Bombarded by idealised media images of how they should look

Story Susan Johnson Photography David Kelly
Bombarded by idealised media
images of how they should look,
today’s teenagers are under unprecedented
pressure when it comes to body image.
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has researched and written a number of papers
on children and body image. In a 2009 study
of children aged between eight and 11, she
and her team found that 25 per cent of girls
compared their weight to their peers, while
26 per cent of boys compared their muscles.
By the time these children are teenagers, body
image pressure can seem overwhelming.
Ricciardelli found that worries about body
image can develop at an early age. “Children
regularly compare their height, weight and
muscles with their peers and this is natural,
but on the flip side it can have serious
implications when children are still developing
their self-perceptions and identities,” she says.
The study threw up some interesting
differences between boys and girls: “Girls were
more likely to focus on their peers who they felt
had a better body, particularly on those features
they wish they had or could change, whereas
boys tended to focus on their strengths and
used social comparisons to feel good about
themselves, helping to build their self-esteem.
While comparisons seem to help boys to feel
more positive and confident, girls tend to
show signs of lower self-esteem and feel
more discontent with their figures.”
However, the most recent comprehensive
national survey into young Australians and body
image conducted in 2008 by Mission Australia
found that body image was an issue of concern for
a staggering 22.2 per cent of Australian boys and
young men aged 11-24 years old. And, according
to 2011 statistics by the Victorian Government’s
Better Health Channel website (produced in
association with Eating Disorders Victoria),
about 3 per cent of Australian teenage boys now
use muscle-enhancing drugs such as steroids.
In an article in InPysch, the journal of the
Australian Psychological Society (APS), the
largest professional association for psychologists
in Australia, Steven Gregor noted that while
women and adolescent girls have had to deal with
pressures regarding body image for years,
what is new is “that men and adolescent boys
are now under the exact same pressures”.
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kinny and denuded of body hair
if you are a teenage girl and
“built” and “muscled up” if you
are a teenage boy: welcome to
a world in which children as young
as eight feel anxiety about body
image. If Western society is supposed to be
more “equal” than ever before, then idealised
notions of what a teenage girl should look like
and what a teenage boy should look like tell
a different story. In this tale, all the girls look
like anorexic 12-year-old lingerie models and
all the boys resemble the Incredible Hulk.
Once the province of starving teenage girls,
“body dysmorphia” is the term used when
anorexics look in the mirror and see a fat
girl looking back. Now the term “muscle
dysmorphia” – sometimes also colloquially
known as “bigorexia” – is increasingly used in
relation to the body image issues of teenage
boys. Today, both sexes are feeling the pressure.
Dr Lina Ricciardelli, associate professor in
psychology at Melbourne’s Deakin University,
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He quotes Elaine Hosie, a registered
psychologist and a director of counselling
working with adolescent males, about the
influence and role of the media: “The media
promotes a certain idealised image of what it
means to be a male. In regard to the body
image debate, the media plays a large role in
the idealised notion of what it is to grow from a
child, to an adolescent, to an adult male.”
Hosie and Ricciardelli agree on the
pernicious influence of the media as a major
contributing factor to teenage body image
anxiety. Ricciardelli says that “without
question the media is completely saturated
with images of thin, ‘ideal’ bodies, much more
than ever before. Plus there are mass media of
The ultimate glass
ceiling for girls now
seems to be the
bathroom mirror.
more kinds than ever before; the internet has
thrown up such things as [social media website]
Facebook and online videos and on and on and
on. There are increasingly sophisticated
technologies and marketing strategies now.”
It is not only the multiplication of media but
its increased sophistication that has transformed
the media into such a powerful tool of influence:
where once a photograph was a recorder of images
and the camera did not lie, now a photograph
can cheat and distort and a photograph will
never again be simply a photograph.
“The media is manipulating bodies much
more,” says Ricciardelli. Between dangerously
skinny models, boys with six-packs and
Photoshop, the gap between ordinary fleshand-blood girls and boys and idealised images
of girls and boys has grown wider and wider.
THERE ARE NO STATISTICS ON THE NUMBERS
Teen spirit …
Kiara Cavenagh
and (opposite,
from left) with
Bailey Vowles,
Brooke Erikson,
Zoe Morgan, Zoe
Robberts (also
opening pages).
