by Laurie Jackson

Created on: February 18, 2007   Last Updated: April 17, 2007

Puberty for girls should come with a warning: "Do not watch TV or read magazines until you finish college". While teens develop body image issues, nearly all females continue to perpetuate issues with their bodies and general appearance throughout their lives. (Men are almost magically immune to negative body image, but more on that later). Lets assume everyone knows that models in the media are abnormally thin and exceptionally attractive. They are approximately 10 to 20 lbs. under "ideal" weight, and have no body fat at all. But lets face it, they look terrific and we look, well, awful. We look too something, or several somethings-too fat, too homely, too short, too flat chested, too drab, too old, or too light or dark complected. It doesn't help when the boys bark at us, call us hags, or snort like piggies when we walk by. This reinforces our suspicions that something is definitely wrong with our appearance. The next session at the mirror confirms it-we are homely, fat, and our hair is all wrong. So the war with our bodies begins somewhere around puberty, when those first snarky remarks hit home.

But being females, we are undaunted. We are the arrangers of disarray, the fixers of messes and problems, and by golly we accommodate others, so we set about "fixing" our flaws. The magazine says "you need to look like this". So we dutifully set about doing so. The number one problem to tackle is usually weight. We all look fat next to Naomi Campbell. So we go on a diet, either taking firm control of our weight at an early age, or giving up and giving in. Those girls that can't or won't figure out weight control, that don't diet and exercise and prefer to eat and watch TV, become the big fat girls. Others obsess on the diet so much they become anorexic. Some take a shortcut and do the bulimic scarf and barf. It's a fine line between anorexia and successful weight control when you're shooting for "model" thin, and there are many casualties. There are also many great looking, slim, teenage girls that are ridiculously attractive, and may not even know it.
That pesky body image. It haunts us. Clothes don't fit us correctly unless we are very slim. It is an unavoidable fact that body bulges make clothes ill fitting. Bigger sizes don't solve the problems of riding up, "pooches", gaps, and rumpling. Pants and shorts ride up between the too-big thighs. Shirts ride up the torso, the rolls acting like a conveyor belt, and the fat girl has to pull that blouse down frequently.

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