Dear Glamour Editors,

I am writing to bring to your attention an issue in which you are certainly not alone. In your July issue, you included a short piece titled, “Stop the Wrinklexia!,” yielding to a disturbing trend of “exia”-ing issues with which individuals struggle.

In this particular piece, you were highlighting the recent uptick in anti-aging injections, which you suggested indicated a unhealthy focus on the status of our skin. You defined “wrinklexia” as “obsessing over the the fine lines of aging before you’re actually aging.”

As a body image advocate and a woman, I truly appreciate the inclusion of articles like this one in your magazine. As I have mentioned several times on my blog, I believe that magazines such as yours have incredible, and often untapped, power to foster positive change in the way that individuals perceive their beauty and sense of themselves. Bringing to light issues of the unnecessary increase in cosmetic procedures is one such way of doing this, and for that I applaud you.

As an eating disorder specialist, however, I am disappointed to see your magazine sharing in the disheartening trend of labeling obsessions and dangerous practices with the suffix “exia.” Your article comes on the heels of the recently dubbed “drunkorexia,” which reportedly refers to the trend of self-imposed starvation combined with alcohol abuse. “Pregorexia” is another distressing example, and refers to to preoccupation with controlling one’s weight while pregnant.

These terms obviously garner their meaning from their parent word, anorexia, which refers to the psychiatric and medical disorder, anorexia nervosa. (Though commonly misused, “orexia” derives from a Greek word which means “appetite.”) While using this clever wordplay might draw the attention of readers and even speak to the level of distress caused by these practices, what is also does is diminish the significance of this very real psychiatric diagnosis.

Eating disorders, including anorexia, affect over eleven million individuals in the United States alone, and can be absolutely devastating to individuals and their loved ones. In fact, eating disorders kills more individuals each year than all other mental illnesses. These brain-based diseases can wreck havoc on the minds and bodies of those suffering with them, and yet unfortunately they continue be regarded with less seriousness than other illnesses, as shown by the lack of equal treatment and insurance coverage.

When popular media trivializes eating disorders by labeling recent trends with the same terminology, individuals with eating disorders suffer. We have a large body of evidence suggesting that words are powerful in shaping beliefs and values, and so is the media. Terms such as “manorexia” or “wrinklexia” serve to desensitize us to the seriousness of the very real illnesses from which these labels derive. Simply stated, eating disorders deserve to be regarded with the utmost gravity.

Thus, while I commend your attention to issues of body image and unhealthy practices, I encourage you to reconsider the language in which you frame these issues. By doing so, you will be speaking out for the unnamed and countless number of women who read your magazine and suffer from anorexia.

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With kind regards,

Ashley Solomon, Psy.D

Today I’m sharing my first real VLOG in a new series in which I respond to reader questions. I thought it was appropriate to start with one of the questions that I get most often: Does the media cause eating disorders? Check out my thoughts and don’t forget to share you own in the comments below!

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Do you have a burning question you would like answered on NTS? Email me confidentially at nourishingthesoulblog@gmail.com and I might answer it on the blog. Just as a reminder, the opinions expressed on this site do not constitute advice to or treatment of any individual. If you are in crisis or in need of assistance with a serious mental health issue, please be sure to contact a health professional in your area.

Ever pick up the latest issue of Vogue and feel just a little bit, well… underdressed? Or read Shape and noticed your self-esteem dropping in direct correlation with the number miles you did not run today? Ever peruse Good Housekeeping and wonder just how other women seem to have time to clean their gutters, plan a dinner party for twelve, teach a yoga class, negotiate a raise at work, and make mad, passionate love to their husbands, all before getting in bed promptly at ten o’clock? Yeah, me too.

As a bit of an experiment, I took a peek at some of the latest issues of the most popular women’s magazines, just to find out exactly how I should be spending my time. With circulations nearing seven million, one would imagine that the information therein would be of the absolute highest quality, right? What better source to determine just how to plan my day! Here’s a rundown of what’s on my magazine-inspired agenda:

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I would start my morning by working to make my eyes as big, bright, and sexy as possible. I’ll need to devote at least twenty minutes to follow the recommended routine applying moisturizer, high-end eye cream, brightening shadow, special liner, and $65 mascara on my Latisse-enhanced lashes. No one likes small, dull, unsexy eyes, right? Psssh……

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I’d then move on to finding the perfect jeans for my bum while I apply the rest of my make-up for flawless skin. If I started to experienced any body anxiety about living up to these unattainable ideals, I’d just use some of the techniques I learned in… oh, wow… the same magazine. Now how can that be….

