Fixing the teen image 'thin is in' fixation

Fixing the teen image 'thin is in' fixation

Karen De Jong Zumaeta, Contributor, Bogor, West Java

Open any teen magazine or tune into a primetime TV show and your eyes are assailed by myriad images of cigarette-slim models. These images overwhelm today's young women.

I know, because as a 16-year-old teenager still in high school, I am one of the "victims".

It's no secret girls in their teen years spend a lot of their waking time -- and no doubt a lot of their sleeping time -- thinking about the "dream" body shape. Friends, boys and parents also add to the pressure exerted by the media. Teen girls know that looking like singer Britney Spears, actor Lucy Liu or model Naomi Campbell will ensure them more than a little attention from male and female friends alike.

According to Dr. Mansoer, a psychologist with the University of Indonesia (UI), young women are not only seeking peer attention, but also trying to find self-esteem and battle with insecurity.

"The mass media creates an ideal body image for teenagers in early adolescence. In Indonesia the media is aware of the significant changes that teenagers are going through (so) they will send messages that girls should be tall, slim, white and have straight black hair. This will make the girl more conscious about themselves and feel that everybody is paying attention to them," Dr. Mansoer says.

Tito Budi Dwinanto, a student from UI, shares a similar view.

"Teenagers are still seeking the kind of person they will grow up to be. They do it by mimicking their favorite singer or actress because they are cool and famous."

The pressure to be slim, cool and a perfect "10" naturally brings with it a pressure to count every calorie consumed.

Thirteen-year-old Jessica Bisset from the International School of Bogor says she is all too aware of the constant pressure to conform to other people's ideas of being beautiful and thin.

"I have to admit it has on many occasions crossed my mind how easy it would be to stick my fingers down my throat after my dinner. But I am proud to admit that I've never given into the temptation, however strong it may have been," Bisset said.

Maybe that's the problem with today's society? We're all looking for the quick and easy solution. But us teenagers often need help in understanding and resisting the pressures and messages bombarding us everywhere we go.

Who isn't tired of walking into a supermarket and seeing all those labels promoting fat-free, low-calorie, super tasting, thin-making, cream-laden dairy products? The messages we teens receive are confusing to say the least.

But girls are not the only ones who go through this pressure. Boys, too, feel the burden. When it comes to boys and the need to be thin, they will often approach weight loss in a different way -- they are more likely to exercise, often to excess.

According to Dr. Heather Gardiner, a psychiatrist at the Gartnavel Royal Hospital in Glasgow, "Boys, unlike girls, have three body images to consider: fat, thin and muscular".

"We are 'body dissatisfied' culture," Gardiner wrote on her website. "Go to your nearest health food shop and you'll be confronted by shelves of Olympian Fat Metaboliser, Body Fortress, Super Male Plex and other supplements with equally macho-sounding names."

It is easy to blame our friends, TV and magazines. And it's just as easy for our parents to blame all those super-glossy celebrities.

But perhaps us teenagers need to look at the role we play before blaming others. Perhaps we should be asking just how realistic those TV and magazine images really are. We need only compare TV's unvarying images of slim femmes wearing sparkling white smiles with the classroom reality of assorted and often healthy body shapes to answer that question.

Young women are also affected by parents who themselves are constantly dieting and fussing about their weight, shape and color. Without realizing it, they are sending a message to their kids that appearance is important.

Certainly parents should encourage children to lead a healthy lifestyle. But the danger is in encouraging them for the wrong reasons. For example, how often are we told not to eat candy because it will make us fat, not because it will damage our teeth?

No one can deny the pressure to conform exerts itself in everything we do and everywhere we go. But ultimately it us teenagers who have to deal with them. A photograph in a magazine doesn't have to create feelings of unattractiveness or an unhealthy obsession with dieting. It's our choice.

At the end of the day -- or the end of the MTV rock video -- our emotions about ourselves and our sense of self-worth must come from within. Not from a magazine cover, a bikini-clad model or an advertisement for the latest eyeliner.

If young people want to love and accept their bodies as they are, it is up to them. But in today's world of rock goddesses and waif-like supermodels, maybe a hand in how to deal with and resist these images would help.

The writer is a student at The International School of Bogor in Bogor, West Java.