy, and lots of obese women who are fit and healthy as well. The range of looks "healthy" can have is waaayyy wider than most people would like to believe.

I don't, or at the very least that it should not be a standard being held up as an ideal, and yes that is the point that started the thread so it is very pertinent to the discussion.

I don't think it should be the ideal, especially since women who look like that are a minority. However it should be presented as a possibility, not an anomaly we should look down on as you implied it should, in a few of your posts prior to this one.

These women are literally starving themselves to work. The "clothes hanger" comparison was made originally by a model herself and the discussion with the phrase had to do with what the designers were creating for. If those things hurt your feelings then I find that rather concerning.

The clothes hanger comment was made by someone on this thread, as were all the other comments I quoted on this thread.

Actually my body type is far from the "clothes hanger" type, so those comments neither hurt my feelings nor do they apply to me. What is more concerning to me is your assumption that just because I am defending a certain group of people, that must mean I feel personally offended. I would have been making these same points (with different examples) if this thread had included posts by people who were making judgments and assumptions about fat people.

None of the posts I made in this thread were about me. Did you notice I did not talk about my personal experiences? Did you notice I did not say anything about feeling personally offended? That was done for a reason. It's because, first of all, I am not offended, and second of all I am not posting here to talk about myself, I am posting here to point out the flaws and hypocrisy in your reasoning. So don't try and make it personal.

You mention the picture I posted and I find it interesting that you don't see what I consider to be the issue it highlights.
View attachment 9574
The Victoria's Secret ad was titled by them "Love My Body Campaign" and consisted of women who were either extremely thin or extremely fit. Can you even conceive what impression that leaves for most women who cannot ever look like that no matter what they do and could die if they tried? These women already ARE the ideal that society says we ALL should be yet supposedly these women still need to learn to "love their body." On the other hand the Dove Real Women ad consisted of beautiful HEALTHY women who do not look like the societies "ideal" promoted by Victoria's Secret. It is important that women who can never look like the first can see that they can be beautiful too. Can you even see why people would be mad at Victoria's Secret and love the Dove ad? There are plenty of examples of beautiful thin women, we are constantly surrounded by them.
Why are you so threatened by one ad campaign that tries to teach women to love themselves and that they are beautiful even though they don't fit that steriotype?

The Victoria's Secret ad consists or beautiful underweight women. The Dove ad consists of beautiful, more average-sized women. Both ads highlight two different kinds of beauty and there is a place for both kinds of beauty (and many many more) in the world.

In all my prior posts, I repeatedly talk about the need for realistic role models, healthy ideals, diversity in the portrayal of women in media. Clearly, I don't take issue with the Dove ad, what I do take issue with are unfair comparisons between certain body types as if all body types could not be appreciated without somebody being put down for the way they look.

Let me be really clear as to my views of the three subjects above:
1. I think the media/model/societal model is very harmful.
2. I think societies view of "perfection" needs adjusting badly to something more realistic to the majority of women.
3. I do think those who bellydance are more likely to have a more healthy concept of beauty then those who don't.

We agree on all above counts.

 

[Shanazel]

I just don't think it's okay to have a double standard and nothing you said justifies that double standard.

Derogatory comments about body size hurt when a person is "too thin" but society's attitude toward body size can kill when a person is too heavy.

I'd be very careful about using this line of reasoning to justify shaming people for being too thin, because that is precisely the line of reasoning fatphobic people use to oppress and shame people who are overweight.

I don't know of anyone who has died in an attempt to gain weight, but actually so many health problems result from unhealthy eating habits, from eating the junk food which makes many of us fat, which is a much bigger epidemic than anorexia or bulimia. Some people HAVE eaten to death.

You have completely misinterpreted what I wrote. Not one word was aimed at justifying any sort of double standard which allows shaming one group to benefit another.

Yes, some people have eaten themselves to death. Bulemics and anorexics are at the top of that list, the very people who have been starving/purging in order to meet society's standards of attractiveness which for at least the last fifty years has translated to "thin." Naturally thin people who have killed themselves trying to add curves to their bodies are far, far rarer. I've never personally heard of one (though that doesn't necessarily mean they don't exist) but I have heard of and know of people who died of self-starvation or complications of the same, which includes too rapid re-feeding.

in a lot of cases nowadays while it is politically incorrect to make comments about a person's weight to their face if they are "too fat," many people still think it's okay to make the same sorts of comments if the person is "too thin," as evidenced by this thread for example.

That is absolute nonsense. People who think it is okay to make mean-spirited personal remarks are not generally concerned about political correctness. Theirs is equal opportunity unkindness.

This thread has been concerned throughout with the effects of artificial thinness that leads a woman to eat non-food material in order to stave off the hunger of starvation that she is enduring because her job and/or self-esteem depends on meeting the expectations of a society that equates "thin" with "beauty."

