Independent medical expert answers
on psychiatry and psychology

Is a Slim Woman More Popular?

Written by: Gunborg Palme, certified psychologist and certified psychotherapist, teacher and tutor in psychotherapy.
First version: 22 Jul 2008. Latest version: 05 Aug 2008.

Abstract:

Do false ideals of beauty lie behind most eating disorders? Is a slim woman more popular and beautiful?

Question:

Do false ideals of beauty lie behind most eating disorders? Is a slim woman more popular and beautiful?

Answer:

A contributory cause of eating disorders is the prevailing slim beauty ideal. Models are getting slimmer every year. The stars of half a century ago were much rounder. Today's models have abnormally slim figures and in order to achieve these they are compelled to go around insufficiently nourished.

Many women feel that they should have figures like the models and, as a result, an increasing number are getting eating disorders. Compulsive eating and anorexia nervosa often begin with attempts to slim. Foods containing relatively large amounts of fat and sugar are widely advertised and marketed. Those who eat a lot of such food can easily put on weight.

A person who is initially healthy and normal can get problems by following the ideals which are spread by the mass media. Self-imposed slimming causes many weight problems and eating disorders. Many of those who have normal figures imagine that they are overweight and start slimming even though it is harmful to them.

In ancient China, the feet of very young girls were bandaged to prevent them from having large feet and as a result they became invalids who could neither walk normally nor live a normal life. All this in order to satisfy an unreasonable ideal of beauty.

We see something like this with these models who injure themselves by not taking sufficient nutrition in order to get and retain their figures. Ask yourself what kind of person you feel most at ease with? Is it a person with a perfect figure or one who is easy-going and puts life before the demands of perfection?

We find it necessary to write this because we have no wish whatever to aid you into torturing yourself to achieve an abnormally slim figure. We want to help you to eat properly and get a normal rounded figure. Women are a little rounder than men. Female hormones don't function properly if less than a quarter of the body's weight consists of subcutaneous fat.

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