IF ANXIETY OVER BODY IMAGE SIZE HAS LONG
been recognised as part of the territory for teenage
girls, now a new pressure has been added: being
free of body hair, as if perpetually pre-pubescent.
Once common only to Middle Eastern cultures,
bodybuilding, gay culture and pornography, body
hair removal has permeated mainstream culture,
making its greatest impact on young women.
Fashionista Victoria Beckham’s wish (“I love
Brazilians – they ought to be compulsory at 15,
don’t you think?”) looks as if it may be granted.
Since the late 1990s – when television show
Sex and the City popularised the “Brazilian”, a hair
removal practice that originated with the G-string
bikinis of Rio – waxing or shaving the pubic area
has become increasingly common. One American
study estimated that 20 per cent of American
and Australian women now remove their pubic
hair, the largest group being women under 25.
Exact statistics do not exist in Australia to
quantify the proportion of teenagers denuding
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of young men and boys using private gyms in
Queensland but anecdotal evidence indicates that
the worship of the “built” male body, previously
only seen in gay and bodybuilding cultures, has
made its way into mainstream culture too, and
particularly into teenage male culture. When
popular young amateur Sydney bodybuilder
Aziz Shavershian (known as “Zyzz”) died last
year of a heart attack, probably brought on by
his steroid use, he had 120,000 followers on
Facebook, many of them teenage boys: now his
page (maintained by fans) has 283,266 “likes”.
Dr Peter West, formerly of the University of
Sydney’s Research Group on Men and Families
and author of a landmark paper on boys, men and
body image in 2000, says that in the 12 years since
his study, body dysmorphia has only increased.
“When I was growing up in the ’50s bodybuilders
were regarded as weird; no-one went to the gym,
unless you were doing boxing or something.
Everyone just went to the beach or played cricket
or football. It’s not like that today,” he says.
Of course, for as long as there have been
human bodies, there have been inventive ways
to fashion them: from African and Amazonian
peoples inserting clay plates into their bottom lips,
to Indian women putting jewels into their nostrils.
Fashions come and go, too: in ancient Greek and
Egyptian cultures men regularly removed all
body hair, possibly because the pre-pubescent
and newly pubescent hair-free, androgynous
male body (rather than the female body) was
believed to be the embodiment of beauty.
Dr Ricciardelli of Deakin University’s other
area of expertise is male beauty and body image
throughout history. She argues that the male
body has been evaluated and scrutinised as an
aesthetic ideal since ancient times. What has
changed, however, is that today many boys are
internalising messages promoted by a powerful
media. “[There is a] perceived pressure that
women are expecting men to shape up to the
media images,” she says. Her studies have
found that leanness and youthfulness as well as
a sculpted appearance have become important
standards of male beauty. In pursuit of this
ideal, Ricciardelli’s studies suggest that up to
60 per cent of young adult men in the US and
Australia have removed body hair (below the
neck) at least once.
Ricciardelli is one of an increasing number
of academics and psychologists advocating
preventative work with teenage boys. In the
APS InPysch article, Elaine Hosie argues that
more psychologists, medical practitioners and
teachers need to work together to ensure better
outcomes for teenage boys: “I would say it [body
image dissatisfaction] is not something that’s in
their [adolescent boys’] awareness. The reason
for coming to a counsellor would be about more
concrete issues such as: ‘I’m doing really badly
at school’, or ‘my girlfriend has dropped me’,
or ‘I can’t get a girlfriend’, or ‘I don’t like my
teacher’ – they externalise things; they blame
the world. [But] these are the presenting issues,
which often mask more serious health concerns
such as body image dissatisfaction.”
Ricciardelli believes treatment needs to take
into account “cognitive adjustment of distorted
views about themselves” – just like teenage
girls with anorexia.
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themselves of body hair, but the anecdotal
evidence is telling: at a Brisbane high school
Year 12 formal last year, talk among those who
attended revealed there was only one girl in
the Year 12 class who went to the dance with
body hair. The rest came sans leg hair,
underarm hair and pubic hair.
The recent proliferation of waxing clinics
throughout Queensland, together with the
increase in waxing injuries seen in doctors’
surgeries and hospitals, suggests body hair
removal is undergoing a popularity boom. An
inner-city doctor told Qweekend she had seen
a marked increase in her practice of burns
and infections as a result of hot wax accidents.