 

[Amulya]

The Victoria secret models don't look underweight to me (the cat walk models in the other picture do though) but more like people that might have that as natural body type. However they are very likely photoshopped and in reality very different. It's a minority type and maybe they might still be growing (those models are probably still teens) Though if you look at athletes, they tend to have these body types, like runners for example.

(Sorry if I am repeating something already said, I still can't read the top posts)

 

[Ariadne]

I hope a few of them are still growing. I think it's rather telling though when models try to look like that considering that most women only do when they are still growing, usually in their teens as you mention. I think most of them are more fit then growing though. The problem is many people cannot look like that unless they work out for 2+ hours every day (and sometimes not even then) which is completely unnecessary to be perfectly healthy and just slightly obsessive unless your job depends on it such as athletes. I know that in the case of modeling they are usually discouraged from working out though because it will put on mass and then they will be considered to big... which is all kinds of wrong.

Speaking of jobs though my sister had an interesting thought last night. She pointed out that the stereotype of the thin ideal beauty came along with Hollywood but back then people who worked in Hollywood for the most part did it for the love of the art and not because it paid well, ie. the starving artists. Most of them weren't thin because they wanted to look that way but because they couldn't afford enough food to be anything else.

I don't think it should be the ideal, especially since women who look like that are a minority. However it should be presented as a possibility, not an anomaly we should look down on as you implied it should, in a few of your posts prior to this one.

If they are in the minority then it IS an anomaly and should not be the standard. Nor did I say it should be looked down on only that we should have sympathy for those who have trouble maintaining a healthy weight. I implied that society tends to look down on those who don't fit it's standard and that IF by some miracle that standard changed to a more average weight it would probably do so and I would still consider that preferable (not right, preferable) because it wouldn't KILL people.

I am posting here to point out the flaws and hypocrisy in your reasoning.

They are only flaws if you assume that I approve of every other unhealthy weight except excessive underweight and I, nor anyone else, ever said we do. If you want to discuss the issues of those who are morbidly obese as well and what health problems they have to deal with go right ahead. It wasn't the subject that began the thread but it is still pertinent and on subject.

We agree on all above counts.

That at least I am glad to hear.

 

[Yame]

Clearly you do when you go off on rants about people putting up pictures of it and how they don't really care about people.

I am ranting about the comparisons you've made and derogatory words that were used by a few people on the thread. I've made my position about the ad itself very clear on my posts, multiple times, even before you decided to begin misrepresenting it, as well as after in order to clarify myself. But if you insist on continuing to do so, go on. It's easier to argue a strawman than understand the complexity of a person's views on any given topic, so I'm going to stop repeating myself.

 

[Amulya]

Maybe we should get back to the original topic which had more to do with body image related to belly dance costumes

 

[Ariadne]

I've made my position about the ad itself very clear on my posts...

You're right, I went back and re-read post #42 and you did state approval of the ad, my apologies. I was in the middle of writing a response when you posted it and I must have read the first two sentences of the next to last paragraph and confused it with a previous post made by someone else. You are very clear in the remainder of the paragraph that you feel the ad is a good thing. I will cut that part of my response to you out as you didn't deserve it.

 

[Munniko]

Back to talking about tissues, I feel that even if I could stomach the idea of eating tissues soaked in orange juice I wouldn't lose weight. My body is very peculiar about how things are done and seems to think building muscle mass before losing body fat is the way to go.

I will say that since changing to a more professional job vs being a barista I can tell that my butt has never hurt more than sitting all day. TTnTT it doesn't help that I was doing isolation/drum solo practice the night before.

So tissue eating is an agreed crazy diet. What are the general opions on the 8 hour diet. It sounds good in theory, but than if you think about putting it into practice it starts getting a little wishy-washy (the only reason I bring it up is my friend wanted to lose weight/gain muscle and said she wanted to try this diet.)

 

[Shanazel]

I've never heard of an eight hour diet.

 

[Darshiva]

I'm actually thinking of giving this one a crack. It has some interesting health benefits in that it purportedly decreases your risk of cancer, and given my grandmother had a masectomy, I'm considering giving it a go.

I am, of course, waiting for my brother-in-law to give it a go before I try it because we have similar metabolism & fat distribution (in so far as we can) and I am concerned about the effect of the fast days on my dancing, but I'm interested.

 

[Farasha Hanem]

[video=youtube;XpaOjMXyJGk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk[/video]
Real Beauty Sketches - Dove

I found the video interesting and I think somewhat pertinent to the conversation.

Someone please rep Ariadne, I couldn't. What a wonderful post. Thank you for sharing this.

 

[Munniko]

The 8 hour diet is basically you can eat whatever you want within an 8 hour span and then cannot eat for the rest of the day