Week 7: The Fact of the Matter
1127 words by dfoster
This section of statistics and facts that were found while doing research include facts that were originally from many different sources but were compiled together by the creators of the Love Your Body Campaign. The creators are the National Organization for Women (NOW) Foundation which is a campaign of the Women’s Health Project.
All of the following statistics come from the Council on Weight Discrimination, the National Education Association and the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. They show how shallow we as Americans really are when it comes to variations from the ideal woman’s size. They are very disappointing and actually quite shocking. I did not know that things like this existed. You have heard of sexism, racism, discriminating against certain religions but never of size discrimination. The statistics are as followed: people who are larger than “average” encounter discriminatory attitudes and are denied equal opportunity in many areas of their lives. Overweight and obese women have lower incomes ($6,700 a year less) and higher rates of poverty (10 percent higher) than their non-obese peers. Also, studies show that overweight and obese students, especially girls, are less likely than the non-obese to be accepted by the more competitive colleges. This is true even if the girls’ grades, standardized test scores, and other variables are the same as for other boys and girls. This already gives them one strike in the tally book of getting ahead. Overweight people are less likely to attend college even though they score high on standardized tests and are academically motivated. Also, overweight women are more likely than other men or women to pay their way through college. If they make it to college, these overweight students are more likely to be refused letters of recommendation from faculty members. When they graduate, these people are not hired as often as those of average size, are not promoted as often, are paid less than their thinner counterparts, may be charged more for employee insurance coverage, and are sometimes fired because of their weight.
The following statistics were found on the Social Issues Research Centre’s website. These statistics talk about the advertising world and its affect on young women and their body image. The numbers are startling. It shows what kind of an effect negative advertising can have on the mind of young girls in our society. They are as followed: more than 80% of 4th grade girls have been on a fad diet. This is ridiculous seeing that fourth graders are only about 8 or 9. What does a fourth grader really know about a diet or losing weight? They should be playing outside but instead they are worrying if they look fat. The sad thing is that they are trying in vain because “the body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by less than 5% of females.” All these girls want to be models not knowing that “the average weight of a model is 23% lower than that of an average woman; 20 years ago, the differential was only 8%.”According to the Social Issues Research Centre, ads on TV and in magazines tend to souse the most idealized images of women—research has shown that exposure to these ads negatively impacts body image.
This is a finding from Barbara Cohen Ph.D. in “The Psychology of Ideal Body Image as an Oppressive Force in the Lives of Women.” This was written in 1984. It shows how diet companies and get thin quick schemes are really a big scam. According to Barbara Cohen, 95% of diets fail.
This statistic comes from HealthAtoZ.com. If Americans were not so worried about being the “ideal” person that the media advertises, we would not waste as much money as this statistic says we do, especially when it is most likely to fail. Each year the U.S. spends over $33 billion on weight-reduction programs, diet foods and beverages. That is money that could be going to the poor not to companies that make you invest your money knowing that you will probably fail at it.
The next set of statistics comes off of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s student wellness page sponsored by Wardenburg Health Center. I found some very startling facts. I know that being overweight is bad in this day age due to things like heart disease and diabetes but according to the student wellness page Two out of five women and one out of five men would trade three to five years of their life to achieve their weight goals. These people would actually shorten their lives just to be a little thinner. I think that the images that the media is putting into our minds as desirable are getting extremely out of hand. Don’t let women judge themselves in the mirror because a study found that women overestimate the size of their hips by 16% and their waists by 25%, yet the same women were able to correctly estimate the width of a box. It is like when it comes to your body, your eyes automatically add ten pounds who needs a camera. According to the University of Colorado after viewing images of female fashion models, seven out of ten women felt more depressed and angry than prior to viewing the images. The “ideal” woman - portrayed by models, Miss America, Barbie dolls, and screen actresses - is 5’5, weighs 100 pounds and wears a size 5.I haven’t worn a size five since I was in middle school so how can a grown woman be that thin. It used to be that these girls cared about something but now, young girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer, or losing their parents. This is really getting out of hand. One out of three women and one out of four men are on a diet at any given time. Two thirds of dieters regain the weight within one year and virtually all regain it within five years. It is like you loose the weight then you become complacent and go back to the bad habits that got you the weight in the first place. Actually, thirty five percent of occasional dieters progress into pathological dieting. This is probably why the diet industry (diet foods, diet programs, diet drugs, etc.) takes in over $40 billion each year and continues to grow. About thirty percent of women chose an ideal body shape that is twenty percent underweight and an additional forty four percent chose an ideal body shape that is ten percent underweight. In reality, the average U.S. woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds whereas the average U.S. model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds.