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can't be fat,must be thin

Research shows that many young people are seriously troubled by body image problems.Will the phenomenon cripple a generation's ability to mature and lead productive, satisfying lives?

By JULIESZEGO

ALOVE your body sister," criedfeminists in the 1970s, andthis week a Hollywood starlet,famous for her near flawlessand nubile form, echoed the

suicide. It is the latest in a pile of reportsand statistics that suggest poor body imageamong the young is a worsening problemwith serious, long-term implications.Hospital admissions for eating disorderssuch as anorexia are increasing, and moreminors are begging to go under the knife toright what they perceive as nature's wrongs.

While governments around the countryare scrambling for solutions, some expertsnow wonder whether public health cam-paigns tackling obesity might be partly toblame. "I think that's the question thatmany people have," says Professor SusanSawyer, a pediatrician who directs theCentre for Adolescent Health at Melbourne'sRoyal Children's Hospital. "What are theramifications on young people of all thisfocus on being overweight? I think it'simportant to recognise that adolescents areparticularly vulnerable to messages aboutperfect bodies."

None of this is news to Iva Bujanovic.When the 15-year-old hits the beach thissummer, she will be wearing a baggy T-shirtover her bathers - not to protect her skinfrom the sun but to hide her curves fromthe world. For Bujanovic, who attends aCatholic school in one of Melbourne's well-heeled suburbs, unhappiness about herbody dates back to early childhood. Othersteased her for being overweight, and oneparticularly unpleasant episode at a doctor'ssurgery left a bitter taste. "I had to get an

sentiment. Jennifer Love Hewitt, star of thefilm I Know What You Did Last Summer,lashed out after photos of her in a bikini,revealing the faintest ripple of cellulite, wereridiculed on the internet. "We know whatyou ate last summer, Love - everything!"blokes gloated online.

The 28-year-old Hewitt retaliated on herwebsite. "I'm not upset for me, but for allthe girls out there that are struggling withtheir body image ... To all girls with butts,boobs, hips and a waist: put on a bikini ...and stay strong!" The episode does revealsomething of how vicious and voyeuristicthe quest for the body beautiful hasbecome. An entire generation seems to befretting about body shape, apparently unableto filter out the taut backsides, six-pack bel-lies and gravity-defying breasts thatdominate popular culture. Today's young,and not-so-young, are in the grip of a per-petual tug-of-war between their actualbodies and a fantasy ideal.

The extent of the problem was illumi-nated this week with the release of a bigsurvey showing that people aged between11 and 24 ranked body image their numberone concern, trumping family conflict,stress, school, the environment and youth

0Jennifer Love Hewitt hits back at body critics

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injection and because I hated needles mymother gave me lollipop afterwards tosoothe me. The doctor looked at me andsaid, 'err, I think you need to cut down onthose'. I was really quite distraught."

Bujanovic has tried many times since to"cut down", although the encounter with thedoctor deterred her from seeking medicaladvice about how much she should weigh."For as long as I can remember I've beengoing on diets that last for a week, exerciseprograms that last a week, and then whenthey end, I say 'you know what, I don't care,why should I worry about what other peoplemight think' - that kind of thing. But itnever lasts: I want to be skinnier, I feel over-weight. You go to a clothing store andnothing looks good, and when you go outyou just don't feel good about yourself."

But it is not only females who could usea pep talk on self-love. One of two surpris-ing findings to emerge from this week'sMission Australia survey of 28,000 was thatmales also ranked body image as their big-gest concern. The Mission's nationalmanager of research, Anne Hampshire,points a finger at the recent appearance of"the ultra-thin, buffed, very physiqued,metrosexual" in popular culture. The other,perhaps more troubling, finding was thatnegative body image plagued people wellinto their 20s. "You would have thought itmight be the kind of issue you 'grow out of',so to speak," Hampshire says.

Growing up, like growing out, isn't a sim-ple matter any more. About 40 years ago,most people in their 20s would have beenexperiencing a transition to work, marriageor parenthood. Now people are having sexearlier, starting work later and staying on theso-called market for longer. In these circum-stances, an attractive body becomes a handyasset and vehicle for self-expression. And ifan individual spends 15 to 20 years preoccu-pied with body image, the habit tends topersist throughout their lives.

These are the kind of theories that psy-chiatrist George Patton, also of the Centre forAdolescent Health, tosses about as a preludeto a bigger, more critical question: "To whatextent does an over-investment in bodyimage hinder an individual from moving intoa role that's more satisfying, like a relation-ship that's not dependent on physicalattraction alone, a job, being a parent?"

Patton says that research carried out atthe centre, and soon-to-be-published in theBritish Journal of Psychiatry, has found thatpeople with significant body image problemsand eating disorders continue to experienceemotional problems in adulthood. "It's not a

simple cause and effect, but it does suggestthis kind of chaotic life has its downside interms of an ability to make transitions."