In Victoria, the Monash University Accident
Research Centre’s Victorian Injury Surveillance
Unit estimated about 90 people a year were
admitted to hospital with waxing injuries.
One of Queensland’s biggest chains of
waxing salons, Brazilian Beauty, is owned by
Francesca Webster, 39, and her partner Andrew
Bryant, 41. They opened a store in innerBrisbane’s New Farm in 2004 and now have 14
salons throughout Queensland and interstate,
many of them franchised, with an annual
turnover of $10 million. Although it is company
policy not to treat anyone under 18 for Brazilian
waxes, Webster says they sometimes see
mothers bringing in daughters for bikini-line
waxing before swimming carnivals.
Dannielle Miller, a Sydney author and CEO
of Enlighten Education, which specialises in
girls and body image, is not surprised that young
women are now facing yet another pressure
regarding body image. In her work lecturing in
schools, she sees some 20,000 young women
annually and says she is “staggered” by the
overwhelming number of teenage girls unhappy
with their own bodies. “Almost 99 per cent of
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I feel pressure because all
my friends are so skinny
and I’m, like, not skinny.
young girls will say they are overweight, or not
beautiful enough, or that they need to be changed
in some way,” Miller says. “In our desperation
to combat obesity, which may or may not be
valid, there is now such a fear of fat in our
culture that one of the results is girls doubting
their bodies and thinking that their value is
measured in the numbers on the scales.”
Miller says an overwhelming number of
young girls have mothers who are on a perpetual
diet. “Girls see dieting as a rite of passage and
part of what it means to be a young woman in
our culture: to be a female is to be on a diet.
Girls learn very early that they need to take up
less space … the ultimate glass ceiling for girls
seems to be the bathroom mirror.”
According to Miller’s data, seven out of ten
15-year-old girls are on a diet, with 8 per cent
“severely dieting”. She says that 94 per cent
of teenage girls “wish that they were more
beautiful” and 25 per cent say they would like to
change “everything physical” about themselves.
Boys appear to be catching up with girls
in potentially dangerous dieting practices,
including starvation, purging or vomiting: 16 per
cent of girls have engaged in such practices and
7 per cent of boys. “Pressures on young males
are definitely on the increase,” says Miller.
A mother of a 10-year-old son, plus two
daughters aged 17 and 13, Miller says that
“parents are deeply concerned about this stuff”.
She argues that magazines with airbrushed and
photographed images, combined with television
reality programs such as The Biggest Loser, have
created a culture of hysteria about fat. “I’m
not by any means pro-fat; of course not, I’m
pro-health, and if you’ve got a child who isn’t
healthy, then absolutely focus on health as
a priority. But I think it’s an urban myth that
Australia is a country with an obesity problem.
When you speak to health professionals it’s clear
that a definition of obesity depends on the
criteria used to define obesity. The BMI [Body
Mass Index] is actually a very antiquated and
one-dimensional measurement … sometimes it’s
the definition itself that causes the problem.”
Miller argues that the definition of health
should be broader. The narrow focus on body
weight and dieting among adult Australians
is negatively affecting our young people.
“Statistics show that 95 per cent of people on
a formal diet will have regained and added some
extra weight within the next five years. Formal
diets don’t work … it’s a bad example for our
children and we are setting them up for a longterm dysfunctional relationship with food.”
SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT INDOOROOPILLY
Shoppingtown, in Brisbane’s west, is teenage
heaven. The movies, the food court, the
clothes shops: teenagers in large groups or in
pairs come to meet each other or eye each
other off, checking each other out in that
overt, challenging way that only teenagers can.
A group of giggling girls is meeting up: the
girls come here almost every day after school. It’s
free dress at their school, and the first pressure
felt by these girls is the pressure to wear the
right clothes, the “right” brands. Zoe Robberts
(“I’m almost 14”) is in Year 9 and lives at innerwest Bardon: “Yeah, you have to have nice
clothes, like the brands, and there’s pressure
every day on what you wear. You can’t wear the
15/06/2012 04:35:19
same thing twice in a week.” Bella Nielsen,
13, also of Bardon, adds that “when you’re
in primary school no-one judges anyone but
when you’re in high school it’s all about first
impressions. If you don’t look pretty, no-one
will hang out with you or they’ll ignore you
and there’s lots of cyberbullying going on
around … on Facebook, [there are instances
where] people really bully others.”
