There have been two reports about body image, which has become a major issue in the United Kingdom, where there seems to be two extremes: those who are obese/extremely overweight and those who are anorexic.
One report was titled ‘Reflections on Body Image’ by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image and Central YMCA (May 2012). The report found that the extent of the problem included the following:
· 60% of adults reported that they felt ashamed of the way they looked.
· 70% of adult women and 40% of adult men reported that they had felt pressure from television and magazines to have a perfect body.
· 34% of adolescent boys and 49% of girls have been on a diet to change their body shape or to lose weight.
· It is estimated that approximately two-thirds suffer from negative body image.
· 42% of girls and young women felt that the most negative part about being a female is the pressure to look attractive.
· One third of men would sacrifice a year of their life to achieve their ideal body.
The report that there was an increasing degree of evidence that dissatisfaction with body shape, resulting in damaging consequences for both health and wellbeing for society as a whole. It is not limited to any one sector of society, although children and adolescents were the most susceptible.
In this age group, body image dissatisfaction led to the undermining of self-confidence, increasing depression, and the onset of a range of physical, emotional and societal problems. They were least likely to engage in learning and participate in school activities, with half of all bulling being experienced by those pupils with poor body image. Conversely, positive body image was conducive to good public health and social environments for the young people.
The false sense of body image has been contributed to by the media which criticises body weight, size or appearance. This approach has been added to by a lack of body diversity and over-reliance on image manipulation.
One outcome has been the increase in cosmetic surgery by 20 per cent since 2008. It has been stated that this acceleration has been fuelled by the images projected by advertisement.
Other behaviours in addition to dieting and obesity that contributed to sacrificing health for appearance included steroid abuse, smoking to stop work gain or becoming exercise dependant which results in side-effects such as muscular-skeletal injury or fatigue.
The evidence was also substantiated by the report ‘Sexualisation of Young People’ by Linda Papadopoulos (February 2010). She wrote that children and young people are continually being exposed to an unprecedented range of media content, as there is a noticeable increase in suggestive material across the multiple television channels and the internet. The situation has become ‘normalised’ with the downgrading of the watershed (i.e. the 9 p.m. barrier that used to symbolise the protection of young people from adult material).
Dr Papadopoulos has commented that: ‘Over the past three decades there has been a dramatic increase in the use of sexualised imagery in advertising. While most of the imagery features women, there has been an increase in the number of sexualised images of children. Sexualised ideals of young, thin, beauty lead to ideals of bodily perfection that are difficult to attain, even for the models, which perpetrates the industry practice of ‘airbrushing’ photographs. These images can lead people to believe in a reality that does not exist, which can have a particularly detrimental effect on adolescents.’ (pp. 7 – 8)
She then gives the example of how adult clothing is now miniaturised so that it becomes acceptable for children to wear such items.
With such false images of how we should look, the charity BEAT estimates that 1.6 million people in the UK have an eating disorder, with 1.4 million of them being female. As the result of the inevitable anorexia, the number of young women having breast implants has increased.
This situation is completely against what God wants for us. We are reminded in the early chapters of Genesis that in all creation, which includes man and woman, God created all that is good. There is the reminder that God does not make rubbish.
He delights in us as we are reminded that ‘I will praise you [i.e. God] because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.’ (Psalm 139: 14)
We can rejoice that God wants us to be pleased with the body He has made us, although we are to treat it with respect and dignity.
I would recommend ‘A New Name – Grace and healing for anorexia’ by Emma Scrivener (Inter Varsity Press, 2012, ISBN 9781844747818)
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