By Christina Burke
Features Editor
“Why can’t I look like that?”
This question is often posed by teenagers who define themselves based on society’s expectations of perfect body image. Though perfection can never be clearly defined, everyone has an idea, and the concern of being accepted is never ending.
Teenage students judge each other without second thoughts, and it is difficult to ignore what other people say. For this reason, students attempt various methods to maintain a certain body image.
“A lot of girls are trying to be skinny because they see the attention celebrities and models get because they have good bodies,” junior Caroline Overman said. “The image people see in the mirror is what the level of their self esteem is determined by. When teens look in the mirror and search for their flaws, they over exaggerate and over analyze the little ‘imperfections’, tearing themselves down.”
As students continually idealize the bodies they see on the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and Miss America Pageant, imperfections stick out like sore thumbs on their own bodies. The compulsive need to make themselves look like that can drive them towards lifestyle changes.
“I work out everyday,” Overman said. “I make it a commitment to myself to aim toward a healthy lifestyle. It shouldn’t be about being in some kind of competition to look a certain way; it should just about being healthy and fit with good eating habits.”
Pressures to achieve a certain body image can develop destructive actions in anybody. Some of these pressures even come from school activities.
For high school sports teams, weigh-ins used to be a customary and sometimes they still are at the college level. Today, students are still challenged to quickly gain or lose weight for sports like wrestling.
“[In the past], if a girl didn’t maintain the weight she had when she first made the team then she would be put on probation,” Lariettes drill team director Julie Stralow said. “Certainly girls developing eating disorders was the number one reason why directors stopped doing it [in the 1990s]. In my opinion, I don’t think it matters what size a dancer is are as long as she works hard and can do the dances with proper technique.”
It is extremely dangerous to tell someone they have to achieve a certain weight or appearance to be good enough for something because they will go to extremes to make sure it is achieved.
“I don’t advocate trying to meet some sort of unrealistic standard,” Coppell yoga teacher Lucinda Bordonaro said. “It is better to take in to consideration your own lifestyle, and focus on your own needs to be on being fit rather than trying to fit in a cookie cutter mold.”
Working out and eating right are good habits to develop for students who crave a better body. However, these things are easy to give up on, especially at a young age. Students think it is easier to turn towards other alternatives like dieting and cleansing to get quick results that make them feel better faster.
“Diets for most people don’t work at all because they are short term, but when that time period is over the weight comes back,” Bordonaro said. “I understand [the students’] desire to be healthier, but diet alone doesn’t usually get the results that you want.”
Striving for a healthier lifestyle is so much more than a quick change. It cannot just be about cutting calories or exercising more, but about how the two methods work together for the benefit of each person.
“It all comes back to reexamining your relationship with your body and not trying to be like other people, but trying to be your best self,” Bordonaro said. “Part of that is finding an exercise regimen that fits you that you can make part of your lifestyle.”
While it is always good to strive for better health, there is no need to get defeated by not being able to reach “perfection.” Good body image can be achieved by feeling great, not looking like an unrealistic image.
