Am I Thin Enough Yet?: The Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity PDF
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Page iii Am I Thin Enough Yet? The Cult of Thinness and the Commercialization of Identity Sharlene HesseBiber Page iv Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Dehli Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1996 by Oxford University Press, Inc. First published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 1996 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1997 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data HesseBiber, Sharlene Janice. Am I thin enough yet?: the cult of thinness and the commercialization of identity / Sharlene HesseBiber. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0195082419 ISBN 0195117913 (Pbk.) 1. Body image. 2. Leanness—Psychological aspects. 3. Eating disorders—Social aspects. 4. Women—Psychology. I. Title. BF697.5.B63H47 1996 306.4—dc20 9511812 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 Printed in the United States of America Page v To my strongwilled daughters, Sarah Alexandra Biber and Julia Ariel Biber and in memory of two pioneering women, Carol Biber, Ph.D., and Marie Feltin, M.D. Page vii Acknowledgments Many in the Boston College community contributed generously to this project. My thanks go first to the students of Boston College who shared their thoughts and opinions with me in replying to the questionnaire and intensive interviews. My appreciation also goes to the faculty and staff of the Sociology Department. I would like to especially thank Dr. Jeanne Guillemin, Dr. David Karp, Dr. William Gamson, and Dr.Ritchie Lowry for reading the entire manuscript and offering insightful feedback. Brenda Pepe, Roberta Negrin, and Eunice Doherty worked hard to ensure high quality transcriptions of the interview data and provided much humor and encouragement along the way. I want to thank the Office of Research Administration of Boston College for providing research grants to support this project. Kate Kruschwitz worked very hard, and successfully, to make my academic writing more accessible to a wider audience. She offered much advice and editorial assistance and was extremely supportive throughout the writing of this book. Special thanks go to several graduate research assistants. In particular, James VelaMcConnell, for his insightful coding of the intensive interviews as well as providing invaluable feedback on book chapters. Thanks also to Amanda UdisKessler who compiled research statistics and organized some notes on the food, diet, and self help industries. Julie Manga compiled a range of research statistics and notes on the fitness industry and assisted with reference materials. Along the way, many others supported and assisted in this project and I am particularly grateful to Margaret Marino, John Downey, Alan ClaytonMatthews, James Meehan, Kelly Joyce, Steve Vedder, The Writer's Group, Barbara Deck and the Mother's Group of Newton, Erica Hiersteiner, Maybelle Rowntree, Lorraine Heilbrunn, Bob Ford, and Anne Tropeano. I want to thank Gioia Stevens, social science editor at Oxford University Press, for her enthusiastic support as well as acknowledge the hardworking efforts of the editorial staff at Oxford University Press. I am grateful to my daughters Sarah Alexandra and Julia Ariel for their Page viii patience, humor, love, kindness, and enthusiastic support for combining my work and family life. I want to thank their friends, especially the "BB& N carpool gang" for the many hours of discussion on "being a teenager." I want to also express my appreciation to the group of preteens from Brookine, Massachusetts, who haven't ''hit the wall" and who openly and proudly shared their thoughts and advice on coming of age in the 1990s. Thanks also go to my mother, Helene Stockert, and stepfather, Harry Stockert, for their care, support, and great cooking. I want to express my sincere appreciation to my husband, Michael, for "hanging in there" while I spent many hours on this project. His support, love, and understanding were crucial during all phases. Page ix Contents Introduction 3 1 7 A Cult Grows in America 2 17 Men and Women: Mind and Body 3 31 There's No Business Like the Body Business: Food, Dieting, and Recovery 4 44 There's No Business Like the Body Business: Fitness and Cosmetic Surgery 5 58 Becoming a Certain Body 6 69 Joining the Cult of Thinness 7 80 From Disorderly Eating to Eating Disorder: The Cultural Context of Anorexia and Bulimia 8 96 New Recruits for the Cult of Thinness: Young Girls, Men, and Ethnic Women 9 113 Breaking Free from the Cult of Thinness Notes 129 References 165 Index 183 Page 3 Introduction Several years ago, the director of the Counseling Center at Boston College asked me to help find out why the Center was overwhelmed with female students reporting eating problems. The situation had been getting worse over the past few years. Numerous cases of bulimia (compulsive binge eating, often followed by selfinduced vomiting) and anorexia (obsession with food, starvation dieting, and severe weight loss) appeared every week. As the author of a previous study on female student career and lifestyle aspirations, a teacher of women's studies, and a faculty advisor, I was fascinated by the fact that eating disorders were much more common among women. 1 I wanted to understand why such problems had recently exploded. Although bulimia and anorexia are individual diagnoses, one can assume that broader factors are at work when the incidence of a disorder suddenly increases.2 Was something going on in our society to foster such behavior? Over the next several months I began researching the field of eating disorders. But the problem didn't strike home until one of the sophomores I was advising came into my office in tears. Janet broke into sobs and said to me, "I don't know what I am going to do. I'm too fat for the cheerleading squad. " Janet was fairly tall (5' 8") with a medium build. She weighed 125 pounds. She told me that when she showed up for the coed cheerleading tryouts, there had been a public weighing at the gym. All female applicants had to line up and get weighed, and, if they were over the 115pound limit, they were rejected without a chance to demonstrate their skills. Janet had been starving herself for days, hoping to make the