Am I Thin Enough Yet?

Am I thin enough yet? The Cult of Thinness and the commercialization of Identity by Sharlene Hesse-Biber

This book is a real eye opener and a great start into my research. Through testimonies of a multitude of American women, taken over a series of years by Hesse-Barber, we begin to see this direct link between beauty standards and eating disorders [may henceforth referred to as EDs] within Western Culture. Every woman she took a testimony from, experienced issues surrounding eating pertaining to behaviour often associated with Eating disorders.

Ideas on beauty become moral judgements, rather than biological reactions to something we find attractive. Slenderness suddenly is linked to ethical terms like 'restraint, moderation, self-control', all terms that are worshipped in the Abrahamic faiths. Whereas Obesity is given more unfavourable descriptors, such as 'moral failure, an inability to delay gratification, poor impulse control, greed and self-indulgence'. What I personally find interesting is that obesity is directly linked to one of the Cardinal sins, specifically greed and gluttony from Christianity. This wording heavily implies it is immoral to be of a larger size with the assumption that you made yourself this way through overeating and overindulging. It feels like a very specific way to victim blame, in the sense of someone who isn't conforming to socially accepting body ideals is open to ridicule and insinuations on their lifestyle.

"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 behaviour but on a level of biology. If you want to be valued as a potential spouse, as a co-worker, as a friend, then get thin."

Beauty standards are pervasive from such a young age. They not something we can easily escape, they're in movies, books, magazines, social media, advertisements on the side of the road, you can't look anywhere without being forced to confront your own failings of not looking like this ideal woman.

Throughout the book, Hesse- Biber refers to beauty standards through the metaphor of 'The Cult of Thinness'. She goes on to explain how behaviour around Beauty standards mimics behaviour found within cult members. The metaphor is clearly outlined. Firstly, membership is pertained simply by just being a woman, it's the only criteria for membership. The object of worship is the female form- a specific ideal of it, the perfect body if you will. Primary rituals include dieting and exercising to an obsessive amount, to monitor one's weight and 'progress'. In terms of icons to be worshipped, you can find a multitude of those scrolling through Instagram or flipping through a magazine. The advertising industry takes advantage of women's insecurities and provides them with ideals to look up to and worship. Especially within America, where beauty pageants are still a frequent occurrence, society is able to 'affirm the ideal'. In terms of guides and gurus, the cult of thinness also has plenty of those from all different fields. When looking at specific diets, you have celebrity endorsed ones, ones written by doctors with PHD's and specialities in dieting, even psychiatrists have taken a stab at creating a diet to help you stay thin.

Quite frankly it appears as if we've made a society that's completely obsessed with dieting with little to no care of the effects it has on both the body and the mind.

"Thin is scared. Thin is beautiful and healthy; thin will make you happy. If you are female, thin will get you a husband. Salvation awaits those who attain the idea body. Fat is profane. To be fat is to be ugly, weak, and slovenly; to have lost control, be lazy, and have no ambition. Achieving the proper weight is not just a personal responsibility, it is a moral obligation. Those who indulge in gluttony and sloth do not want to be among the 'saved'."

This quote from page 11 spoke to me again as being highly religious. You can easily see why Hesse-Biber chose the religious cult as a metaphor because religious jargon is being prescribe to physical attributes. In the olden days 'fat' was a direct correlation to wealthy as it meant simply you could afford to eat. Today its linked to being 'unworthy'. Another term that very similarly mimics the word 'salvation'. Implying that one needs to be saved from being a bigger size. For me, a plus size woman, having no ambition doesn't relate at all to the size of your waist, I certainly have plenty of ambition and I would be classed as obese.

As my work for this year is exploring the link between beauty standards and EDs, I think this book does an excellent job of showing this. Through women talking about their own experiences with the cult of thinness, we get more of a personal insight into the damage we as a society, are creating in young girls, by perpetuating standards like this. We create generations of insecure women, struggling to comprehend their own value, focusing more on their appeal and placing academic achievement as secondary in value to being thin. Not only are we creating women like this, we are creating men that are enforcing these unrealistic expectations, placing value on a fantasy of women over real and deserving women. All round it creates unhappy people regardless of gender identity as we are all fighting this fake image of what we should want/want to be. We see actions like dieting as completely normal behaviour, even in women that aren't clinically overweight, instead of recognising that dieting when you're already at a healthy weight could lead to you becoming unhealthy, sickly and underweight. We even congratulate people on losing weight like it is some big achievement. It would be nice to say that there are no rewards for being thin however realistically, we have created a culture in which thin women hold more value.

This book reminds me of the term 'pretty privilege'. This may be the next thing I explore. But this book also shows that you can benefit from 'pretty privilege' yet still suffer mentally and even physically when meeting those standards.

How was the Book Received?

Just like with my post on beauty sick, I decided to head over to Goodreads to see how the public received the book. Honestly, I found it wasn't received as well as Beauty sick was. While posts did acknowledge that the book was well researched and written well, a lot of the readers felt as if they had not learned all that much from reading it. They felt the knowledge the author parted with within the pages was pretty obvious. I cannot work out if I find that a sad fact: that the cult of thinness is so prevalent in today's society, that it is just accepted as the norm, that it so obviously exists in the forefront of everyone's minds. I found a mix of reviews, some just quoting sections with two stars and some essay style writings with just three stars. The overall average of the rating of the book within the platform was four stars and so I have come to the conclusion that it has in fact been rather well received. Quiet a few reviews are more recent and so it makes me wonder if the reason that people are finding it as repetitive information, is that it is because this is no longer a new topic of conversation; with Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth being published six years before this and with such a great success under it's belt, it seems that people may just interpret the cult of thinness as a regurgitation of Wolf's work with added testimonies, rather than a book in it's own right.

I also went to the Waterstone's website to see how it was received academically, while I acknowledge that their need to boost sales provides a biased review of the books, I still found that there was value in the way the book is talked about. Hesse-Biber is praised for making the politics around the female body personal, as it should be really, and is applauded for her advocation of social activism. Within this section, I also found reviews from people who have doctorates in relation to Eating Disorders; who applaud Hesse- Biber in her weaving together of different contexts that effect the quest to thinness, including historical, psychological and sociological.

Blog word count: 1399

Reference:

• Hesse-Biber, S. (1996). Am I Thin Enough Yet?. Oxford University Press Inc.