It is a scary prospect: a society so crip-pled by naval gazing that it never quitematures - and never fully enjoys a child-hood free of the tyranny of the mirror either.Writer Melinda Tankard-Reist put the case atits most alarming at a recent forum withMelbourne Anglican Archbishop PhillipFreier. Girls were being robbed of their child-hood, bombarded with a "pornified"culture, she told a gathering at FederationSquare.

"There are now gossip magazines for fiveand six-year-olds, telling them how to lookhot and catch a boy. There are pole dancingclasses for children in Sydney ... Pricelinehas a range of make-up for kids, includingHugh Heffner's 'Tie Me to The Bedpost' lipgloss. Girls should be told this is sleazy oldgrandpa lip gloss."

One expert suggests inoculating youngchildren against the toxic messages aboutbody image by educating them well inadvance about Mother Nature's plans.

Associate professor Jenny O'Dea, a Syd-ney University dietician, thinks girls inparticular should be taught about pubertyand body image from the age of nine. 'Afterpubertal development the girls try to gettheir pre-adolescent shape back," O'Deasays. "We have to teach them there's nogoing back, that women naturally store bodyfat and that's what makes them curvaceous,sexy and normal. Currently we're tellingthem this in years 7 and 8, which for manygirls is already far too late."

Her recent survey of nearly 9000 childrenaged between six and 18 found girls asyoung as 12 resorting to fasting and vomitingin a bid to shed puppy fat. Nearly 20% ofgirls aged between 16 and 19 reported hav-ing fasted for two days or more - roughlydouble the figure that emerged in a compar-able study a decade earlier.

Why the increase in extreme dieting andother behaviours? O'Dea suggests it might be"partly linked to all this talk about the evilsof obesity". She is not alone in this view.

Professor Sawyer, the pediatrician,declines to comment on specific programsbut warns "we should at least be cognisantthat any health initiative trying to get peopleto a healthy weight might cause it (poorbody image)". Stressing the importance ofexercise might be a better focus because itcan have many positive effects, and carriesless risk of unintended negative ones.

Trinh Ha, who has completed a doctorate

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at the University of Western Sydney on teen-age anorexia, agrees. She says a lot of girlswho develop the disorder start by trying toeat healthily and then take matters toextremes. "They'll say, 'it started when I cutout chocolate, when I cut out meat' - thatsort of thing."

Even well-intentioned programs to boostyoung people's self-esteem can have unpre-dictable outcomes, Trinh says. "Schools areemphasising positive self-esteem, and havinga positive body image is one part of this. Sothere is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing: if youdon't have a positive body image, you don'thave positive self-esteem."

It sounds like the ultimate paradox: themore we're urged to love ourselves, the morewe search for reasons not to.

Meanwhile, the Victorian Government isfunding a $2.1 million, four-year positivebody image project and bureaucrats say theresults are heartening. Youth Affairs MinisterJames Merlino has spread the feel-good-about-yourself message to secondary schoolsin the Yarra Ranges and Antonine SistersTrinity College in Brunswick. At the latter, healerted girls to the trickery of digitallymanipulated media images, which makepeople appear slimmer and smoother thanthey really are.

The Government is developing a volun-tary code of media conduct that aims forgreater transparency when it comes toairbrushing photographs and other doctoringtechniques.

This provokes a chuckle from Universityof NSW social researcher Professor CatharineLumby, who conducted a three-year study

Julie Szego is an Age writer

LINKSwww.mission.com.auwww.jenniferlovehewittonline.com

into teenage girls and the media. "Well sure,but teenagers know all about doctoring theseimages- they do it themselves on theirwebsites," she says.

Media savvy is not the problem here -teenagers debate the representations of thebody beautiful as much as they consumethem, Lumby says. And teen magazines suchas Dolly debate the problem of unrealisticimagery as much as they fuel it. "It's not aneither/or issue." The bottom line when dis-cussing this issue is that young people canhardly be immune from adults' obsessivezeal for extreme makeovers, botox, tummy-tucks and all the rest. News that children areorganising parties that deny entry to "ugly"people - as one group of Melbourne year 10students did this year - is disturbing. Butthink of it as The Biggest Loser meets Surn-rner Heights High and it is really not all thatsurprising. If parents want to fix their kids,they might need to fix themselves first: butfrom the inside-out. Iva Bujanovic hasalready figured as much, noting: "One of myfriends who's really quite weight conscioushad always seen her parents on diets."

Bujanovic, who nominates music andpolitics as her twin passions, is palpablyexcited about her future. The only creepingdoubt is the thought her body might be ahurdle to true happiness. But then she thinksabout another girl in her peer group. "She'snot big, but not skinny, as in she's gotcurves, but she's always got a boyfriend ...and you think, well, maybe guys don't carethat much what you look like, and maybe it'snot really other people who are holding usback anyway."

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