Am I Normal Episode 2 - Body Image

My friend Amy put me onto a program on ABC2 Tuesday night looking into where issues with body image begin from a psychological perspective. Can I just say it was one of the most confronting and in some ways even disturbing, things I have seen in a long time. Everyone MUST watch this episode it is still available on iView through the ABC website, and is incredibly insightful viewing.

To give you a cliffnotes:

Psychological studies that the program addressed, revealed that girls as young as 5-6 years old had made a connection between weight and friendship. They seemed to think that the thinner you were, the more friends you have, and that fat people were less likely to have any friends. These are prep and year 1 age girls. They also would rather look like Barbie when they grow up, than the doll presented modelled off the average size of UK women.

Anorexia is being seen in younger and younger girls AND boys, with some near-death cases being found in girls as young as 11 years old. 

THESE ARE CHILDREN. CHILDREN! 21st century kids are being taught that to be bigger than a size 0 is to be lonely, ugly, something to be ashamed of, and worth risking death to avoid.

Most size 0 models have been found to be around 20% underweight, so not only are our future generations aspiring to unhealthy psychological perceptions of beauty, they are also aspiring to unhealthy physical goals.

The program also touches on sufferers of Body Dysmorphic Disorder, a serious and debilitating condition whereby the sufferer is never happy with their appearance, and may even fear to leave the house because they don't feel attractive or worthy enough. Another issue addressed is the lengths women will go to under the knife, even as far as to completely remodel their genitals using laser surgery.

There is also a lighter side to the program, where they look at people who don't have what would seem to be the 'normal' view on beauty and body image, and the conversation with New York City's bearded lady Jennifer Miller ends the program on a lighter note, and puts things in perspective for us all. 

This is must watch television and will be on ABC's iView for only 12 more days so please take an hour to watch it, I promise you will not regret it!

To end all those horrid statistics on a lighter note, I stole this from a friend's facebook, I hope you all love it: