Good Girls Don't Get Fat
Hear Dr. Robyn at the conference! WeAreGirls.org GOOD GIRLS DON’T GET FAT Child-development expert Dr. Robyn Silverman discusses how mothers and the media can have a profound impact on adolescent girls’ body image.
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Story by: Rachel Merriman Every mother hopes when her daughter looks in the mirror, she sees a confident, beautiful woman staring back at her. All too often, it seems young girls are looking in the mirror and only finding flaws. “There’s a sentiment that the more perfect you are, the more valuable you are; the more you weigh, the less you’re worth,” says Dr. Robyn Silverman, child-development expert and author of Good Girls Don’t Get Fat: How Weight Obsession Is Messing Up Our Girls and How We Can Help Them Thrive Despite It, the continuation of her groundbreaking research on body image at Tufts University. Silverman specializes in adolescent girls, who are especially at risk for low self-esteem, largely because of the barrage of daily messages from the media that depict the “perfect” body. A study published by the American Psychological Association found 70 percent of women feel depressed after spending just three minutes looking at a fashion magazine. It’s no wonder looking at these magazines causes many young girls to feel like their bodies are inadequate. According to the National Association of
Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, only 5 percent of girls naturally possess the coveted rail-thin body type so often depicted in fashion spreads and advertisements. In her workshops, Silverman helps young girls understand just how impossible it is to attain the beauty standards set forth in magazines by teaching media literacy. It’s likely many girls don’t realize that every single photograph published in the magazines they flip through is digitally altered in some way. Photo-editing software is used to trim excess fat from a model’s thighs and waist, pronounce cheekbones, enlarge eyes and even erase blemishes and birthmarks. The trouble is, we never see or think about the process that creates the seemingly perfect people we see in those photos. “A sixth-grade girl raised her hand in one of my presentations and said, ‘So what you’re telling me is the girl on the cover doesn’t even look like the girl on the cover?’ And I said, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you,’ ” Silverman remembers. To illustrate the drastic changes that occur during the editing process and to reinforce the idea that magazines present an unrealistic depiction of women’s bodies, Silverman shows the girls two versions of the same photo: One is the original; the other has been digitally altered. They’re compared side by side for maximum effect. For many of the girls, it’s their first opportunity to see the comparison between what is real and what, frankly, isn’t—and they’re completely shocked. “They are horrified. They’re yelling, ‘They just cut off her arms!