Heather Bell, a nutritionist at University Health Services, spoke Tuesday in Petteruti Lounge about the importance of accepting one's body as it is and rejecting media images of perfection. The talk, part of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, was titled "Be Comfortable in Your Genes: Your Body Is A Work of Art."
Discussing body image with college students is necessary because it is a widespread preoccupation, Bell said. Obsessive anxiety about body image can lead to eating disorders, compulsive exercise and other physical and psychological conditions. Bell said about 10 students per week make appointments with her to discuss issues related to eating disorders.
She cited a national study that shows 74 percent of undergraduate women and 46 percent of men think "constantly or very frequently" about how others perceive their bodies.
Bell said her suggestions for improving positive body image include separating one's body image from character and "recognition of body diversity." Bell explained that a graph of the population's body weight would look like a bell curve, with most people falling in the middle. "But if you look at media images, all the women at least fall way to the left," Bell said.
She showed slides of a Barbie Doll and a G.I. Joe action figure, explaining that if enlarged to human size, Barbie would be immediately hospitalized due to emaciation and G.I. Joe's bicep would be as thick as his waist. Mattel, Inc. introduced Barbie in 1959, and Bell said media images of the female body have only become more distorted since then.
"Models used to weigh 8 percent less than the average woman. Now, they weigh 23 percent less," Bell said.
Rather than trusting television and magazines to provide realistic and attractive portrayals of the body, Bell recommended turning to art. She showed slides of statues and paintings ranging from the classic to the modern. The artists offered an "alternative reality" to the "extreme" reality of the media, she said.
"She's so curvaceous," Bell said, observing a Rodin painting. "I see hips, a rounded belly. That's something I believe."
Jenny Wyron '09, a Women Peer Counselor in New Pembroke 4, said she planned to take Bell's words of advice back to her unit. Wyron is organizing unit programs in conjunction with the national awareness week because "people don't necessarily have the tools to talk about their body and relationship to food in healthy, constructive ways - they need support."
She said attending lectures like Bell's helped promote her own body image as well.
"I really benefit from having my sense of normalcy recalibrated," Wyron said. As a WPC, she makes herself open to other students who want to talk about this issue, but said she feels "underutilized" because people are too uncomfortable to discuss such personal problems. She said she hoped larger forums would allow students to be more open.
In addition to last night's lecture, Health Education will be hosting "The Great Jeans Giveaway" today and tomorrow in the mailroom from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Students may donate jeans, or any clothes that don't fit them, to Providence-area shelters.