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After heading to my totally fabulous 9-5er, checking emails and sipping my non-fat latte, I’d start wondering if perhaps I shouldn’t do something more meaningful with my life, like returning to school to free my brother from prison. I start googling online LSAT prep courses…

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After work I’d head to the gym to take off what I packed on and develop some flat, sexy, abs! Just because I lost weight while eating out at lunch doesn’t mean my abs are going to be toned enough to make good sex great. All that core work will definitely pay off in the bedroom later…

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After my intense workout, I’m starvinnnng and so whip up shortcut dinner of portabella mushroom stroganoff. I used to think frozen pizza was sufficient, but now that I’m supposed to eat organic, vegan, raw, clean, and 100% taste-free, I’ve had to make some changes.

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Once the dishes are washed, I can reflect on my long day of primping, working, exercising, and meal planning. And I realize I’m totally in the mood for bad girl sex, of course. Who cares if I’m more Natalie Portman than Kim Kardashian?

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But before I corner my partner, I start wondering, “how many men is too many?” Struck by the perpetual female conundrum – to be a prude or a whore – I start tallying… And anxiety ensues. Maybe I’ll hold off on the midnight romp for another night. Instead, I’ll just read about the latest diet that, while reportedly dangerous, really works. I mean, they say it does on the cover, right?

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Okay, so I hope that we can all have a little chuckle. I don’t hate these magazines, nor do I think that they don’t often have super helpful tips (e.g. saving on grocery bills), important health news (Glamour got me to finally make SPF a priority), and inspiring stories (some of these cover girls are rock stars! – in the coolest sense of the word).

But it’s all too easy for the tips and advice to make us feel like we can’t measure up. Maybe you just can’t afford that $400 handbag or don’t have time for a daily yoga lesson. Hey, It’s OK! It doesn’t mean you’re not totally amazing.

If magazines are getting you down, it may be time to cut them up and, say, make a beautiful vision board. Decide to be your own cover girl and decide on all the headlines you’d want on the magazine of your life. [FYI: You’ll see no mention of flat abs or long lashes on mine!].

How would you want your headlines to read?

Could seeing images of individuals with larger frames be bad for our health? The answer is yes, according to University of Bologna researchers, Davide Dragone and Luca Savorelli.

In a recently published paper, “Thinness and Obesity: A Model of Food Consumption, Health Concerns, and Social Pressure,” the study’s authors claim that societal attempts to increase the ideal body weight could be harmful rather than helpful.

Drs. Dragone and Savorelli focus on the governmental interventions in Europe – Spain, Italy, and Germany, in particular – to increase the culturally defined ideal body weight through regulations on modeling. Recent bills and policies throughout the world have sought to address the prevalence of very thin models on the catwalks. The goal of these initiatives is to counter the damage done by portraying unrealistic and unhealthy images in the media.

But now these researchers are telling us that such policies serve to hurt us. They claim that if we are surrounded by images of people who look heavier, it “induces people to become more overweight,” and thus impairs their health. They warn that this trend will only worsen the “obesity epidemic.”

Interestingly, the authors do make the argument that increasing the ideal body size would be good for our pocketbooks and mental health. They recognize that our “welfare” would be improved if we could avoid the negative feelings associated with feeling the ideal is out of reach, and that discrimination might decrease as well.

The authors remark, “Since the healthy weight and ideal weight do not usually coincide, [people] have to trade off the health and social consequences of their food intake.”

Well how’s that for an awful choice to have to make?

Fortunately, we don’t have to buy into the idea that we really have to make that decision between our social health and our physical health.

For one, there isn’t the one-to-one ratio of physical health to weight that the popular media would sometimes have us believe. In fact, it is possible to be healthy at many different sizes and shapes, and it’s our own internal bias that prevents us from considering that a larger person could be healthier than a smaller one. Studies indicated that most health indicators, such as blood pressure and insulin sensitivity, can be improved through changing health behaviors, even if we don’t lose weight.

In addition, if we believe that seeing images of larger people breeds over-eating and resultant poor health, than perhaps we need to focus on the triggers for our eating. It would be naive to say that our eating habits aren’t impacted by social cues, but if a plus-size Vogue cover girl is going to impact my waistline, then I need to be thinking about whether I’m eating based on my body’s needs and my hunger and fullness cues. If we are truly eating based on the signals of our body, with the occasional influence of a night out with friends, then our bodies should stay at or around a weight that is healthy for us. That weight not be the “ideal” as defined by society, but it will be healthy.

This study is concerning less due of what it actually says and more due to the way that it is already being interpreted and disseminated in the media. My own fear is that hearing that images of larger women will make someone fat, without understanding the intricacies – and fallacies – of the article will serve only to reinforce the weight-bias that the authors lament in their paper.

What are your thoughts? What impact do you think seeing images of larger people in the media would have on your health and welfare?

{Image Credit :: Pocket Rocket Fashion}