You’re valued only for your skin and bones. You’re treated as a hanger for the clothes. And who are you showcasing those clothes to? People judging you with sole regard for your external appearance–how your skin hangs on your bones, how your clothes hang on your skin. Entirely apathetic toward your inner core, toward what you value, they see only the body that lies immediately before their eyes.
While Lauren Woodard, ’16, president of the Upper School and co-foundress and co-leader of the body-confidence-promoting SCG group Food for Thought, “respect[s] that models have a difficult job and in no way want[s] to diminish the work that they do,” she “think[s] the industry as a whole is very detrimental to girls’ self-esteem, because [it] promotes such an unrealistic body type.”
Elle Ondeck, ’17, who discussed body-image at last year’s TEDx Talk, comments that the industry “supports a culture that idolizes one specific body type, race, and height. For example, the vast majority of models who walk [in] fashion week […] are over 5’8”, white, and very thin–which is not to say that representation of this body type isn’t relevant or shouldn’t be represented, but there needs to be more diversity […] Clothing and fashion are for everyone.”
At an isolated orphanage in rural South Africa that Kelly Grunewald, ’16, visits every year, “the directors were [recently] complaining about all the middle and high schoolers going through a phase [in which] they buy magazines and compare themselves to the models. It’s created some really [unhealthy] self-esteem issues.”
Even Cara Delevinge describes the modelling industry as “horrible” because of its pressures. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Delevinge details the industry’s sexual harassment, recalling hypersexualized poses she was required to perform as a teen. Now, Delevinge has relinquished her strikingly impressive modelling portfolio in pursuit of acting, which she discovered after her role in John Green’s Paper Towns to be less degrading than the catwalk. Delevinge comments that “modelling made [her] feel hollow after a while,” as it “didn’t [allow her to] grow at all as a human being.”
Delevinge has opened up about the toll her involvement in the modelling industry has taken on both her physical and mental health. She describes it as “a mental thing as well because if you hate yourself, and your body, and the way you look, it just gets worse and worse.” And it truly is sad that Delevinge, as well as other women not involved in the modeling industry, are vulnerable to an unremitting cycle of derogatory self-consciousness.
Woodard’s SCG, Food for Thought, which she co-founded with Nastasja Wilson, ’16, aims to boost body-confidence within the Stone Ridge community. It educates its members about eating disorders and hosts discussions about media literacy, the modelling industry, body-image in general, and how we as women may combat these issues and their pressures.
Woodard notes that although men do struggle with self-image as well, the struggle overwhelmingly affects women. Therefore, Food for Thought deservedly calls attention to an issue that pervades the lives of many female teens within an all-girls academic institution. Ondeck believes that especially in a community of all girls, “it’s really important to feel empowered [and] capable [and] to not worry about questioning the validity of your story […] Too often, our perception of what your body is supposed to look like prohibits [girls] from feeling confident or capable enough to do things they really can do.”
Stone Ridge isn’t necessarily comparable to the confidence-bashing school atmospheres featured in the popular films of our childhoods, including Mean Girls and The Clique. Instead, students here struggle with body-image in a more insidious way.
Says Woodard, “At Stone Ridge, our tendency is not to criticize other people. I’ve never heard […] anyone comment on anyone else’s body. But what we do struggle with is commenting on ourselves. We partake in what’s called ‘fat talk,’ which is making disparaging comments about your own body or your own food intake.” Stone Ridge girls might instead make derogatory comments about themselves, which “they think is permissible, when really it just negatively contributes a sense of body-dissatisfaction to the entire community,” says Woodard.
The crusade against unhealthy self-image has amplified over the years because of recent backlash against the media and the modelling industry for maintaining such ideas. When asked why the media perpetuates unrealistic, unhealthy body images, Woodard responds, “I think that companies actually profit off of people feeling bad about themselves.” She explores this notion by saying, “If you’re [reading] a magazine, and you see someone in an advertisement who you think looks better than you, and they have a certain product, you might feel compelled to buy that product [in order to] feel better about yourself. It intentionally messes with you psychologically.”
Ondeck believes that in order to combat this issue, the community “must end fat talk.” She explains that “complimenting one person is very different [than] saying something nice about someone in order to degrade yourself. You can compliment others without feeling the need to make yourself seem lesser or inferior.” Ultimately, “we are all equals–all capable women here to learn.”
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