weight cut, but had failed. A policy like this sends a clear message—there is an "ideal" body image a woman must conform to if she wants to become a cheerleader. Society expects to find petite women on a college cheerleading squad, "girls" whom male cheerleaders can tumble and lift in cheerleading routines. The cultural message is the same for other popular collegiate groups such as sororities and high status cliques: a thin woman is a "valued" woman. Compare Janet with her contemporary, Doug Flutie, Boston College's Page 4 Heisman trophywinning football hero. He too fought a cultural belief—that football requires big men. Flutie is only 5' 9" and well below the weight of the typical quarterback. However, through skill and agility, he shattered the stereotype of the tall, rangy quarterback. Cheerleading does not offer a similar opportunity to women. It was possible for Doug Flutie to become a Little Big Man, but not for Janet to become a Big Little Woman. It is no wonder that American women are obsessed with thinness. They are exhorted to strive for a physical ideal that is laden with moral judgment. Slenderness represents restraint, moderation, and selfcontrol—the virtues of our Puritan heritage. But our culture considers obesity "bad" and ugly. Fat represents moral failure, the inability to delay gratification, poor impulse control, greed, and selfindulgence. The slim figure has also come to represent health as well as beauty. It is promoted in advertisements for the multimilliondollar beauty industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the food industry. Bookstores are full of advice on losing weight, flattening the stomach, getting rid of cellulite, or dressing to look more slender. Ten years ago, there were 300 diet books in print; 3 today, there are countless more. Some of the bestsellers include Dr. Robert Haas' Eat to Win (over two million copies in print), Harvey and Marilyn Diamond's Fit for Life (three million in print), and William Dufty's Sugar Blues (over one million in print). Since the 1960s, the ideal body type for women has become steadily slimmer and less curvaceous than in the 1950s, which had idolized Marilyn Monroe's bosomy beauty. In the 1970s, visitors to Madame Tussaud's London wax museum rated Twiggy as the "most beautiful woman in the world."4 Playboy centerfolds and Miss America contestants have become more and more slender between 1958 and 1988, and the actual Miss America winners are thinnest of all.5 Fueling this trend are largescale market interests that exploit women's insecurities about their looks. American food, weight loss, and cosmetic industries thrive on the purchases made to obtain the unobtainable goal of physical perfection. The slim and flawless cover girl is an icon created by capitalism for the sake of profit. Millions of women pay it homage. But why are women especially vulnerable to eating disorders? Influenced by patriarchal institutions, from the conventional family to schools and the media, girls as young as seven and eight learn that the rewards of our society go to those who conform, not simply on the level of overt behavior, but on the level of biology. If you want to be valued, as a potential spouse, as a coworker, as a friend, then get thin.6 To understand this disturbing social phenomenon, I initiated a survey of 395 students (282 females and 113 males) concerning their eating habits, Page 5 diets, and their attitudes toward self, family, friends, and school. I included interviews in the health care and fitness industries. I also conducted an indepth study of 60 collegeage women over an eightyear period. I spent an average of three hours interviewing each one, and was able to talk with many of them again during the course of their college careers. I followed a few of these women through graduate school and beyond. (Names and events have been altered to protect each person's anonymity.) Their stories constitute a critical part of this book. Throughout, I chose to use the dramatic metaphor The Cult of Thinness because the basic behavior associated with culthood—ritualistic performance and obsession with a goal or ideal—is also characteristic of many modern women. 7 I hope to convey the intense, daytoday involvement that the pursuit of thinness demands. The body rituals women practice, and the extent to which they sacrifice their bodies and minds to this goal, seem to create a separate reality for its followers. An extensive interview with Anna, a woman who had actually been a member of a religious cult, helped me to see the many parallels (Chapter 1). In the course of investigating this cult we'll examine why women place such a high premium on their bodies (Chapter 2). We'll see how body perceptions differ among men and women, and how weight has become a primary definer of women's worth and identity. Historically, women have always gone to great lengths to transform themselves to meet the changing cultural requirements of femininity. I trace the mind/body dualism in Western cultural thought, which casts women in the role of the body, and men in the role of in the mind. I show how dominant social and economic interests, sometimes characterized as "patriarchal" and "capitalist," shape this dualism. The essence of the term "patriarchy" is literally "rule of the father."8 In the context of modern times and for the purposes of this study, patriarchy can be defined as a "system of interrelated social structures, and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women.''9 In this study I will examine the various manifestations of patriarchy as they have evolved within and between social and economic institutions. We will find that one major manifestation of patriarchy is the primary image of women as good wives and mothers and objects of decorative worth. I define the basic nature of capitalism as a political/economic system based on the principle of a competitive, free market economy. These interests have made big business out of women's preoccupation with their bodies. Aided by advertising and mass media, the Cult of Thinness generates enormous profits for the food, diet, and health industries (Chapters 3 and 4). For me, the most personally upsetting research data comes from the case studies of real women. Judged either by outward appearances, or by the
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