Body Politics: Political Environments and Their Impact on Body Image
In the past year my social media feeds have been overflowing with countless ads for some new weight loss pill, Ozempic, or exercise and diet fads.
These trends are not just in my own social media feeds; instead, they extend to a wider network in the news and within celebrity culture. The last year has seen a resurgence in prioritizing thinness in beauty trends and petite body sizes. Beyond the obvious reasons why it is problematic for a specific body type to be “trending,” these patterns signify something more insidious.
It’s not a coincidence that this major signal shift in beauty trends is happening during a moment in our country’s history where we are being faced with threats to our education departments and democracy.
Swiss bioethicist Samia Hurst succinctly described the issue in saying, “[the] obsession with thin women is not an obsession with beauty. It is an obsession with obedience…”
The idolization of thinness as a beauty standard is not about beauty itself, though it is often purported to be. The prioritization of thinness in our current culture is about controlling and subjugating women so they are submissive to authoritarian politics and unable to fight back or assert their opinions.
This is not to say that being naturally skinny is a bad thing; but when beauty standards prioritize fasting and taking diet pills that suppress hunger so that you can skip meals to lose weight, it signals a terrifying idea that appearance and “beauty” is more important than physical health.
The next time you see an ad for a new diet pill that suppresses appetite, or advice on how to count your calories in a day, don’t take the information that is being fed to you at complete face value. Always question what is being shown to you in the media. Where is this coming from, what does it mean, and what subliminal messaging might it be trying to encourage within me?