“I got called ‘fat’ one time on Facebook,”
says Kiara Cavenagh, 13, of Middle Park, and
a bigger girl than her friends. Her dad is tall
and she comes from a family with “big bones”:
“I feel pressure because all my friends are so
skinny and I am, like, not skinny.”
Immediately all her girlfriends rush in with
a chorus of “But you’re so pretty, Kiara!” and
Zoe Morgan, 12, of St Lucia adds: “You’re like
a mini Adele [the British singer]”. It turns out
that Kiara sings too, and superbly (she led
me to some YouTube videos) and has won
a couple of local singing competitions. Which
all means that possibly because Kiara is happy
in other areas, being larger than her girlfriends
is less of an issue: “I can’t be bothered to diet,
even though I feel pressured [to be skinnier].
I like food too much! It tastes too good …”
Bella, on the other hand, feels the pressure
more: “You walk around here and there are
girls who are really pretty and their hair’s just
perfect and, like, every day you see yourself in
the mirror and you’re so used to seeing yourself
you start picking out the little flaws and
everything. You don’t see how pretty you are,
you just see the bad stuff like, my stomach’s
too big, my thighs are too big, and all that … ”
Zoe Morgan feels pressured too: “I’m happy
with the way I look but you can never be, like,
perfect to yourself … sometimes I see a girl
who’s, like, really pretty and really skinny and
I’m like, ‘I don’t like her! She’s so skinny’ … ”
Zoe Robberts says a lot of the pressure comes
from boys: “Everyone’s trying to look pretty for
them, to impress them … guys don’t have to
worry. Boys don’t have to worry about anything.”
But her friend Bailey Vowles, 13, of western
suburban Sherwood, disagrees: “If you’re really
short for a boy you get called ‘cute’ and you
probably wouldn’t want to be cute in Grade 8,
you’d probably want to be hot. Boys want sixpacks.” Bailey concedes, however, that much
of the pressure girls feel comes from the boys
as well as the media: “Personally, I’ve never
dated anyone and I just think the pressure you
have from boys to impress them is just, like,
everywhere.” Friends Ben Stickley, 14, of
northside Wooloowin and James Manteit, 15,
of westside Chapel Hill, sheepishly admit that
boys do indeed notice girls’ figures but appear
nonplussed when asked about pressure. James:
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“Going out with a girl, I’d prefer that she had
a good physique but we’re also friends with
girls who are not, like, the best-looking people,
but they’re just good to talk to.”
Ben: “Yeah, if they were, like, fat and stuff
I’d care but I guess as long as the person’s nice,
and nice to hang out with … ” Both think there
is just as much pressure on boys as girls. James:
“Girls definitely like boys who are muscled.” If
James had more money he would spend it on
clothes but, as it is, he tries to wear tight clothes
to reveal his torso. He regularly works out.
Kean Coghill, 16, of Doolandella, met Aaron
Eastment, 15, of Oxley, also in the outer west,
at the shopping centre last year. The pair of
mates now regularly travels there to meet their
friends and look over the talent. Kean reckons
“girls are mainly interested in looks these
days” and both he and Aaron plan on starting
bodybuilding soon. Aaron: “Yeah, most guys
want to bulk up.”
Kean admits that, like most guys, “I do go
for good-looking girls but they have to be nice
too. But to be honest, the first thing you go for
is good looks.” Of Aboriginal descent, Kean
is sporting a new tattoo in honour of his
grandfather who recently died. He wears
a chain around his neck and a “snapback”,
an American baseball-style hat worn backwards.
He regularly straightens his hair, too, and wears
the “right” brands, but that is about as far as his
fashion-consciousness takes him.
Aaron, of mixed Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander descent, has been wearing braces for two
years (“It hasn’t stopped him getting girls,” says
Kean). Aaron’s fashion routine sometimes extends
to straightening his hair but within minutes it is
curly again so mostly he doesn’t bother.
They can’t talk long, these boys – they’ve got
places to go and girls to meet. So they say goodbye
and walk out into the mini-city of the shopping
mall, the meeting place of thousands of teenage
boys and teenage girls, skinny, plump, bosomy
or muscled, anxious to look hot. n
Peer pressure …
Zoe Robberts and
Brooke Eriksen.
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